Christmas Christmas, Cheap Trick (Big Machine)

I was definitely excited to hear this was on the 2017 release schedule, but as it came closer to the time to actually hear it, I started to have a bit of trepidation. How good could it be? Given the band's sterling reputation, would it be just good enough? Or, since they now share a label with Taylor Swift, would this be a cynical money grab? Well, I finally got to sit down with it, and it's good, good enough to listen to all the way through (no mean feat in the age of streaming playlists). There aren't a lot of surprises in song selection, especially if you've spent a lot of time on Mistletunes, but that doesn't take away from the fact they performed them really well. Band original "Merry Christmas Darlings" is a barn-burner of an opener, leading directly into a solid, faithful cover of the Roy Wood classic "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day." Their "Run Rudolph Run" is a strong bluesy take with lots of harmonica, and in that vein they slow things down a bit with Charles Brown's "Please Come Home For Christmas." They also grab Julien Casablancas' arrangement of the "Saturday Night Live" trifle "I Wish It Was Christmas Today," leaning hard into the guitars along the way, and they resurrect the Nilsson ballad "Remember (Christmas)." Covers of Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" and the Kinks' "Father Christmas" are almost too good, in that some might miss the slapdash charm of the originals, but these amped-up versions are just fine by me. Similarly, Ramones purists might object to them recasting "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" as a mid-70s hard rock cruncher, but that sound has always been a big part of who Cheap Trick is, and I think there's room for both versions. Rounding out the album are two slow-tempo numbers, "Silent Night" and the original "Our Father of Life," and the title song, recycled from a 1995 fan club single. Completists might carp that previous Trick holiday tunes "Come On Christmas" and "I Want You For Christmas" aren't here, but in the download era that's easily rectified.