Tuesday, September 18, 2012

I Smile

And rock on when this song is on my radio:


link


Wikipedia has this to say:
Allmusic's Maginnis praises aspects of the song, including its "nice build ups, breakdowns and solos," but does not think that the string interludes work as well in "Gonna Raise Hell" as they did in the title track of the Dream Police album.[3] Maginnis also criticizes the song's length, at over nine minutes.[3] Carlos has explained the length by stating that the song was originally intended to be about five minutes long, but when the band decided to go for a disco interpretation , they improvised an additional five minutes during the recording.[1] According to Carlos, the first take of the improvised music sounded good enough to the band to be left in.[1]
Fellow Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praises "Gonna Raise Hell" as an "epic rocker" that ranks "among Cheap Trick's finest."[8] Rolling Stone Magazine critic Dave Marsh sees the song as a "variation on 'Helter Skelter'" by The Beatles, and believes that the layering of the vocals was inspired by The Beatles' Abbey Road.[9] Mojo Magazine claimed that "Gonna Raise Hell" and "Need Your Love," another song from Dream Police, "proved the Trick could do heavy, freaky rock jams as well as any of their peers."[10] Audio Magazine found the track amusing but complained that Cheap Trick was willing to go so far as to record a disco track in order to be successful.[11] Author Mike Hayes claims that with this song, producer Tom Werman achieved "the definitive Cheap Trick sound," even though the song's style differs from typical Cheap Trick fare.[1]
The song has been popular live at Cheap Trick concerts.[1]
I dunno about all that, I'm just a consumer. My opinion is that this is one of rock's standards right up there with other hell raisin' tunes like Tush by ZZ Top as just one example. I just like to hear it.

2 comments:

drjim said...

Cheap Trick has always been an underrated band, IMO. I was still living in the Chicago area when they first started to get big, and my buddies and I would go see them when we could.

And a few years ago, I heard them do "Sgt Peppers" up at the Hollywood Bowl, and they STILL had it all together, and were wonderful to listen to.

lisa said...

Not my kind of music but I did want to let you know that I am coming over to see your blog and what has been going on, even if I am not commenting!