Lap of Luxury (1988)
1.Let Go
2.No Mercy
3.The Flame
4.Space
5.Never Had a Lot to Lose
6.Don't Be Cruel
7.Wrong Side of Love
8.All We Need is a Dream
9.Ghost Town
10.All Wound Up
After the bewildering calamity that was The Doctor, Lap of Luxury arrived not so much as a comeback as a carefully orchestrated corporate rescue mission. The year was 1988, and Cheap Trick, battered by a string of underwhelming releases and ever-thinning commercial prospects, were granted one last swing by their label—though not without conditions. Chief among them: surrender a good portion of the songwriting to outsiders. One might call it selling out. Others might say it was survival instinct.
The result is an album that walks a fine line between synthetic polish and strategic reinvention. At the very least, it sounds like a rock record again—a feat in itself considering the sonic excesses of its predecessor. The return of Tom Petersson on bass added a faint nostalgic glimmer of legitimacy, but the core identity of the band had already been retooled by industry hands behind the scenes.
Much ink has been spilled on The Flame, the band’s first and only No. 1 hit. It is a power ballad in the most literal and cynical sense: enormous, overwrought, and clearly manufactured for mass consumption. That it worked so spectacularly is either a testament to Robin Zander’s godlike vocal cords or proof that the public will eat up anything that resembles emotional sincerity, provided it comes wrapped in the right synthetic sheen. Either way, Cheap Trick barely recognize it as their own. And they’re not alone.
Elsewhere, the album is a patchwork of compromises. A cover of Don’t Be Cruel somehow charts—a strange twist given it’s arguably more aligned with the band’s roots than their own chart-topper. Ghost Town, another contribution from external writers, plays like a decent imitation of a Cheap Trick ballad, though its lineage betrays its intent. But the band themselves do manage to peep through the gloss here and there: Never Had a Lot to Lose and All Wound Up bristle with the kind of nervy charm that once defined them, even if these moments feel more like exceptions than rules.
Ultimately, Lap of Luxury is an album buoyed by success more than substance. It worked—not necessarily because it was good, but because it was engineered to work. And in the late '80s, that was enough. The band would never fully outrun the implications of that success, but for a moment, at least, they were back in the spotlight. Whether it was theirs to begin with is another matter entirely.
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