Sex, America, Cheap Trick (1996)


 


Disc One
  1.Hello There
  2.ELO Kiddies
  3.Hot Love
  4.Oh, Candy
  5.Mandocello
  6.Lovin' Money
  7.I Want You To Want Me (early version)
  8.Southern Girls
  9.So Good To See You
 10.Down On The Bay
 11.Please Mrs. Henry
 12.Violins
 13.Ballad Of T.V. Violence (Live)
 14.You're All Talk (Live)
 15.Fan Club

Disc Two
 16.Surrender
 17.High Roller
 18.On Top Of The World
 19.Auf Weidersehen
 20.I Want You To Want Me (Live)
 21.Clock Strikes Ten (Live)
 22.Dream Police
 23.Way Of The World
 24.Gonna Raise Hell
 25.Voices
 26.Stop This Game
 27.Just Got Back
 28.Baby Loves To Rock
 29.Everything Works If You Let It
 30.World's Greatest Lover (Demo)
 31.Waitin' For The Man

Disc Three
 32.Day Tripper (Live)
 33.World's Greatest Lover
 34.I Need Love
 35.I'm The Man
 36.Born To Raise Hell
 37.Ohm Sweet Ohm
 38.She's Tight
 39.Love's Got A Hold On Me
 40.If You Want My Love (Alternate Version)
 41.Lookin' Out For Number One
 42.Don't Make Our Love A Crime (Demo Version)
 43.All I Really Want
 44.I Can't Take It
 45.Twisted Heart
 46.Invaders Of The Heart
 47.Y.O.Y.O.Y.

Disc Four
 48.Tonight It's You
 49.Cover Girl
 50.This Time Around
 51.A Place In France
 52.Funk #9
 53.Take Me To The Top
 54.Money Is The Route Of All Fun
 55.Fortune Cookie
 56.You Want It
 57.The Flame
 58.Through The Night
 59.Stop That Thief
 60.I Know What I Want (Live)
 61.Had To Make You Mine
 62.I Can't Understand It
 63.Can't Stop Falling Into Love
 64.Come On Christmas

 

With typical industry timing, Epic Records chose to issue a comprehensive box set five years after parting ways with Cheap Trick. The result? A sprawling four-disc retrospective, equally ambitious and uneven—a kind of sonic autobiography of one of rock’s most inconsistently brilliant bands.

As box sets go, this one is standard fare: a generous helping of hits, a surplus of curios, and a smattering of unreleased vault material that veers between revelatory and regrettable. It's not definitive—Don’t Be Cruel is conspicuously absent—but it certainly aims to be exhaustive.

Disc one is a triumph. Drawing primarily from the band’s first two studio albums, it captures Cheap Trick at their most vital: raw, sardonic, and endlessly inventive. Live rarities enhance the atmosphere, showcasing a group still buzzing with ideas and caffeinated energy. But as the chronological narrative rolls onward, particularly through disc two and into the early-to-mid '80s, a dip in quality becomes unavoidable. This wasn’t a period kind to the band creatively or commercially, and the recordings reflect that. Both Born to Raise Hell and I’m the Man exemplify the worst kind of B-side barrel-scraping—uninspired, dated, and baffling in their inclusion.

If disc three suffers from bloat, disc four stages a modest redemption. Drawn from their so-called comeback years, it reveals a group rediscovering their edge, even if the mainstream had largely moved on. Ironically, some of the unreleased tracks from this era rival, and occasionally surpass, what actually made it onto their studio albums—a testament to just how erratic and haphazard the band's recorded legacy had become.

In the end, Sex, America, Cheap Trick is less a tidy summation than a sprawling mosaic: flawed, fascinating, and undeniably human. For the casual listener, it’s overwhelming. For the faithful, it’s indispensable.

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