The "In Color" sessions feature Cheap Trick's signature power pop and hard rock sound, but with a renewed sense of vigor and spontaneity. The band tackles a range of their classic hits, including "Surrender," "I Want You to Want Me," and "Dream Police," alongside deeper cuts from their catalog.
Cheap Trick's "In Color" sessions with Steve Albini (1998) on CD FLAC is a hidden gem in the world of rock music. This album offers a fresh take on the band's classic sound, with a raw, live-performance-driven energy that's unparalleled in their discography.
Packaging & liner notes
Rick Nielsen’s guitars are thick, biting, and upfront, removing the gloss from the original.
Bun E. Carlos’s drums sound thunderous and immediate, lacking the 70s-era "thinness" of the original mix. cheap trick in color steve albini sessions 1998 cd flac new
Release details
: Produced in Albini's signature dry, impeccably mic'd style, the tracks are more muscular and raw than the power-pop original.
The guitars are more distorted and in the forefront, the rhythm section is looser and more powerful, and Robin Zander's vocals have a more urgent, unadorned quality. It sounds less like a carefully constructed studio album and more like a great Cheap Trick live show, capturing the band's feral intensity that their early studio records often masked.
For decades, Cheap Trick fans have debated the production of their 1977 sophomore album, In Color . While it contains some of the band's most iconic songs ("I Want You to Want Me," "Southern Girls"), many felt the polished, radio-friendly production by Tom Werman muted the raw power the band displayed live. In 1998, the band attempted to rectify this, engaging legendary producer and engineer Steve Albini to re-record the album. While this "new" version wasn't officially released in 1998, the sessions became a holy grail for fans, often circulating in various formats, including CD-Rs and, eventually, high-fidelity FLAC files. The Premise: Raw vs. Polished The "In Color" sessions feature Cheap Trick's signature
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Tom Petersson's pioneering 12-string bass tone can finally be heard in its full, rumbling glory without muddying the mix.
Since there is no official commercial release, fans typically find this material through unofficial bootlegs and digital leaks.
were pushed to their limits, capturing the gritty, bluesy snarl that Werman’s production had smoothed over. This album offers a fresh take on the
Remake In Color: The Unreleased Steve Albini Sessions (2011)
Bonus/Deluxe edition ideas
In 1998, American rock titans Cheap Trick found themselves at a career crossroads. Following a tumultuous period in the early 90s where their commercial success didn't match their artistic ambition, the band was looking to recapture the raw, explosive energy of their classic 1977-1978 era. Their solution? Enlisting the legendary, uncompromising engineer and producer to record sessions for their 1998 album, Cheap Trick (often referred to as the "red album" or the "next album").