On their debut album, Cheap Trick's masterful pop hooks were cut with a nasty metallic edge that quickly got sanded down on subsequent releases. Rick Nielsen's guitar crackles with a palpable electricity, and the sparse production refuses to add gloss or tidy up in any way. The vocal melodies are Beatlesque in the best sense, made all the more impressive by Robin Zander's uncanny ability to sing like both Lennon and McCartney. There's an adult malevolence at work here that is completely at odds with the harmless cartoon the band became. Forget the power pop bliss they're known for, because on this album Cheap Trick were aiming to rock.