Retro Video of the Week: "The Flame" by Cheap Trick

Thirty years ago today, Cheap Trick released their tenth studio album, Lap of Luxury.  Succumbing to pressure from their label, the band agreed to let outside songwriters contribute or collaborate on songs.  For better or worse, it spawned a successful album, which went platinum in the U.S. and reached #16 on the Billboard album charts -- the band's most successful album since 1979's Dream Police.  Lap of Luxury included four songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100:  "The Flame" (#1), "Don't Be Cruel" (#4), "Ghost Town" (#33), and "Never Had A Lot To Lose" (#75).

"The Flame" was the band's first #1 song, and the band's first top ten song in the U.S. since the live version of "I Want You To Want Me" hit #7 in 1979.  This was one of the aforementioned songs that was written by outsiders (Bob Mitchell and Nick Graham, to be precise).  Their record label offered up "The Flame" and "Look Away" to Cheap Trick, and the band took the former -- with the latter then becoming a #1 hit for Chicago.  "The Flame" is one of Cheap Trick's biggest and most memorable songs, and it surely quickly made its way into the high school dance theme realm.  I imagine that there are a good number of 29-year-olds in the world that can thank their existence to this song.

For you Chicagoans, Rick Nielsen's five-necked guitar makes a couple appearances in the video.  If you've ever been to Piece Pizza in Wicker Park (my favorite pizza place in town), you may have seen that very same guitar hanging on the wall.  You see, in addition to being the guitarist and primary songwriter in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, Nielsen co-owns Piece. Which reminds me: next time you go there, order a clam and bacon pie with the white sauce. Trust me.