The Doctor (Cheap Trick album)
| The Doctor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Cheap Trick | ||||
| Released | November 1986 | |||
| Recorded | 1986 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 39:57 | |||
| Label | Epic | |||
| Producer | Tony Platt | |||
| Cheap Trick chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
| Spokane Chronicle | mixed/unfavorable |
| The Milwaukee Sentinel | mixed |
The Doctor is the ninth studio album by Cheap Trick, released in 1986.
Since Cheap Trick's original bassist Tom Petersson left the group in 1980, the band were pressured by their label Epic Records to produce material that was more commercial, and a string of albums headed in this direction during the decade. This included The Doctor, which was recorded after the band had a comeback with the Top 40 album Standing on the Edge in 1985. With Standing on the Edge, the band had planned on returning to the rough sound of their first album, but producer Jack Douglas backed out of mixing process due to legal issues he was having with Yoko Ono. Mixer Tony Platt was called in, and as a result, the album's production featured keyboards and electronic drums more prominently than the band and Douglas had intended. Despite this the album still featured the expected sound of the band. For the next album, the band settled on using Platt as their producer, and Platt opted for the dominant use of commercial sounding synthesizers. Earlier in the year the band released the song "Mighty Wings" which featured a dominant use of synthesizers, for the Top Gun film soundtrack. The Doctor album followed in November 1986, and initially sold 88,000 copies, peaking at #115 on the U.S. Billboard 200. It lasted a total of nine weeks within the Top 200. A commercial failure, the album also received negative critical reception, and is widely considered the band's worst album. Following this the band would make a commercial comeback with their next studio album Lap of Luxury in 1988, which also featured the return of Petersson on bass, making The Doctor the last Cheap Trick album to feature bassist Jon Brant.
The album's leading American single "It's Only Love" (b/w "Name of the Game"), was released in December 1986 and failed to enter the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. In the Netherlands, "Kiss Me Red" was released as a single (b/w "Name of the Game"), although it also failed to find any success. A promotional only 12" vinyl version of "Kiss Me Red" was also issued in America. "Kiss Me Red" was originally supposed to be the lead single from the album in America, but it was replaced by "It's Only Love". Although "It's Only Love" was a commercial failure, the song's promotional video made history as the first music video to prominently use American Sign Language.
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