1977 Power Pop Classic Was a Total Flop-Then It Became a Top 10 Hit
In some cases, live performances of songs never quite live up to the original, studio-recorded release. But in others, the true power of a song is only fully realized when it's being played live onstage...in front of thousands of screaming fans.
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this particular phenomenon (if not the most famous) is Cheap Trick's signature song, the classic "I Want You to Want Me." Originally released as the first single from Cheap Trick's second album, In Color (1977), the studio version didn't even make the charts.
But when a second take on the song from the band's smash live album Cheap Trick at Budokan was released in 1979, it absolutely exploded, peaking at #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 (and hitting #1 in Japan, where it was recorded). What changed? Well, anybody who's listened to both renditions can tell you immediately: The live version rocks, the studio recording...not so much.
As Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson told Classic Rock years later, guitarist Rick Nielsen drew from pop and disco hits when he was writing "I Want You to Want Me."
"My recollection is that he just did that song as a bit of a joke, because at the time when we had done that song there was a lot of pop music on the radio - ABBA, and all sorts of things, disco," Petersson explained.
"He thought: ‘I'm just going to do an over-the-top pop song. I just want to do one that's so silly - total pop - and then we'll do a heavy version of it,'" he continued. "He didn't know what was going to happen with it. The idea was to have it like a heavy metal pop song. Cheap Trick doing ABBA - except a very heavy version."
Cheap Trick wasn't happy with the original production on 'I Want You to Want Me'
Unfortunately, the studio version of "I Want You to Want Me" "was not produced in the way we would have done it." Petersson said. "And we've never done it since like that anyway - with a little ‘Shakey's Pizza Parlour piano' and twinky little sounds. It was like, ‘Ugh!'."
While the crowd can clearly be heard going wild in the live version of "I Want You to Want Me," Petersson says the song wasn't more popular than any of the others they played during that legendary concert at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo.
"That in particular was no more of a hit than anything else," he recalled. "We had, for some reason, had several hit singles over there, so they were just going bonkers no matter what we did. It wasn't that they were sitting there politely applauding, and then all of a sudden 'I Want You To Want Me' came on and they went wild, they were going wild no matter what."
So it was a "surprise" for Cheap Trick when the song became their biggest hit up to that point, but a welcome one. And decades later, they still aren't tired of playing it live, according to Nielsen.
"We play to a different audience every night, so it's not like you're playing it to somebody who's heard it every night like we have," he said. "It makes people clap, smile and have fun. Gee, if we were certain bands we wouldn't do it. But we're Cheap Trick - it's good to get applause."
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This story was originally published May 11, 2026 at 6:00 PM.