Set Shows Cheap Trick’s Unfulfilled Promise : CHEAP TRICK “Sex, America, Cheap Trick” Epic/Legacy (** 1/2)

Like the Cars, Cheap Trick got off to an exceptionally promising start in the ‘70s, only to run out of creative gas, leaving it somewhat stalled along the side of the road when it comes to putting together the honor roll of great rock bands.

The Midwestern group had witty, highly melodic songs with dressed-up arrangements that seemed to borrow equally from the power pop side of the Beatles and, remarkably, the harder, guitar-driven intensity of the Who.

Onstage, the band added an intriguing presence: two members (singer Robin Zander and bassist Tom Petersson) who looked so much like pretty-boy rock heroes that you’d guess they were picked for the band after a computer search of musicians with star quality, and two others (guitarist-songwriter Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos) who were so offbeat that they looked like rejects from the computer search.

Together, they made a remarkably appealing package and it looked as if they were going to be contenders when the dreamy “I Want You to Want Me” soared into the national Top 10 in 1979 (an alternate, previously unreleased version and the version from “Live at Budokan” are both included in this four-disc set).

But the group, whose history is chronicled beautifully by Ira Robbins in the package’s handsome booklet, seemed to have been thrown off by the success of “Budokan,” which spent a year on the national charts, selling more than 3 million copies. After the ambitious “Dream Police” album (which had been recorded before “Budokan” but released almost a year after it), the group turned in a series of astonishingly undistinguished albums in the ‘80s.

Though this set (with almost 30 previously unreleased tracks) is no doubt a treat for fans of the band, the problem for the curious observer is that you run out of the ‘70s material by the middle of Disc 2. That leaves you with a lot of reminders about the band’s wasted promise.

*

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