| Tonight It's You | |
| Cover: | Cheap Trick 1985 Single Cover Tonight It's You.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Cheap Trick |
| Album: | Standing on the Edge |
| B-Side: | Wild Wild Women |
| Released: | July 1985 (US)[1] September 1985 (UK)[2] |
| Length: | 3:30 (single version) 4:46 (album version) |
| Label: | Epic |
| Producer: | Jack Douglas |
| Prev Title: | Up the Creek |
| Prev Year: | 1984 |
| Next Title: | Little Sister |
| Next Year: | 1985 |
"Tonight It's You" is a song by American rock band Cheap Trick, which was released in 1985 as the lead single from their eighth studio album Standing on the Edge. It was written by Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander, Jon Brant and Mark Radice, and produced by Jack Douglas.[3] "Tonight It's You" reached No. 44 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 8 on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks Chart.[4] [5]
"Tonight It's You" was released by Epic Records in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan.[6] For its release as a single, a remixed and edited version of the LP version of "Tonight It's You" was created.[7]
A music video was filmed to promote the single, which was directed by Just Jaeckin and produced by Joey Nardelli.[8] It achieved heavy rotation on MTV.[9] The band also performed both "Tonight It's You" and "Little Sister" on the US TV show Nighttime, hosted by Dick Clark.[10]
Upon its release, Billboard described "Tonight It's You" as "power pop produced to Who-ish proportions".[11] In the UK, Mike Gardner of Record Mirror praised it as a "stylish pop/rock tickler that goes in acceptable fashion straight for the commercial jugular" and one which represented a "return to something like form" for the band.[12]
In a review of Standing on the Edge, Rolling Stone commented, "'Tonight It's You' is gorgeous Top Forty mischief, reminiscent of the Raspberries' 1973 neo-operatic nugget, 'Overnight Sensation'. Zigzagging through the Sixties British Invasion like a runaway train, Cheap Trick plows into Rubber Soul folk-pop, jingle-jangle Merseybeat and orchestral guitar metal recalling the Move's classic 1970 album, Shazam. Cascading acoustic guitars decorate axeman Rick Nielsen's wall of monster fuzz while singer Robin Zander wails in front of sheetmetal harmonies. The cumulative effect is like three or four hit songs vacuum-packed into one."[13]
In a retrospective review of the album, Mike DeGagne of AllMusic described the song as "silvery-sounding" and the "only highlight" from Standing on the Edge.[3] Billboard, in a review of the 1996 compilation Sex, America, Cheap Trick praised it as a "Beatlesque gem".[14] John M. Borack, in his 2007 book Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide, included "Tonight It's You" as one of Cheap Trick's best twenty songs. He stated, "Sure, it sounds a bit dated now and seems, in retrospect, to have been a calculated effort to get the boys back on the pop charts in '85... but still, that chorus... heavenly, I tell ya. Zander sings it like he means it, too."[15]
| Chart (1985) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| US Billboard Hot 100 | 44 | |
| US Billboard Top Rock Tracks | 8 |