38 Years Ago: Cheap Trick's 'The Flame' Became Their Only No. 1 Hit
In 1988, Cheap Trick marked its 15th anniversary as a band. In that decade-and-a-half, the group became established stars, followed by a period of decline, only to experience a resurgence thanks to their 10th studio album, Lap of Luxury, released in April 1988.
Before Lap of Luxury, Cheap Trick had produced a few signature songs--"I Want You to Want Me" and "Surrender" being two of them--but had never reached No. 1 in the United States. Thirty-eight years ago today, on July 9, 1988, that all changed.
"The Flame" climbs to the top
Today is the 38th anniversary of "The Flame," Cheap Trick's lead single off Lap of Luxury and it's take on the quintessential 1980s power rock ballad, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
To that point, the live version of "I Want You to Want Me" was the only top 10 single on Cheap Trick's resume. After "The Flame," the group would have only one more top 10 hit: "Don't Be Cruel," the second single from Lap of Luxury, which climbed to No. 4 later that year.
"The Flame" had a two-week run atop the Billboard chart before being replaced by Richard Marx's "Hold On to the Nights," another late 80s power ballad. The song also reached No. 1 in Australia and Canada.
Fans loved "The Flame"--Cheap Trick hated it, at first
As popular as "The Flame" was upon release and as much as it endures today, Cheap Trick originally wasn't a fan of the song.
Rick Nielsen, the group's main songwriter, reportedly "yanked it from the tape player and ground the cassette beneath his boot heel," the first time he heard the song, which was written by Bob Mitchell and Nick Graham and produced by Richie Zito.
Eventually, the band came around and "made it their own with Robin Zander's sobbing vocal dramatics and the haunting tones of Rick Nielsen's mandocello chiming behind the guitar and keyboard backing," wrote Steve Huey for AllMusic in 2012.
"The lyrics, almost always an afterthought in romantic power ballads, often hint at the Police/"Every Breath You Take"'s school of disguising unhealthy obsession as sentimentality; the singer, unable to let go of his first love, makes declarations like, "Wherever you go/I'll be with you" and "You were the first/You'll be the last," which can be taken either as a scorned lover trying to see his failed romance as somehow cosmically ordained anyway, or as a vaguely disturbing intimation of stalking," Huey said.
"It's more likely that the latter interpretation was completely unintentional, though, since the band's straight-ahead reading plays up the heartstring-tugging bombast," he added. "It was a perfect fit for the late-'80s' power ballad/happy pop radio, and it was much better crafted than many similar offerings from the same period (most of which were by bands who had been influenced, indirectly or otherwise, by Cheap Trick themselves). While it isn't the most inventive song the band ever recorded, "The Flame" is an undeniable part of their legacy, and a well-deserved, better-late-than-never, chart-topping popular success."
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jul 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published July 8, 2026 at 11:18 PM.