Cheap Trick being the Power Pop/Hard Rock band they are, I've often wondered why they weren't linked to Punk Rock music when they began? Taken from the Pop-Punk wikipedia page, Rock writer Greg Shaw, co-founder of Bomp! Records (the label Trick almost signed with before Epic), who wrote extensively about power pop and took credit for codifying the genre in the 1970s, originally defined power pop itself as a hybrid style of punk and pop.
I feel if they had started a few years earlier they would have been included in the Proto-Punk conversation due to a lot of the hallmarks of their sound. The first record has songs like Elo Kiddies, Hot Love, He's a Whore, and The Ballad of TV. Violence that have a lot of a punk sound in my opinion. Robin's melodic vocals also sound much like late 90's era Pop-Punk in many ways as well on songs like Hello There, Surrender, Dream Police, and Way of the World.
Let me know what everyone thinks. I would like to hear your opinions. Thank you.