band history: THE CARS

[Dominic]

with all the hub bub over my avatar (how the hell is that thread still alive?) and one posters' declaration that my love for the band The Cars is not well-founded, I thought I'd post a review of my favorite rock album of all-time, along with a little history of the band. So here you go.

The CARS

The Cars were a Boston-based American band made up of vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Ric Ocasek, drummer David Robinson, keyboardist Greg Hawkes, guitarist Elliot Easton and vocalist/bass player Benjamin Orr.

Ocasek was the chief songwriter and the recognized leader of the band. Although Hawks would get one or two songwriting credits on each album and Orr was the more traditional lead singer and sang on some of their most recognizable songs (Just What I Needed, Let's Go, Drive), it was Ocasek's muse the band followed almost exclusively. If you excuse the pun, he was the driving force behind The Cars.

It was his lyrics that most mystified reviewers and fans alike. They were like nothing anyone else was writing, an was an offshoot of Ocasek's poetry and New York Bohemian sensibility. Irony and goofiness drips from every line, urging you to sing a long even when you have no idea what the heck he's talking about.

Robinson, the former Modern Lovers drummer, was also an artist and he was responsible for The Cars name, their look (red, black and white), and their album cover design.

Most people think of Ocasek as the main singer, but Orr sang lead on just as many songs, and a lot of their most popular ones, as I stated above. His voice was perhaps one of the great ones in rock, and it's a shame he hasn't gotten his due.

Everyone, I think, knows their classic first album, even the youngsters on this forum. They also know their next to last one fairly well - Heartbeat City, as it contained five top 20 singles and their highest charting song ever: Drive. Their music is still widely played on classic rock and pop stations.

Really, there are three stages to the evolution of the band that can be easily broken into two-album segments.

FIRST STAGE

The Cars and Candy-O

Both were produced by Roy Thomas Baker, the guru behind Queen's greatest work, and these albums are rightly considered the band's best, most cohesive work, and will be the music that will be played 50 years from now when and if people are still talking about The Cars.

The first album was made as a demo and started dominating the Boston airwaves before the band even had a record deal. Back in 1978 when the album was finally released, American music was embroiled in a Punk vs. New Wave ethos, and you were either on one side or you were on the other. The Cars came along with a sound that has never really been duplicated, and quite easily bridged the gap between the two genres - both punks and new wavers loved the band and they became a huge selling act, being nominated for Grammys and earning platinum success. Candy-O continued on the same road that the first album forged, streamlining their sound into an almost razor-sharp machine that cuts you at first listen. To me, this is The Cars at their zenith.

SECOND STAGE

Panorama and Shake it Up

These albums both had Roy Thomas Baker back at the helm, but you could hear Ocasek's yearning to break free from the more traditional rock sound of the past two albums into something more pop-like, and yet experimental at the same time. These are two very under rated albums and contain some of The Cars' more interesting songs, like You Wear Those Eyes, Panorama, Since You're Gone, and This Could Be Love.

One thing that must be mentioned is that the first four Cars albums are meant to be each listened to in one sitting, straight through from beginning to end. They all tell a musical story with mostly nonsensical, poetry-like lyrics. In today's world of iPods and playlists and shuffle, that seems to have been lost.

THIRD STAGE

Heartbeat City, Greatest Hits, Door to Door

This is where you hear some of the most glorious moments in pop history, but also the fracturing of The Cars' sound and as a band itself. Roy Thomas Baker is replaced as producer by Robert John "Mutt" Lange on HC, and finally by Ocasek himself on D2D. I think listening to these two albums, along with Ocasek's solo material, gives you the distinct impression that The Cars were most definitely a BAND that relied on all five of its members sharing equally in the creation of its' sound, even as Ocasek wrote all the songs. But by the time the last two albums were being made, Ocasek was perhaps running too much of the ship.

Heartbeat City was their most successful album, and yet it is probably their most disposable. Over-produced into a fine sheen by Lange, it lacks the mystery and tension of their previous efforts. Glorious pop songs, sure, but nothing more.

Door To Door is widely considered a mess and led directly to the band breaking up. It's still better than most rock of that era, but the personality split between experimental rock and the pure pop sound Ocasek was going for just didn't work on this album like they had on their previous efforts.

Something must be said about The Cars' work as music video pioneers. Long before MTV they were making little shorts with their songs, Panorama and Since You're Gone. They won a Grammy for best long form video for Heartbeat City and the very first MTV Best Music Video of the Year for You Might Think. They used celebrities and artists like Timothy Hutton, Andy Warhol and Jeff Stein to direct their videos and they were some of the most popular of the mid-eighties.

The Cars were a true American band, and one that has influenced a latter generation of bands. You can hear Cars-like inspiration in bands as diverse as The Vines, No Doubt and Fountains of Wayne. IMO, the band belongs in that pantheon of great 70s and 80s bands like The Police, Van Halen, AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and Dire Straits. A great band with a great sound - and one I never tire of listening to.

Benjamin Orr died of pancreatic cancer in 2000, pretty much denying Cars fans of any hope of a real Cars reunion. Easton and Hawkes are touring with Todd Rundgren under the moniker, The New Cars, but it is hardly the same.

Strangely enough, the band was always castigated for their live shows during an era that demanded bloated re-imaginings of songs, "what's up Seattle" type of inane banter, and ten minute drum solos. The Cars came on stage, never said a word to the audience, and played their music almost note for note just like they were on their albums. They were brilliant musicians and I was lucky enough to see them ten times in my life. Fantastic shows.

Their solo work is spotty. Ocasek has released a number of albums as a solo artist, but except for his first two, Beatitude and This Side of Paradise, they are lacking whatever special element his band mates brought to the table when they made music as The Cars. Easton made one great rock album, Change No Change and Orr had a minor hit with his album The Lace and the top twenty song, Stay the Night, but that's about all The Cars did as solo artists.

Ocasek is now known more as a successful producer, having produced albums for the bands, Suicide, Bad Brains, No Doubt, Bad Religion, Guided By Voices and two multi-platinum albums by Weezer.

They released a Cars Live DVD a few years ago. It's a great performance piece from a small German club right before they released Candy-O. There's also a reunion of sorts when the band mates sit down for a round table discussion of The Cars. In it, Orr is noticeably ill and frail, and he would die not soon after.

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Album review: CANDY-O

Although the first album is considered by many to be The Cars' one classic album, I'd put Candy-O on top. If you like driving down the highway with your 6(or 8 or 10...) speakers blasting on high, singing along to a CD, Candy-O will make you delirious. Ear candy of the finest order, The Cars' second album has many bright spots - chief among them being "Nightspots." The extended intro to this song - with Elliot Easton's great guitar lick - just has to be one of the most sublime moments in rock. And the segue between "Shoo-Be-Doo" and the title track is like musical crack - so addictive it will have you coming back for more and more, skipping back to that last few seconds of the first song as you crank the volume higher and higher until your ears bleed, just to get your fix of that first note of "Candy-O."

The other songs are merely great. And unlike the first album, there isn't a stinker in the bunch. Sure, "The Cars" is a masterpiece and "Panorama" and "Shake It Up" have their merits, but "Heartbeat City," while a good pop album, is not the Cars I had grown and loved and played air guitar to on my tennis racket. It was "Candy-O" that made me believe rock and roll was heaven-sent. Those first two Cars albums ROCKED, pure and simple. I just wish they'd get their due because, damn, that was a good band. Without "Candy-O" and The Cars (with a little help from Blondie and Devo), rock and roll might never have bridged the gap between guitar and synthesizer/keyboards. The Cars proved you could have both AND rock.

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The Cars on Wikipedia