The Cars Rule

I have barely listened to anything else but The Cars during the past week. I love that stuff. Their music videos are also cool (some of them totally hilarious!), so I’ve spent some quality time on YouTube, too.

As a power pop fan I’ve naturally focused first on The Cars’ early records. The debut album (The Cars, 1978) is awesome. My Best Friend's Girl, Good Times Roll, You're All I've Got Tonight, Bye Bye Love – it’s impossible to dislike these songs. Just What I Needed is also one of the greatest songs ever. This material is mostly basic power pop: nothing too complicated, excellent songs and melodies, solid singing and playing.

Moving in Stereo is a very interesting, yet catchy song with Benjamin Orr utilizing his low vocals nicely. Songwriter Ric Ocasek also provides several songs with his quirky but extremely enjoyable vocals. Greg Hawkes’s synth lines and Elliot Easton’s solo guitar work decorate the album. Then there are of course those huge Queen-like harmonies that producer Roy Thomas Baker (who had actually produced several albums for Queen) wanted to be added to the album. Those harmonies are of course great. Seriously, who doesn’t like layered multipart harmonies? (Yeah, ok, some people.. Maybe.)

This self-titled debut album is pretty much as good as everyone claims it to be. Still, I’m not really sure if it actually is The Cars’ best. For some reason, I seem to love their second album Candy-O (1979) even more than its predecessor. Maybe that’s because Candy-O contains a bit more emotion-appealing songs, and it’s also weirder as an album. (Nice cover art, btw...)

The opening track of Candy-O is Let’s Go, a nice party song with handclaps. Then comes Since I Held You, a song whose chorus reminds me of The Flamin’ Groovies. It’s a very nice and beautiful song. All I Can Do is also very lovely. Double Life, Got a Lot on My Head (that nearly sounds like an unnoticed power pop classic), and Dangerous Type are also very good songs.

Shoo Be Doo is something very strange that appears in the middle of the album. It’s a very short song, and it sounds like Joy Division or something like that (JD’s awesome, btw!). Shoo Be Doo’s weird, but I like it. Title track follows it, sounding excellent. In that song and Night Spots this album really begins to show some darker feel. I haven’t really thought about it before, but yeah, Candy-O is darker than The Cars’ first album. Great albums, both of them!

Also, I have to say that I’m totally fond of the Complete Greatest Hits CD. I don’t tend to like greatest hits albums, but this is an exception. All 20 songs on it are perfect. I would replace one or two songs with some others but it’s not such a big thing. It’s a nice feeling when you can’t stop listening to the album until the final track, the wonderful You Are the Girl.

My next assignment: listen to the rest of The Cars’ albums. I’ve already listened to Heartbeat City (1984), but I’ll discuss that later. This post is already too long..

The Cars at MySpace

My First Video Post!

It surely is an attractive one... I really wanted to check this video thing, so I thought it'd be nice to try it out with The Cars. This is The Cars performing at Live Aid in 1985 in front of like 2 billion people (or something). I really don't think any power pop classic song has ever been performed in front of a bigger audience than this (or has it?).

Just What I Needed is an amazing song. I'm completely into The Cars at the moment. They were a wonderful pop band.

It's good to see you again too, Ben...

Just What I Needed

This music truly is something I happily welcome. During the past few days, I’ve been listening to The Cars, and the number of songs I like just keeps increasing. Just What I Needed is really one of the greatest songs I’ve heard in a long time. There’s some amazing melodic quality there..

As a great new wave band The Cars scored some pretty big hits, like Drive (btw, I found out like yesterday that it’s a Cars song… Had heard it a million times on the radio but never knew whose song it was.) The Cars were a group of great musicians and they had two lead singers, Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr. Ric is a familiar name, credited as producer on some of my favourite albums, like Weezer’s Blue Album. Ben, on the other hand, is something completely new and exciting for me. Although he isn’t among us anymore, he can be seen performing on many Cars videos on YouTube, and well, that guy had some good charisma..

This may not be the easiest kind of music to listen to, although The Cars’ early music has some real power pop qualities. Their later stuff sounds very good, too, ‘cause I’m generally very interested in 80’s new wave synth-pop/rock. Now I really want to dig deeper into this music.

The Cars at MySpace