Another new year has left me in a reflective mode. I just recently posted my 1974 Playlist, and as usually happens after looking back 50 years (when I was just a little kid), my mind drifts back 40 years when I was more cognizant, to 1984…and what a year! It was certainly not the dystopian, authoritarian nightmare Orwell had in mind… we’ve apparently potentially saved that for now. I started thinking about all the landmark albums that came out in 1984, when I was in college no less, and it’s a remarkable list. Van Halen’s 1984, Peter Gabriel (who blessed us with a new LP in ’23) put out his breakout So, Springsteen put out Born In The USA, and Prince put out Purple Rain. And another album I’d put in that august list of classics would be the Cars’ Heartbeat City, an album that was considered a bit of a comeback at the time. I can’t believe I’ve been doing B&V this long and haven’t written about the Cars. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like the Cars?
The Cars hailed out of Boston. They consisted of Ric Ocasek (vocals/guitar/songwriter), Benjamin Orr (vocals/bass), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), Elliott Easton (a southpaw on guitar), and David Robinson (formerly of the Modern Lovers on drums). They were considered to be a part of the New Wave movement that took off after Punk sort of fizzled (or more accurately, when Punk went back underground). New Wave music was informed by Punk but with more pop intention… oh and synthesizers, lots of synthesizers. No matter how you want to describe the Cars – New Wave, pop rock, or just straight up rock n roll – they were an amazing band, although a bit stiff on stage, so I’ve heard (I never saw them live). The Cars had guitars dominating the music with stabs of cool synth, a sentence I never thought I’d write. Ocasek was a great songwriter and his lyrics are loaded with double entendre (“She is the girl, who keeps me up at night…”, or “I know tonight, she comes…”). They are a bit hard to pigeonhole as they weren’t totally 70s or 80s, they were more ’75 to ’85 straddling both decades successfully while many of their peers found it more difficult to pull that off.
Their debut album, The Cars, came out in 1978 right when I was getting into music and it could have been easily named “The Cars Greatest Hits.” It is staggering in it’s perfection. These guys sounded like rockers from another planet. “Good Times Roll,” “Just What I Needed,” “Bye Bye Love” and a song that will always be owned by Phoebe Cates’ in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, “Moving In Stereo.” The album was huge (6x platinum in the U.S. alone) and was still on the charts when the follow up, Candy-O dropped in 1979. The first album was in such high rotation still that I didn’t realize the songs on Candy-O were new, I thought “Let’s Go,” the first single, was just another track from The Cars. Candy-O is one of those rare albums that defy the sophomore slump. Truth be told, it might be my favorite Cars LP. “Let’s Go,” “Dangerous Type,” and “Got A Lot On My Head” (“most of it you…”) are all favorites.
At that point it looked the Cars could do no wrong. It only took 14 months before their third album Panorama came out. I remember hearing Ocasek on the radio at the time saying he was more into the Velvet Underground and wanted to expand their musical palette in more “interesting” ways. There’s nothing wrong with that but Panorama left us all a little cold back in the day. I had it on vinyl… I’m not sure what happened to it. I listened to it again as “research” for this post and it’s actually not a bad record. “Touch And Go” with it’s lusty cowboy guitar solo is a classic. I always loved the songs “Don’t Tell Me No” (a track I like to play here at the house for my wife), and of course, “Give Me Some Slack.” Beyond those three tracks the album’s songs didn’t get much traction which is a shame because there are a lot of really strong songs on that album. And frankly, I don’t think it was that “experimental.”
Reeling a bit from their loss of momentum, the Cars decided to steer more towards the mainstream on Shake It Up. It was a similar move to what Fleetwood Mac did when they went from the very experimental, punk influenced Tusk back to being a pop, hit factory with Mirage. I think people looked down on Shake It Up because of it’s naked pop ambition but it’s a damn strong album. “Since You’re Gone” has one of my favorite lyrics, “Since you’re gone, I never feel sedate, since you’re gone, Well, the moonlight ain’t that great.” I also dug “Cruiser” and nobody can ever tell me “A Dream Away” isn’t hypnotically shimmering in it’s beauty. At this point the band was probably a little frustrated. Ocasek put out his first solo album in 1982 and that seemed to recharge his batteries. He returned to the studio in mid 1983 with a great batch of songs. The band didn’t hire long time producer Roy Thomas Baker (the Cars, Queen), and went with uber producer Mutt Lange who’d done wonderful things for AC/DC and Def Leppard.
With the Cars feeling like their collective backs were against the wall, the result was one of their best albums, Heartbeat City. I will admit, Mutt Lange did his usual polishing of the music, in this case to the point that I can see my reflection in the sound, but for the Cars it just seemed to work. Ocasek had truly written a great batch of songs. I think there are actually two groups of Cars fans. The 70s guys who dug the first two albums and then the 80s kids who were into Heartbeat City. Lange’s production led the band to use a drum machine on this album and that eternally pissed off drummer David Robinson. The sound is big, very synth and very much “of it’s time.” And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that MTV – then a relatively new medium… and yes, they actually showed music videos back then – really helped this album. Ocasek and the dudes in the Cars, well, look weird and they translated well into quirky videos. I could have possibly been considered the “cute” Car had I been in the band…Benjamin Orr was as close as anybody in that band came to being a “heartthrob.”
I remember the first time I heard Heartbeat City. I was coming back from campus, and where I lived there was a courtyard surrounded by a hedge. Some enterprising lads, who should have been studying, were playing wiffle-ball baseball. The hedge was the outfield fence. Someone put their stereo speakers into their windows and they were jamming to music whilst they played wiffle-ball. As I strolled up I heard, “Hello…hello again.” The vocals were distorted and it sounded like they were saying “halo.” But then the drums kicked in… and then the guitar/keyboards. At the time I thought the Cars had broken up and Ocasek had gone solo… My roommate Drew, immersed in the game saw my confusion and said, “New Cars.”
“Hello Again” is not only a great tune – with a video that features Andy Warhol, no less – it was a bit of a statement of purpose. The Cars were saying “Hello” after being away three years and baby, they were home. The guitar drives the song, but the incessant keyboard worms it’s way into your ear. They were back and they weren’t taking prisoners. “Hello Again” ranks amongst my favorite opening tracks. “Looking For Love,” a lovely little ballad to midtempo thing came next and it was catchy as hell. Then came the huge hit, “Magic.” I love the opening line, “Summer, summer, summer, it turns me upside down.” It has been on my Summer Playlist since day 1. “Magic” was another tune with a great video. Speaking of videos, “Drive” was the big hit ballad and had a video featuring the incomparable Paulina Porizkova. Ben Orr took the lead vocal on that track and it drips with longing. “Stranger Eyes,” a track only the Cars being produced by Mutt Lange could pull off finishes the first half. It’s got more drama than a Bogart movie… it’s like a noir film in four and half minutes.
Side 2 kicks off with the first single (and monster hit, I might add) “You Might Think.” This galloping wallop of a song was everywhere – and also boasted an iconic video. “You might think I’m crazy, but all I want is you…” What a great song. “It’s Not The Night” is my favorite deep track from this album. I thought it should have been a hit… and I included it on my Night Songs Playlist recently. It starts slow with dramatic washes of synth… Ocasek’s plaintive vocal and then suddenly Easton and Ocasek bring the guitars. Talk about building dramatic tension! “The time is right…to take it out… the time is right to Tango…” Oh Hell, yes. “Why Can’t I Have You” is a ballad that could have been written by a stalker. “I Refuse” is another slick rocker and another underrated song. The title track reminds me a bit of “A Dream Away” from the previous album… it just shimmers along. “Oh, Jackie…”
I remember sitting out by the wiffle ball court where I’d become rooted to a bench, just to listen to the album, completely mesmerized. Much like their first two albums, the Cars had pulled off the difficult task of putting out an album full of great songs. There’s not a bad moment on this record. Sure, it may not have been the comeback album that their 70s fans may have wanted but it was the Cars album the 80s kids deserved in 1984. It is simply put a must own, must hear.
Sadly, the Cars returned in 1987 and delivered their only bad album, Door To Door. It seems they’d shot their final, nearly best shot on Heartbeat City. By this point not only Ocasek, but Orr and Easton had each done solo albums. Dissent had begun in the band. Orr wanted the band to record some song he’d written… with his girlfriend. It’s never a good sign when the bass player wants to show you songs he or she has written with his or her squeeze. And so they broke up acrimoniously… Orr eventually passed away. But luckily, the Cars did reunite for one more album, 2011’s Move Like This, a late career album that I may need to post about on it’s own…
Meanwhile, just crank this album up to 11. Get out the old wiffle ball bat and maybe a keg of beer… we’ve got to keep ourselves warm somehow this awful winter.
Cheers!
BourbonAndVinyl 