Burning Down

"Heartbeat City" is a great song too. I always liked it.



Yes, Benjamin Orr really did add a whole other dimension to their music. I love all the songs that he sang, and he was not a bad bassist either.

Necromancer

One of their best singles Drive, would not be the same without Benjamin Orr on vocals. The Cars were a very versatile band out of the early new wave scene in the 70s, which infused a lot of different styles into their sound, Rock, Hard rock, Art rock, New wave, Post-punk, Synthpop, Power pop, etc. I'm glad they reformed the band, I hope they play Columbus, Ohio, where Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr first met and performed as a duo back in the early 70s, that would be a good home coming for Ric Ocasek and a tribute to Benjamin Orr.

Unknown Soldier

If memory serves me right they were in a band called Milkwood that didn`t have too much in common with the Cars sound. It was the early influence of David Robinson ex Modern Lovers who was an influence image wise on the band that steered them into what would become new-wave.

Burning Down

Milkwood had a more folk sound, it seems like.



I think the Modern Lovers only ever released one album, plus some live stuff, but only after they broke up in 1974. Their sound definitely influenced the Cars, just listen to this:

Unknown Soldier

Modern Lovers definitely were a big influence, the whole sound of that song is very early Cars and even has a clapping sound that featured heavily "On My Best Friends Girl"

VEGANGELICA

I remembered this morning that Jackhammer once commented he had no idea what music appealed to me even after I had been at MusicBanter for a year. So I searched for a thread about The Cars and see that luckily you made one already, Burning Down.

I love many of The Cars' songs from their Heartbreak City album because I heard them during my formative teen years, when their catchy and sometimes odd lyrics and raw emotion about relationship issues appealed to me since I was starting to pay more attention to relationships then.

Their lyrics on that album aren't very deep and sometimes use quite a few filler words just for the sake of rhyming, I suspect, but musically I like the feel of the songs very much. The Cars do upbeat and peppy songs well, and also despondent ones with a hollow feel. I think their songs are aimed at tweens and teens, but I still like them!

Some of my favorites:

The Cars - "You might think" . . . Of course!
This is the Cars' song that first caught my attention. Others in the thread have mentioned it, too. I like Ric's voice, the quirky elements (his brief "You kept it going 'til the sun fell down" solo), and the persistent rhythm guitar:




The Cars - "Why Can't I Have You"
Mmm...I like the perturbed feeling of this heartbreak song. I appreciate that the lyrics have some unexpected, vivid sections, such as, "Oh candy smile, all the while, glinting, Your eyes like mica, a lethal pout, hinting," among the trite lines that include these: "Baby, why can’t I have you? You're breakin’ my heart in two, You know what I’m goin’ through." Normally I would roll my eyes at the trite lyrics, but the peculiar ones ("eyes like mica") save the song, in my opinion:




The Cars - I'm not the one"
A nice depressing song with a slow, troubled sound. This song gets me down. It's a good catharsis song for doing some wallowing in despair in order to get beyond it.

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Unknown Soldier

This is interesting as the basic premise behind most of the Cars songs are about doomed relationships and most importantly about unattainable women (The songs could easily be switched though for a womans point of view) But the whole concept behind the Cars was always extreme negativity, despite the number of upbeat sounding songs they put out. Panorama was always their most negative and darkest album.

Sure by the time of Heartbeat City Ric Ocasek was cutting and pasting a lot of his earlier lyrics which I always thought were great anyway.

Zer0

I'm really digging their self-titled at the moment, it's one of those albums where every track feels like a hit single. It's a real pop-rock gem.

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Janszoon

Heh. I agree, but then again most of the tracks were hit singles!

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Unknown Soldier

I`d listen to them in order of production

The Cars- A milestone album in the American new-wave scene and imo one of the best debut albums in the history of rock.

Candy O- Similiar to the debut but not quite as good.

Panorama- Their most experimental and darkest release and a kind of homage to some of the groups that influenced them. Some good songs but not a great album

Shake it Up- My personal fav with its final new-wave sound and looking ahead to the Heartbeat City sound.

Heartbeat City- One of the most polished albums ever produced and the group are a world away sound wise from the debut especially with the dominance of synths.

Door to Door- Often regarded as their weakest album but I`d say their were some essential material on here.

I`d also recommend listening to some of Ric Ocasek`s solo discography as well.

The debut was often described as a greatest hits album as every song minus "I`m in Touch With Your World" sounded like a single