The Cars - The Cars (self-titled debut album)

impossible

Just What I Needed is the one that stands on the shoulders of the other giants here for me. Of the ones that weren't huge hits, the one that most should have been is "Bye Bye Love."

I'm partial to "Moving in Stereo." Yeah, Ridgemont High was iconic, but to me it's The Cars best moment for quirky post-punk rhythms.

The track the affected my listening habits most? I'm in Touch with Your World. That angular, hobbling percussion working inside the bubblegum hooks set my 12yo self up for so much later favorite music.

'just what i needed' ran away with this poll ten years ago, but youkneverknow

The Cars: Complete Greatest Hits poll

No wrong answer here, but I went with “My Best Friend’s Girl.”

The whole album is great but "Just What I Needed" never gets old for me.

"Bye Bye Love" for me. That riff in the verses, those beautiful maj7 chords in the pre-chorus, Robinson's drum fills, and boy oh boy that synth solo. Every member of the band is so at the absolute top of their game on this song it almost hurts.

absolutely stuck at "just what i needed" vs "you're all i've got tonight"

Just What I Needed.

With all due respect to Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr sings all my favorite songs by The Cars

you're all i've got tonight has been my go-to lately. those chooga-chooga drums in the intro, those amazing gang vocals, that insistent synth riffs, easton's muscular licks on the second verse, "i need you, TO-NIGHT"

Orr & Ocasek really do sound so much alike to me on so many of those songs. kinda wild but for the longest time I honestly thought that the only big single Orr sang on was “Drive”

nb no cable in the rural area I lived as a child and there was no MTV in the town I lived during jr/ high school (local cable provider was an evangelical iirc and decided not to carry it). “Drive”, “You Might Think” and “Magic” were probably the only videos I ever saw via Friday Night Videos so that prob had a lot to do with it.

cast a pity vote for "don't cha stop"
every song on this album is good!

def a thing I was shockingly old when I learned
xp

Moving in Stereo

'Just What I Needed'

I can still clearly recall rushing over to my radio cassette player to tape this off the radio in 1978 and then listening to it over and over and over. It was a moment where I first knew I was in love with music.

i voted Moving also butit could be almost anything else on this album. one of the greatest debut albums ever and their best outing.

on further review, it's "you're all i've got tonight" for me more or less for all the reasons voodoo chili already noted but jeez it could change in hurry.

hope "bye bye love" and "all mixed up" get some votes

Something that always jumps out at me when listening to The Cars is how well-recorded the drums were. Roy Thomas Baker got a better sound for David Robinson than he did for Roger Taylor! The toms in particular have exemplary depth and presence. That panning roll at 0.45 in 'Just What I Needed' is one of the great "now listen up" moments of the era.

It's possible that owning at least two Ocasek solo albums in the early '90s made the thought of confusing Orr's innate melodicism and greater vocal range with Ocasek's strangled-guitar-neck timbre.

come again?

i.e. I had no trouble distinguishing them

i get it now but i guess when i was younger it was like "these new wavey upbeat and/ or off-kilter pop songs are *Cars* songs and Cars = Ric. and then there's the slow dance song. that's the bassist"

obv distinguishing them was harder pre-MTV.

i suspect i also thought the strangled timbre thing was kind of an affectation for particular songs

didn't vote for it but i have a soft spot for 'all mixed up', which, perhaps embarrassingly, i knew first as a red house painters cover

naw it's grebt - composition and vocal. it's like the cars' "dust in the wind" and i mean that in a good way lol

today it's "Moving In Stereo" as that is the song, when it comes on classic radio, i had to think who is this again. and then i remember and say, cool beans.

voted All Mixed Up
it’s so weirdly beautiful

<3

I don't mind you comin' here
And wastin' all my time

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"Just What I Needed" because I first heard it when very young and that synth line changed me.

they're all perfect though

also i love this:

3:44
3:44
3:44
3:31
3:01

4:13
4:14
5:15
4:14

YOU CALL YO-SELF INDUSTRIOUS
YOU CALL YO-SELF EEH-TENSE!

crüt otm

Making sure this thread sees this too:

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/ED

Here's more info on the big Ric Ocasek tribute show I'm doing on WFMU tonight (9pm-midnight Eastern Time)! I'll be joined via telephone by some special guests. First up will be journalist/editor/author Annie Zaleski, who has written extensively about The Cars (see links in comments).
We'll also hear from three musicians who were in bands produced by Ric Ocasek: Paul Zone from The Fast (past guest of the show!), Debora Iyall of Romeo Void, and Danny Sage of D Generation. In between I'll be panicking about not having enough time to play all the music I want to play (spoiler: I won't have enough time). Tune in tonight at 9 Eastern/6 Pacific!

I'd like to vote for side 2 please. It fits together perfectly as a ~20 minute piece of music.

Is there a thread for classic albums you never bothered to listen to because you've heard almost all of the songs already? I feel ashamed that I have no idea what "I'm in Touch With Your World" and "All Mixed Up" sound like, should remedy that soon

duuuuude get on that asap

Voted for Bye Bye Love. The pre-chorus is one my favourite Cars moments.

Orangy sky

Wow, both those songs are great. "I'm in Touch With Your World" has a charming feel, suddenly cut by that cool synth/ guitar explosion on the "such a lovely way to go" parts. And "All Mixed Up" has one of the best Orr vocals I've heard. And a sax solo! I can see why you like it so much, vg

Of course, that only makes this poll harder

Ocasek did a demo w his own vocals on All Mixed Up - still great but def a different feel.

It’s Orr’s gorgeous lilting vocal fluctuations that really get me

I always thought I'm In Touch With Your World was the unpopular song but seemingly not here

eh it’s the least best imo - closest thing to filler/intermission on this very very tight record

didn't vote for it but i have a soft spot for 'all mixed up', which, perhaps embarrassingly, i knew first as a red house painters cover

― mookieproof

But to be fair, I'm also in the camp of people who didn't realize (until today) that Ric Ocasek didn't sing every Cars song except 'Drive'.

Just re-listened, and still have no idea how to vote -- the level of consistency on this album is staggering.

Watching live videos - each note in place, each solo just like the record. I'm sure Orr wasn't granted much leeway for interpretation on anything, so that's why it can be hard to distinguish who's singing the songs. They're so tight as a band, each part weaving around the other, but once the arrangement was set, it was set.

I had never really watched live videos before. Man, Greg Hawkes is small!

The silver lining of Ric's death is how much people are realizing Orr was underappreciated in terms of vox/musical ability. I can't remember if there was an obit thread on here or not, time to search the archives...

There was no mention of Orr's death when he passed. :-( The first post about him is classic AlexInNYC:

The Cars managed to straddle the chasm between 'new wave' and 'accessible classic rock,' which was no mean feat a the time. Hardly timeless music....and very rooted in the era in which it was recorded (which is to say that the music of the Cars has not aged well at all), but still...some of their singles still merit a repeated spin. "Just What I Needed," "Moving in Stereo" (whoops, not actually a single, but an album track...and the soundtrack to Phoebe Cates removing her bathing-suit top in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") and "Since You're Gone" are all pretty great. Purportedly, the Cars were *THE MOST BORING* live band to ever stride on a stage. Benji Orr is dead. Ric Ocasek is married to Paulina Porizkova and Elliot Easton the guitarist now plays in a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band.

― Alex in NYC, Tuesday, April 3, 2001 5:00 PM (eighteen years ago)

The Cars: Classic or Dud?

I was an angry young man in 2001. I'm an angry old man in 2019, but I was a bit more charitable earlier this week. Rest in peace: https://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2019/09/no-one-turns-off-the-cars.html

Heh, you mentioned that Phoebe Cates scene in both write-ups.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Don’t cha stop
Such a cool fucking riff and also skin skin

Purportedly, the Cars were *THE MOST BORING* live band to ever stride on a stage.

I don't know. I went down a YT Cars rabbit hole last night and found all kinds of awesome live footage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msAcTMKMSKA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIUqaaZz-8k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhzrQzCdSH8

Also, I'm going to be a contrarian dickhead and say that Orr has a better voice that Ocasek.

oh for sure. and in those '78 clips you can see that he was kind of a babe. i feel like by the mid 80s he was bloated and weird and wore too much makeup.

Orr was v pretty back in the day, it’s true

"Stay the Night" was a jam! I loved Benjamin Orr even before I realized he was the guy from the Cars. What a sonorous voice he had.

Don’t cha stop
Such a cool fucking riff and also skin skin

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Saturday, September 21, 2019 3:02 AM (eight hours ago)

yes! lol

i had a thought while i was playing cars song after cars song the last week -- for a long time i had a hard time putting together the cars that sang "magic"/"shake it up"/fun or cute songs and the cars that sang "you're all i've got tonight"/"just what i needed"/kinda sleazy songs because they sounded like they had been written by completely different people. it was confusing and hard to reconcile without seeing videos and i knew they were the same band but didn't know what exactly was going on with the cars. also i was a kid.

i love all the good cars memories. they are one of my mom's fave bands!

We took a weekend trip to MA to go to the Big E fair and it’s all cars all the time rn

It’s like
we pledge allegiance
To the chequered flag
Of the fakkin cahs

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Good turnout

every track deserves 1,000 more votes