Cars- The Elektra Years 1978-1897
This past weekend the Cars released a remastered box set of their first six albums including all 60 tracks form the original releases.
The first Cars album was released in 1978 and the self-titled beauty was a pleasant surprise to say the least. In the late ‘70’s we were mired in the disco era that was becoming extremely stale.
Then along came the lads from Boston and we were instantly hooked to their original sound that booted disco in its shiny weird gyrating butt.
The album contained some future classics such as “My Best Friend’s Girlfriend”, “Good Times Roll”, “Just What I Needed”, and the song I can’t get enough of, “Moving In Stereo”. C’mon, the sound moving from left speaker to right and back again, was brilliant, admit it.
How does a band follow up this album? Well, “Candy O” released in 1979, might be a good way.
From the opening few bars of “Let’s Go”, we knew they were back. Some Cars greats are here. With songs like “Candy O”, “It’s All I Can Do”, and the fun “Lust For Kicks.” The band showed everyone they were not a flash in the pan.
In 1980 Panorama was released and was somewhat of a departure in sound and mood for the band.
Consisting of 10 songs that had a darker quality in lyrics and sound, Panorama was this reviewer’s favorite Cars album. It’s one I listen to from time to time and I welcomed the sound remix, as the original seemed a bit flat sounding. This new disc sounds as crisp as your Sunday morning bacon you forgot was cooking while you searched for your headache remedy that always was not where you thought it was. Ok, I digress.
The album has some real gems. “Panorama”, ‘Touch And Go”, “Gimme Some Slack”, and “Misfit Kid” are all highlights. The album has a more guitar oriented approach, which was represented perfectly on ‘Down Boys”. The song that mostly infected my ears, surprisingly, was the brilliantly strange “Getting Through”. Any song that contains a mid break that sounds like a game of Asteroids is all right with me. The result is probably my favorite Cars tune.
Shake It Up appeared a year later in 1981 and was a return to the original Cars sound. From the quirky “Shake It Up”, to the slower paced “A Dream Away”, Cars fans were treated to the familiar.
The mostly synthesizer and electronic drum sound prevails and songs like “Since Your Gone”, “Shake It Up”, and “I’m Not The One”, delighted the die hard Cars fan again.
My pick for best of the bunch is “Cruiser”, with its Devo sounding guitar riffs and spouting lyrics like “Chrome red eyeballs reflect and roll” and “Set aside the screaming fish”, even Captain Beefheart would tip his hat to the one who penned such coolness.
The band took a couple years to release the album that everyone has in his or her possession somewhere. “Heartbeat City” came out during the beginning of the MTV era. Music videos were a very popular format at the time and the Cars used this to their benefit. The video for “You Might Think” was played to death on MTV and was a breakthrough for the band and for videos in general.
I think every song on this album had produced a video, including Magic”, Drive” and “Heartbeat City”. By far the most commercial and successful of their albums, it’s my least favorite. But that’s just because I’m weird.
The final disc in the box set is the 1987 album “Door To Door”. The band was beginning to tire in sound and lyrical quality by this time. The album did contain a couple of diamonds in the rough however. “Ta Ta Wayo Wayo” and the rocker “Door To Door” were the rare sparklers here.
The impressive sound quality of this six disc box set is one reason to give it a listen. Original band member Ric Ocasek oversaw the remixing of the original albums and he did a fine job. The Cars are a band that everyone loves and you will enjoy listening and singing along to all of your favourites.
This is one compilation that belongs in your music collection.
It is available at your favourite streaming site, on CD and vinyl later this month.
