The Cars - C or D/S&D

Flat, really? I think it sounds pretty good for a band who last recorded together in 1987. I mean, it's at least as good as last year's Devo record.

i thought that one devo song had a lot more pep-in-its-step.

i mean, i agree this new cars' song is "pretty good for a band who last recorded together in 1987." it's okay; just kind of flat-sounding.

Sounding flat is nothing I would hold against The Cars. The bridge here isn't quite flat enough. I like this more than Heartbeat City stuff.

I do like the idea of the Cars sound being the Cars sound, and not just the sound of the band beholden to '80s tech. Like, this is the way they were made to sound, no matter the decade. It just so happened that lots of other new wave bands in the late '70s and '80s sounded this way, too.

Another new video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxqxNzlEFM4

Definitely looking forward to this album - these tracks are sounding good enough to have a small level of excitement over, at least.

What's up with them not actually showing face in any of these new videos though? They seem to be going out of their way to not appear in the videos even when they're actually appearing in the videos.

It is kind of weird, but maybe they're just vain and want people to remember them young (not that any of them besides Orr were ever attractive in the first place).

Yeah, I wondered about that - maybe they're trying to appeal to a younger demographic that knows all the modern bands that are ripping off the Cars but don't actually know the Cars themselves and that they're old men now? Originally I was wondering if it was some shady "hey it's not really the band you remember but Elliot Easton and some sidemen of varying levels of fame" type of New Cars bullshit.

I like the new song! Sounds like Arcade Fire covering the Cars (though I like Arcade Fire a lot more than most people here, I think.)

in that 'in touch with your world' live video, what's that can opener type instrument the mega nerd guy with glasses is playing?

stupendously shit editing in that video btw

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-listen-the-cars-first-album-in-24-years-20110503

After one listen, I'd give the album a "B". As far as unexpected reunion albums go, though, I'd give it an "A+".

I'm gonna declare "Drag on Forever" an all-time Cars track. Sketching out the perils of longterm cohabitation with Porizkova provides Cohenesque levels of zen dissatisfaction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nE4p5yeAHA

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/LDXKZxaqxgQ/hqdefault.jpg

Holy Shit!

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/LDXKZxaqxgQ/hqdefault.jpg

https://pitchfork.com/news/the-cars-ric-ocasek-dead-at-75/amp/

:-(

This guy was immense, and I hope our obits do him justice. The Cars defined New Wave in the best sense: chords and harmonies recognizable to Foreigner fans, but with music indebted to Roxy Music and Wire.

Master of hooks, architect of one of the best guitar sounds in existence. RIP

gutted by this. such a genius. ugh.

Ah shit. Truly one of the great ones.

“Magic” isn’t supposed to make me cry goddammit

The way the drums hit on “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight” >>>

Worth remembering that when they showed the clip of ‘Drive’ cut to footage of children affected by famine during the British Live Aid gig, more telephone donations came in at that point than at any other time during the show. Having seen it a few days earlier via his manager, Bowie was so shocked and touched by the clip he supposedly insisted on dropping one of his planned songs (‘Five Years’) just so they could fit it in the running order. An extraordinary thing to have played a part in.

I've got to admit, not someone I ever thought about dying before. He seemed perpetually in his 30s. Hitting pretty hard.

he was 75! Amazing.

The Cars will be forever linked in my mind with the summer of 1978. I got fired from my radio job in part because I kept deviating from the playlist to include “Just What I Needed.” It sounded like the future of pop music to me.

I've been going through a lot of my vinyl in the last few months which included listening to the first four Cars albums. It was such a joy to hear them all again. I'm always blown away by how many hooks and ideas they crammed into every song. Incredible playing too. Some days I think Touch & Go is the best song ever made.

RIP Ric

I karaoke'd "Just What I Needed" to my wife on one of our first dates (and yes I know Ben sang it but Ric wrote it).

Cars had a pretty obviously great sound and hooks but Ric is an underrated vocalist. Distinctive and perfect for what they were trying to do. RIP

Was just checking wiki, and kind of surprised how many Ben vox I thought were Ric.

RIP good sir.

This RS piece is so goddamn good

Jon Pareles' definitive Cars profile from Rolling Stone in 1979, which Kevin Dettmar and Jonathan Lethem were smart to include in their recent American rock-writing anthology. R.I.P., Ric, whose unassailable cool was also unassailably inclusive. https://t.co/YO3qRobfjg

— Michaelangelo Matos (@matoswk75) September 16, 2019

I got fired from my radio job in part because I kept deviating from the playlist to include “Just What I Needed.”

On the contrary, it was the playlist that was deviating from playing "Just What I Needed" over and over again

:( . That first album is perfection.

(I didn't realize he was that old btw. Born four years before Robert Plant.)

oh for fuck's sake

Candy-O was the 2nd record I ever bought

RIP

https://theweek.com/articles/861750/coming-death-just-about-every-rock-legend

divesting news, for me it was Hreatbeat City as it was one of the very first albums i ever owned.

RIP

Always been a fan but somehow had no idea he produced the 2nd Suicide album (and a lot of their other group and solo albums)

Ocasek was really in the tank for Suicide. He demanded they appear on the ep of The Midnight Special The Cars hosted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=corytlfEB9c

Rest in peace. I remember seeing Suicide play in NYC sometime in the early '90s, Ocasek trying to be inconspicuous playing ( if I recall ) bass in the background. Hecklers called out for Cars songs.

I interviewed him in 1997 when he was promoting the record for which he was working with Billy Corgan, Melissa auf der Maur, Ira Elliott: "you have to choose: reform the Cars or have hot diarrhea for a week" with no hesitation whatsoever, he chose the latter.

And yet he did eventually reform the the Cars, so clearly hot diarrhea for a week made a negative impression.

Even that RS piece got who sand "Just What I Needed" wrong. When I saw that reunion tour, I was surprised/impressed to see Hawkes playing bass on "Touch & Go."

I enjoyed his work on the jonathan Richman Album "I'm So COnfused"

Ocasek trying to be inconspicuous

lol

RIP.

The combo of incredibly catchy songs and me being 7-8 years old means I have lots of misheard Cars lyrics in my head:

She's got nuclear food

And a risky mouth

She doesn't like the Jews

on that note, one of my small favorite things about living in NYC in the 90s was just how often I would bump into Ric Okasek and his wife* walking around lower Park Ave. It happened a lot more often than you’d think! They seemed nice and, like Ric, she was also very tall and they seemed like a good couple.

*Polish supermodel Paulina Porizkova, for whom it turns out just walking next to Ric Okasek was an effective public disguise, like wearing a nose and glasses or something.

uh, “that note” being ric Okasek trying to be inconspicuous. not whatever just happened in that xpost lol