The Cars - Candy-O poll

fave sleeper tracks are "It's All I Can Do" and "Dangerous Type"

Voted for "Double Life" but it could've been any.

Didn’t think twice - ‘Dangerous Type’

The ubiquity of the debut really works to this album's benefit.

can you elaborate?

like, are you saying this is the hidden classic?

I know what Josh means, I think. "Let's Go" is still ubiquitous, but the lack of airplay for the others has kept this album fresh. I prefer it to the debut: it's sleek and even more menacing.

Yeah. Because of course the first album is an absolute classic, like a debut greatest hits with 6 of its 9 tracks still getting regular radio play. "Candy-O" didn't produce nearly as many radio staples, which in some ways makes it a more rewarding listen. There's more mystery and surprises left in it. At least to me.

true! see also, Panorama!!

(all great, of course)

Saw a good interview with Roy Thomas Baker once where someone asked him about the Cars, specifically how he shifted from the OTT mega rock of Queen to this band's more austere sound, and he pointed out that while the music is indeed pretty spare, they do often stack their backing vocals a la Queen (or, hey, Def Leppard), which is a key component of their songs.

Can I touch you
Are you out of touch
I guess I never
Noticed that much

Lots of possibilities. Voting for Dangerous Type.

Shout out to David Robinson - love the drums on this album.

Saw a good interview with Roy Thomas Baker once where someone asked him about the Cars, specifically how he shifted from the OTT mega rock of Queen to this band's more austere sound, and he pointed out that while the music is indeed pretty spare, they do often stack their backing vocals a la Queen (or, hey, Def Leppard), which is a key component of their songs.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 22 January 2023 23:59 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think a lot of the best new wave stuff managed to sound austere and minimalist but sort of dense and busy at the same time, like an intricate, precise watch mechanism. Queen are not minimalists, but their 70s records have a fiddly, meticulous quality that sometimes reminds me of new wave, they're not excessive in the sense of feeling unrestrained

I like this better than the debut, the songs on that record start off great with catchy hooks, but a couple of minutes into each my interest is wandering. Panorama is less lively but maybe even better; they peaked with Side 2 of that record and then never tried to do the same thing again.

The slyest tribute on this record: the lead guitar bends on the fade-out choruses of "It's All I Can Do" taken from Phil Manzanera on "Mother Whale Eyeless" by Eno.

I love the segues from "Double Life" to "Shoo Be Doo" to "Candy-O" too much to vote for any of them on their own, so "Dangerous Type" for the way it slowly piles on dread-filled overdubs on the slow fade. Hope someone votes "Lust For Kicks" though.

yeah CandyO is the closest that millions of American teens ever got to experiencing early Roxy.

Single from this album:

Let's Go, It's All I Can Do, and Double Life

Singles I thought were released, growing up and played on the radio:

Let's Go, Candy-O, Dangerous Type

this is tough

Easton shredding on the "It's All I Can Do" solo vs. Hawkes' otherworldly blips on "Candy-O" vs. Ocasek's singing on "Dangerous Type" vs. the menace of "Shoo Be Doo" vs. the pop perfection of Let's Go

Listening to the album on my morning walk, I noticed the variety of Easton's tones and playing choices. I love that pungent squeal over the last minute of "Since I Held You," for example.

so wild that he ended up in Creedence Clearwater Revisited

He's so good. Literally the only reason I ever joined twitter was to ask him a question, and he answered!

tough, but went with Candy-O

just re-listened, fuck Double Life is so good too, argh

where is the "Vargas cover" option j/k

― sleeve, Sunday, January 22, 2023

That cover was one of the first in my life where I got erotica even tho I never owned this album.

This album is great, I'm about to re-listen to it for the third time since opening this poll.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i voted ‘all i can do,’ but easily coulda done ‘dangerous type’ or ‘let’s go,’ or whatevr i just heard. as an xer i disrespected this band so wrongly in era.

Didn’t think twice - ‘Dangerous Type’

― BlackIronPrison, Sunday, January 22, 2023 6:39 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

exactly this

Let's Go
Candy-O
Night Spots
Dangerous Type
It's All I Can Do

If we ever do a Cars poll, I do see it's in the queue all these would probably make my ballot. Great album!

Let's Go has non-stop hooks. In retrospect surprising it only got to #14 on the US singles chart. It's All I Can Do peaked at #41. Shake It Up was their first top 10 single in the US.

FM vs AM radio was still going on. The Cars' early Hot 100 history always catches people/me offguard. Three of their best songs peaked at #41!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxaLNoW-KDg

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

lol, I wonder what the people who voted for "Ocasek/Orr" were trying to say.

Results seem right however.

Good turnout and good results

Forgot to vote, but it wouldn’t really have made a difference.

I was a kid when "Let's Go" came out and the crazy momentum of the synth riff and "I like the nightlife baby" was to me WHAT ADULTHOOD SOUNDED LIKE, I almost couldn't stand the excitement and when I hear it now, a little bit of that is still there. I'm sorry, I know there's lots of great stuff on this record, but I can't get past that one sound.

HI DERE

i remember alfred saying the cars had one and a half good albums and i was all like, why do ppl keep saying candy-o is just half a good album because it's a whole album of the thing you like, if you like that kind of thing, and he was like, exactly, candy-o is the one entirely good album.

i don't discount the st but alfred otm. it's a whole thing. what's yer favorite song on abbey road? wrong, it's all one song. same with candy-o. the part i like best is the part i'm listening to right now. there should have been an all of the above option.

in an ilx plate-of-shrimp vein, i was thinking candy-o was my favorite front-to back album of all time, and then i logged on and here this was.

critics talk about the frivolousness and inconsequential-ness of ric's lyrics but you could say the same about rothko or pollock in regard to subject matter. that's not the part of the brain where it hits. pay attention.

nb i was 13 in 1979 and nothing was cooler, nothing was more a transmission from someplace else than this was. maybe for someone else it was in an aeroplane over the sea or pet sounds but this is mine. if something is too radical it doesn't hit you because you're not in the blast zone. this connected the dots from what i knew to what i wasn't.

also i would have voted candy-o but i'm an intp and an aquariums so i can't ever make a decision until after it's too late for it to count.

Great post, sb

i don't know music, but imo there isn't anything on this album, from the lyrics to the production to the sequencing to the album art to the musical performance to the hair-styling and fashion choices to the arrangements to the vibe and gestalt that isn't in the pocket. shoo-be-do. shoo-be-doo! just tell me what to do!

ty, doug, you're good ppl, because you aren't adversarial to my posted viewpoints. i have a whiskey and post what my subconscious says to post and then i blame it on a lust for kicks, because that's what i do on a friday. i've got a lot on my head.

there's a uniquely late-70s early 80s vibe that's part rolling stones sleaze, part tom petty and the heartbreakers spiraling-towards-the-nadir-with-vigorous-glee that's totally encapsulated by this album. on an aside, deadheads always list song> song> song transitions as a thing but shoo-be-do> candy-o is the greatest example of this kind of thing ever. also the rest of this album. just tell me what just tell me what, just tell me what , dun dun dun, dun dun dun, candy0-o. glorious. assorted cards, razor lights (and then elliot easton brilliance). jesus howard christ. anyway, there are post-factual terms like chillwave and yacht rock for period-specific vibes that describe a mood that exists even though three wasn't a scene qua scene per se; is there a general term for that late 70s futuristic but yet downward spiral vibe? like i get from dangerous type? this might only rank no. 327 on a best albums list but no way this is less than no. 8 on a perfect albums list. this is a perfect album. meet me in the the burger chef parking lot in toledo in 1982 and i'll fight you over this if you disagree.

great posts!

(80s anti-drug ad reference) i learned it by watching you!

Since I Held You" 0

Deserved better

Wow, great stuff from sb.

the debut showcases elliot but he really throws down on this album. is that a correct assessment from a musician's pov? talk about integral. also greg hawkes. the st had so much memorable guitar twiddling and synthy bleep-blorp that went unheralded in the follow-up but without the efforts of gabriel and michael the workings of jesus and the holy spirit would have fallen flat. everything is just what it needs to be. the st has noticeable heights but this just lifts you up and you never come down so you never notice the difference.

xp yeah, there's a case for any of these songs. like was mentioned upthread, i had no idea what was an actual single because aor in the late 70s played almost all these songs so i thought at least 8 of these songs were released as singles.

What is “Ocasek/Orr” that got three votes?

“Since I Held You” I guess.

I see "Ocasek/Orr" votes as votes for the "whole thing" slugbuggy talked about

Oh yeah. “Since I Held You” got zero votes.

I missed this poll. idk what I would have voted for, the whole thing is perfect - though I think I went through on-repeat phases with both "It's All I Can Do" and "Dangerous Type"

And to think that when this came out I was disappointed.

what's yer favorite song on abbey road? wrong, it's all one song.

Candy-O, and maybe the entire career of the Cars, is a lot more homogeneous than Abbey Road, though. Almost everybody hates "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", don't they?

Anyway, slugbunny, I'd be really interested in your opinion of Panorama and the subsequent albums.

...especially what you thought of them when they were new.

sometimes I fantasize of an alternate universe where Orr sings lead on every track. am I a bad person?

I must confess that I have had the same impious thought. No shade on Ocasek, he was a perfectly serviceable lead vocalist on the songs he kept for himself, it's just that Orr's voice was so, so gorgeous.

Yup.

I can’t think of a better singer really, in some ways.

These are some great post especially from eephus and slugbuggy. As I pretty much said in this thread, I had a blast listening to this one and did play it over and over while this poll was open. I only know Heartbreak City, the debut and this and would love a deep dive into their catalog. crüt has signed up to do the Cars poll and I'm sort of hoping he can do it soon as it would be a lot of fun.

If Orr sang all the leads, you'd lose the distinction between his "cool cold" and Ocasek's "awkward cold".

Indeed

i listened to the next three albums and results vary. the worst thing i could say is that these are very good albums from a band i really like.

panorama - there aren't any pop songs on this. this is bare-bones cars, and i feel it's the most ric of all the albums. he doesn't want to be your party doll, all tricked out in tinsel-town. i was in 9th grade and one of my older senior high brother's friends thought it was cool that i owned this album, back when you owned albums in the sense you had to buy them and own up to it. i think he was right, i WAS cool for having this. touch and go, gimme some slack, panorama, these are so skinny tie and checkerboard linoleum floor tile. this doesn't feel third, it feels like before. it's like this was an unreleased demo album recorded in 1977 that someone found the masters to and put out, like these guys were all 21 and in their first band and creating the zeitgeist like the goddam talking heads and devo and blondie (dreaming is the best song ever) and not a collection of old ppl who dicked around in other bands until they finally found their groove.

shake it up - pretty ok. shake it up (the song) sounds too pop; not enough titanium-lips-and-velvet-glance type lyrics to render it impressionistic in the standard ric mode. i felt like there were too many songs that were ric solo talky-talky lou reed-style songs and not proper cars songs but then cruiser or maybe baby pops up and i'm back in. also since you're gone is as great a hand-clappy song as they've ever recorded, and they've recorded a lot of those. actually shake it up isn't even that bad, i would put it up against heart like a wheel or i can't go for that (no can do). actually shake it up is a great song on its own merits. just not a great cars song. i take it back about the solo ric stuff; i'm listening to a dream away; it's the most talky-talky ric song ever and i'm sinking deep into the velour afterglow, the crimson glove brushing the hair from your face innuendo or whatever liquid whispers ric would say immersion into the broken promise of the silicon nightlife that you take on the run, that's where he took me for a ride and left me. so i have to reconsider.

heartbeat city - what's this new shit? you might think was an escalation and elevation of shake it up, but magic, i could only like it as a big-80s style pop song that was of its era and not so much as a cars song. drive, though. drive. if just what i needed is god the father, drive is the holy spirit. hello again, stranger eyes, and it's not the night are also great, great songs that benefit from the mutt vibe.so densely packed, contra the roy thomas baker vibe of dry space between all the notes. they wouldn't be the same otherwise. greg hawkes just did a horizontal move. where's elliot and all the twiddly bits? i dunno, (change no change, deep reference)is ok.

otherwise - stay the night, emotion in motion, true to you, you are the girl, everything you say, tonight she comes, blue tip, sad song. sometimes she smiles at you just out of the edge of your vision and you're both 19 again. sometimes there's the thing that took your heart in the first place but have to acquiesce. i had beatitude and niagra falls but i forget the specifics. there were some cool moments on these that looped back to the cars gestalt but in a looping back to the gestalt kind of way.

Excellent bits, slugbuggy.

I wasn't so high on latter-day Cars a few years ago: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-cars-shake-it-up-heartbeat-city/

^wow, booming post! (xp)

back when you owned albums in the sense you had to buy them and own up to it.

otm sounding like Ric's demos

*about Panorama sounding like

speaking of demos, I really love "Shooting for You," which Ric later gave to Alan Vega:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-khUgwjbydI

Door to Door is underrated I think, I think it would have a much better reputation if it had come out at another moment in their career - they were slipping out of fashion and it's much more low key than Heartbeat City. Apart from the two tracks that are new recordings of 1977 era demos, I think it's the most similar to Panorama.

I really like Elliot Easton's solo album Change No Change, it probably the least Cars like of all their solo albums (not counting Greg Hawkes album of ukulele Beatles covers from the 2000s), power-pop without any of the beatnik/Velvet Underground/blankness side of things

Niagra Falls is fun, but sometime sounds like half-finished Cars tracks that they forget to add the lyrics and guitar parts to.

I think Orr's album The Lace sounds the most like the Cars, even more than Ocasek's solo records, I could imagine pretty much any track from the album fitting on Shake It Up without seeming too out of place.

For some reason they used to play the "Magic" video a lot on the jumbotron at Phillies games in the '80s.

Some good stuff in this thread. Make me want to listen to Panorama for the first time.

I own Ocasek's Fireball Zone, his most outre solo album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3oz9cWB4zc

tbh, i think historically my metric for a great cars album or song is the pony quotient. they're not a dance band per se, but, like, can you dance the pony to this? is this sock-hop music? i think how much retro-futurism is part of the background radiation vibe is what gets it for me, personally. a real-life judy jetson with edges and secrets would be digging on it. that's my set point; when they do other stuff i have to make a conscious effort to meet them and then i get it, but that's not my natural preference.

candy-o is the most pony; panorama is the most cowboy, which is almost the same thing.

maybe the st is more pony, it has best friend's girl which is 98.73% pony. i need to review all my data.