The Cars - Candy-O poll

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.