The Cars - Candy-O poll

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.