my power pop addiction, no. 24 (96)

The Cars occupy a contradictory position within the pop-rock nexus of the late 70s and early 80s. Their 1978 debut album was like a breath of fresh air when it hit the stores and songs like Let the Good Times Roll, Just What I Needed, My Best Friend's Girl, and You're All I've Got Tonight went into heavy rotation on hesher rock stations. Their sound was punchy, the songs were lean and compressed, and the hooks just kept on coming. The band also had a really cool image, one part druggy dissonance, one part New Wave alienation, and entirely distinct from the increasingly heavy and bloated vibe of the older and more conventional bands garnering FM airplay. But because the Cars were appropriated by an old guard looking to revive and update the image of what later became known as classic rock, the band was never really afforded the credit they deserved for doing such great New Wave power pop. They became a part of what they had seemingly set out to undermine. The incessant play of their hits on FM radio also wore away at some of the freshness they initially brought to the table, and even now I have to be in the right head space to enjoy them on their own terms as opposed to on the terms set for the band by the corporate radio behemoth through which I first became familiar with their music. But when I do manage to get into that head space, I find their music tight and exhilarating, just the way I like it. As great as their first album is, it's the follow-up, Candy-O, that I reach for most often when I need to hear the Cars. I can still remember buying the album at Music Maze on the first day it came out in 1979. I played the shit out of that record and eventually got a chance to see them play at Madison Square Garden, with XTC no less, on the tour for Panorama, the somewhat less enjoyable third Cars album and really the last one I paid any attention to. ...There's good reason for a certain amount of skepticism when it comes to the Cars, but if you can decontextualize their songs a bit, mentally removing them from the strange transitional period that compelled the band to straddle the divide between rock and New Wave, I think you'll be surprised by what an excellent pop band they were for the first three years or so...