Howard the Duck

of course I am, been big on them since the 80s, when You Might Think and Drive came out

totally adore all their singles

saying that, I don't really like Heartbeat City (album) much because of the amount of filler and the snoozefest of a title track - they shouldn't really attempt "atmospherics" and concentrate on hooks and catchiness

my fave Cars song is Since You're Gone - which sounds like Dylan gone New Wave

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Unknown Soldier

As great as their hooks were, I think the defining element of that band were actually the atmospherics (thanks to Greg Hawkes) which were evident on all their albums sarting with "Moving in Stereo" off the debut and reaching their full blown conclusion with "Heartbeat City" that title track I find amazing btw.

You`re right "Since Your`re Gone" does sound like Dylan gone new wave. In fact the song as the same plodding feel as "Let the Good Times Roll" off the debut.

Burning Down

I love Since You're Gone. It's one of my favourite songs from them.

Janszoon

There is definitely not enough love for Candy-O happening in this thread. It's their best album imo.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Unknown Soldier

Great album, cool name and one of the best album covers around as well, problem is it gets over shadowed by the debut. Around 50% of the material on it was recorded at the time of the debut and could have been on that album.

killcreek

2nd best. nothing tops the debut

Howard the Duck

i got all the "classic" albums by now

listening to Shake It Up (album) now - it's pretty coolio

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Unknown Soldier

That album is a classic and defines what cool is and combines their early new wave sound with hints towards the Heartbeat City album and the following songs are Cars classics" Cruiser" "A Dream Away" "This Could be Love" and "Maybe Baby"

VEGANGELICA

I remembered this morning that Jackhammer once commented he had no idea what music appealed to me even after I had been at MusicBanter for a year. So I searched for a thread about The Cars and see that luckily you made one already, Burning Down.

I love many of The Cars' songs from their Heartbreak City album because I heard them during my formative teen years, when their catchy and sometimes odd lyrics and raw emotion about relationship issues appealed to me since I was starting to pay more attention to relationships then.

Their lyrics on that album aren't very deep and sometimes use quite a few filler words just for the sake of rhyming, I suspect, but musically I like the feel of the songs very much. The Cars do upbeat and peppy songs well, and also despondent ones with a hollow feel. I think their songs are aimed at tweens and teens, but I still like them!

Some of my favorites:

The Cars - "You might think" . . . Of course!
This is the Cars' song that first caught my attention. Others in the thread have mentioned it, too. I like Ric's voice, the quirky elements (his brief "You kept it going 'til the sun fell down" solo), and the persistent rhythm guitar:




The Cars - "Why Can't I Have You"
Mmm...I like the perturbed feeling of this heartbreak song. I appreciate that the lyrics have some unexpected, vivid sections, such as, "Oh candy smile, all the while, glinting, Your eyes like mica, a lethal pout, hinting," among the trite lines that include these: "Baby, why can’t I have you? You're breakin’ my heart in two, You know what I’m goin’ through." Normally I would roll my eyes at the trite lyrics, but the peculiar ones ("eyes like mica") save the song, in my opinion:




The Cars - I'm not the one"
A nice depressing song with a slow, troubled sound. This song gets me down. It's a good catharsis song for doing some wallowing in despair in order to get beyond it.

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Unknown Soldier

This is interesting as the basic premise behind most of the Cars songs are about doomed relationships and most importantly about unattainable women (The songs could easily be switched though for a womans point of view) But the whole concept behind the Cars was always extreme negativity, despite the number of upbeat sounding songs they put out. Panorama was always their most negative and darkest album.

Sure by the time of Heartbeat City Ric Ocasek was cutting and pasting a lot of his earlier lyrics which I always thought were great anyway.