The Cars (Official Thread)

Soot and Stars

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The Cars

cars390.jpg

I'm listing these guys as 80's because the majority of their career takes place in this era! I've been thinking about a lot of their music lately and I think they deserve a thread here! It's no surprise that I got into them seeing as I'm a Smashing Pumpkins fan and they were an influence on them! My interest was admittedly furthered by hearing a great cover of Your All I Got Tonight by the Smashing Pumpkins and hearing in it how much fun they had covering it! In fact, Billy Corgan contributed to Ric Ocasek's solo album Troublizing (which I have) as well!

The Cars music and everything about them has this likable strangeness to it! If it weren't for The Cars as well as Devo and Talking Heads geek rock would not exist and Weezer would be out of the job! Here are my personal favorites:

Drive
(first I ever heard and my favorite)


Your All I've Got Tonight
(great song which I really need to own!)


You Might Think


Ric Ocasek ft. Billy Corgan-Crashland Consequence


So in a tribute to this band and a way to educate myself about them I present this thread! :grinthumb
 
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toolmanmike

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Re: The Cars

I agree, they're great! Back in the late 70's we were getting tired of the Doobies
and Foreigner and Kansas. My Boston album was worn out! And along came The Cars. A complete new sound. We called it "new wave" rock. Then in 81' came MTV and my music listening changed with the times. The old albums weren't played much and I started buying music from The Cars, The Tubes, Tommy Tutone and the like. I believe The Cars were the first group to change it all for me. toolman
 

LG

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Re: The Cars

I really liked the Cars alot, we all laughed back in the late 70's when some people thought they were a Punk band...:heheh:...Geek rock that about sums them up. I had all of their records up to Heartbeat City but that is where I stopped.

I always considered them New Wave, and I believe they were the most popular and commercially successful American NW band of their time, outselling both Blondie and Talking Heads.

My ultimate favorite album will always be "Panorama", with the debut "The Cars" a close second. Also for those people that think the Cars only wrote catchy pop songs Panorama is a good album to show them that they were capable of being quite experimental with their sound.



418ZT29HRML._SL500_AA300_.jpg
 

Soot and Stars

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Re: The Cars

I agree, they're great! Back in the late 70's we were getting tired of the Doobies
and Foreigner and Kansas. My Boston album was worn out! And along came The Cars. A complete new sound. We called it "new wave" rock. Then in 81' came MTV and my music listening changed with the times. The old albums weren't played much and I started buying music from The Cars, The Tubes, Tommy Tutone and the like. I believe The Cars were the first group to change it all for me. toolman

Nice! :grinthumb In my case, because of my age they were less of an influence on my music choices. Instead, they influenced the artist I listen to and my situation was more of a tracing back because they were being paid tribute to by these artist. I think it's great when new and old bands build a bridge like that so younger listeners get some history! :grinthumb
 

Soot and Stars

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Re: The Cars

I really liked the Cars alot, we all laughed back in the late 70's when some people thought they were a Punk band...:heheh:...Geek rock that about sums them up. I had all of their records up to Heartbeat City but that is where I stopped.

I always considered them New Wave, and I believe they were the most popular and commercially successful American NW band of their time, outselling both Blondie and Talking Heads.

My ultimate favorite album will always be "Panorama", with the debut "The Cars" a close second. Also for those people that think the Cars only wrote catchy pop songs Panorama is a good album to show them that they were capable of being quite experimental with their sound.



418ZT29HRML._SL500_AA300_.jpg

That is different from what I've heard! Cool! I'm learning more already! :grinthumb
 

LG

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Re: The Cars

Here's a completely different song from Panorama Bry.



They didn't have a hit single off this album but it was still very successful for the band.

One other note, I saw them live after Shake It Up was released, but it was one of the most boring concerts I ever attended. Seriously if it wasn't for Benjamin Orr and Greg Hawkes it would have been a total write off, Ric Ocasek looked totally indifferent about the whole show, seeing there were 20,000 of us expecting to be blown away everyone was disappointed afterward.
 
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Magic

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Re: The Cars

The Cars......was and still is one of my favorite bands. They were one of the first bands to begin using synthesizers in their music, which took the sound to a whole new level.

I would disagree with you on The Cars biggest years in music, they were pretty dang popular in the late 70's, everyone just loved 'em :D

I have all their CD's up to Heartbeat City. They sorta lost me with this release and their last release, Door to Door.

By far, the greatest album for me is the Debut. The song "Moving in Stereo" did some weird things to my mind at times ;)

The_Cars_-_The_Cars.jpg




This song was written by the band's keyboardist, Greg Hawkes, and truly highlights his skills with the keyboard. BTW, Hawkes is a multi-instrumentalist. He plays a mean Flute and Sax, too

Another song that uses some of Hawkes talents on the keyboard, using one of the first synth keyboards, the Prophet-5, Off the Candy-0 album:



Did I mention that Hawkes is a multi-instrumentalist. Well he has been working solo and is playing the Ukulele. I am posting this because I want you to see how OLD he is now, and how comical this ukulele stuff is:

Best Friend's Girl (Greg Hawkes on Ukulele)
 

Hepcat

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Re: The Cars

The Cars sound great in stereo! And "Moving in Stereo" is my favourite number by the Cars!



:rock:
 
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0000

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Re: The Cars

I Loooooooooooooooove the Cars

some of you may know that "My Best Friend's Girl" is one of my favorites, I could listen to that and Take It Easy back to back for days on end....

so,

favorite albums are "The Cars'' and "Candy-O"
I don't like Door to Door or Panorama very much
 

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