The Cars
The Cars were an American rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), and David Robinson (drums). Ocasek and Orr shared lead vocals, and Ocasek was the band's principal songwriter and leader.
This article is about the band. For similar titles, see Car (disambiguation).
The Cars
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
- 1976–1988
- 2000
- 2010–2011
- 2018[1]
The Cars were at the forefront of the merger of 1970s guitar-oriented rock with the new synthesizer-oriented pop that became popular in the early 1980s. Robert Palmer, music critic for The New York Times and Rolling Stone, described the Cars' musical style: "They have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends—punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures of art rock, the '50s rockabilly revival and the melodious terseness of power pop—and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend."[2]
The Cars were named Best New Artist in the 1978 Rolling Stone Readers' Poll. The band's debut album, The Cars, sold six million copies and appeared on the Billboard 200 album chart for 139 weeks. The Cars had four Top 10 hits: "Shake It Up" (1981), "You Might Think" (1984), "Drive" (1984), and "Tonight She Comes" (1985). The band won Video of the Year for "You Might Think" at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984.
The Cars disbanded in 1988.[3] Orr died in 2000 from pancreatic cancer. In 2007, Easton and Hawkes joined Todd Rundgren and others to form the offshoot band The New Cars. The surviving original members of the Cars reunited in 2010 to record the band's seventh and final album, Move Like This, which was released in May 2011.[4] Following a short tour in support of Move Like This, the band once again went on hiatus. In April 2018, the Cars were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and reunited to perform at the induction ceremony.[1] It was the band's final performance with Ocasek, who died on September 15, 2019, of cardiovascular disease.[5]
History[edit]
Early years[edit]
Before forming the Cars, members of the band performed together in several different groups. Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr met in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1960s after Ocasek saw Orr performing with his band the Grasshoppers on the Big 5 Show, a local musical variety program. The two were members of various bands in Columbus, Ohio and Ann Arbor, Michigan before moving to Boston in the early 1970s. In Boston, Ocasek and Orr, along with lead guitarist Jas Goodkind, formed a Crosby, Stills and Nash-style folk rock band called Milkwood. In 1972, they released an album titled How's the Weather through Paramount Records that failed to chart.
After Milkwood, Ocasek and Orr formed the group Richard and the Rabbits, a name suggested by Jonathan Richman. The band included Greg Hawkes, who had studied at the Berklee School of Music and had played saxophone on Milkwood's album. Hawkes left to tour with Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture, a musical comedy act in which Mull played a variety of instruments. Ocasek and Orr then performed as an acoustic duo called Ocasek and Orr at the Idler Coffeehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some of the songs that they played became early Cars songs.
Ocasek and Orr later teamed with guitarist Elliot Easton (who had also studied at Berklee) in the band Cap'n Swing. The band also featured drummer Glenn Evans, later followed by Kevin Robichaud, and a jazzy bass player, which clashed with Ocasek's preference for a rock-and-roll sound. Orr was the lead vocalist and did not play an instrument. Cap'n Swing soon came to the attention of WBCN disc jockey Maxanne Sartori, who began playing songs from their demo tape on her show.
After being rejected by several record labels, Ocasek fired the bass player, keyboardist and drummer and resolved to form a band that better fit his style of writing. Orr took bass guitar and Robichaud was replaced by David Robinson, best known for his career with the Modern Lovers and DMZ. Robinson, whose sense of fashion exerted a strong influence on the band's image, suggested the band's new name, the Cars. The band was formed in 1976.[6]
Rise in popularity, The Cars, and Candy-O (1976–1979)[edit]
After a warmup gig in a motel lounge outside of Boston, the Cars played their official first show at Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire a short time later on December 31, 1976.
Cap'n Swing's keyboardist Danny Schliftman (later to join Gov't Mule under the name Danny Louis) played with the Cars for their first several gigs until Greg Hawkes was free to join in February 1977.[7]
The Cars spent early 1977 playing throughout New England, developing the songs that appeared on their debut album. A nine-song demo tape was recorded in early 1977 and soon "Just What I Needed" was receiving heavy airplay on Boston radio stations WBCN and WCOZ.[8] The band was offered record deals by Arista Records and Elektra Records and signed with Elektra, a label with comparatively fewer new-wave acts.[9] The band's debut album The Cars was released in June 1978, reaching No. 18 on the Billboard 200.[10] "Just What I Needed" was released as the debut single from the album, followed by "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Good Times Roll", all three charting on the Billboard Hot 100. The album featured multiple album tracks that received substantial airplay such as "You're All I've Got Tonight", "Bye Bye Love" and "Moving in Stereo".
The band's second album, Candy-O, was released in June 1979 and eclipsed the success of The Cars, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 album chart, 15 spots higher than the debut album. Featuring a cover created by the famed Playboy artist Alberto Vargas, the album featured the band's first top-20 single "Let's Go". Singles "It's All I Can Do" and "Double Life" were also released, but with less success.
Change in sound, Panorama, and Shake It Up (1980–1983)[edit]
Following the success of Candy-O, the band's third studio album Panorama was released in 1980. The album was considered more experimental than its predecessors and featured only one top-40 hit, "Touch and Go". Although the album peaked at No. 5 in the U.S., it did not receive the critical praise of The Cars and Candy-O, with Rolling Stone describing the album as "an out-and-out drag."
In 1981, the Cars purchased Intermedia Studios in Boston, renaming it Syncro Sound.[11] The only Cars album recorded there was the band's fourth album Shake It Up, a more commercial album than Panorama. It was the band's first album to spawn a top-10 single with the title track, and it included another hit in "Since You're Gone". Following their 1982 tour, the Cars took a two-year break and the members worked on solo projects, with Ocasek and Hawkes both releasing debut albums (Beatitude and Niagara Falls, respectively).
Musical style[edit]
The Cars' music has been described as new wave,[25] pop rock[26][27][28] and power pop,[29] and is influenced by proto-punk, garage rock and bubblegum pop.[25] They have also used rockabilly in songs such as "My Best Friend's Girl".[30] Critic Robert Palmer wrote that the Cars "have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends—punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures of art rock, the 1950s rockabilly revival and the melodious terseness of power pop—and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend."[2]
Timeline
