The Cars: The Cars

The Cars: The Cars

1978

Elektra Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl and Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Good Times Roll  2. My Best Friend's Girl  3. Just What I Needed  4. I'm in Touch with Your World  5. Don't Cha Stop  6. You're All I've Got Tonight  7. Bye Bye Love  8. Moving in Stereo  9. All Mixed Up


The 1978 debut album by the Cars...

Damn, almost every single song on here is an FM staple...There are only two on here that I've never heard on the radio... "I'm In Touch With Your World" and "All Mixed Up." "I'm in Touch With Your World" often gets dismissed as an indulgent avant garde experiment, but to me it just sounds like another pop song...That could be because I've spent the better part of September listening to almost nothing but Can and Captain Beefheart...

"All Mixed Up" sounds almost proggy to me...It's interesting in that people tend to think of the Cars as a New-Wave band, but how many other New Wave albums get any classic rock airplay? This song makes it clear that this record was just as much related to Styx and Journey as it was to  Devo and Gary Numan...

This holds up well for an album that's been so overplayed...In the past 10 years, how many times have I played my copy of Led Zeppelin 4? Uhhh....zero times...What about "Back in Black"? Not counting the multiple listens I subjected myself to for the blog entry earlier this year...One time. "Paranoid." Zero. But I play this Cars album a couple times a year...It still maintains it's freshness...The vintage keyboard sounds, arena rock guitars and breezy choruses give it a casual, catchy quality that I don't get from the other monster 70's albums that dominate radio...

I guess there's no point in rambling endlessly about some album that every single person on planet Earth knows inside and out, so I guess we'll talk about the cover or something...



Oh yea...There's a girl on the cover...Which is the case with most of the band's albums...I can always remember looking at this cover as a kid (by the way...this is one of the oldest albums I own...) and the model clutching that clear steering wheel always seemed so bizarre...Her lips were so red and her smile was so big...It kind of reminded me of the Joker...

Apparently, she was a Russian model named Natalya Medvedeva who tragically died young...Man, I'm kind of sorry I looked that up...This blog is turning out to be a bit of a boner-killer...Let's check out the inside cover, maybe there's something in there that might cheer me up....

Ha ha! Look at Greg Hawkes' photo with the mustache and the big sunglasses! Okay, I'm feeling better now...Oh, yea...For some reason whenever I look at the third picture in the third row all I can see is Cyclops from the X-Men...Do you guys see it too? What is it?

Yecchh...I feel this blog is getting away from me today...Let's wrap this up by looking at some Cars.

This is a car...



So is this...

This is Vikki Carr...

...And this is "I'm In Touch With Your World" by the Cars...Enjoy...