417. The Cars - The Cars (1978)

















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

Review

The Cars do something new here, until this album there were two worlds, the world of adult oriented rock, like Boston of Chicago and the world of punk and New Wave and all those people who used to hang around CBGB's like Blondie and The Ramones. Ric Ocasek actually quite successfully merges both into something which is pretty great.

If all you know of the cars is their greatest hit Drive, then you should really burn that album and put this in its place. Of course this album opens the door to many, many crimes of the 80's, but it is also pretty good in itself.

It is pretty rare to find an album which manages to define the whole following decade in its tracks, but this is it. Developing this leads to most of the synth-pop and rock of the decade to come, and I was brought up on that.

And then near the end of the album there is that track, Moving In Stereo...a track that evokes Phoebe Cates' breasts in Fast Times At Ridgemont High each and every single time I hear it... and how can that not be a good thing?

Track Highlights

1. Moving In Stereo
2. My Best Friend's Girl
3. Bye Bye Love
4. All Mixed Up

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Covers


* You're All I've Got Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins on their box set The Aeroplane Flies High.

* "All Mixed Up" by Red House Painters on their album Songs for a Blue Guitar.

* "Just What I Needed" by Replicants, a self titled one-off cover album, which features Paul D'Amour formerly of Tool.

* Nirvana are known to have covered "Moving in Stereo" and "My Best Friend's Girl" at their final show in Germany in 1994. "My Best Friend's Girl" was a regular part of their setlist during the In Utero tour.

* Powerman 5000 featured a cover of "Good Times Roll" on their album Tonight the Stars Revolt!.

* Alkaline Trio featured "Bye Bye Love" on a limited edition vinyl split-LP with The Blue Meanies.


* On MTV New Years Eve 2006, The All-American Rejects and Fall Out Boy teamed up to perform "Good Times Roll".

* Steel Pole Bath Tub did unusual covers of "Just What I Needed," "Good Times Roll," and "My Best Friend's Girl" on their final album Unlistenable. They called the songs "What I Need," "The Good Times Rule," and "My Best Friend's a Girl," respectively.


Moving In Stereo / All Mixed Up: