 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "The Cars" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(September 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
The Cars | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Boston,Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Years active |
|
| Labels | |
| Spinoffs | The New Cars |
| Spinoff of | Cap'n Swing |
| Past members | |
| Website | thecars |
The Cars were an Americanrock band formed inBoston in 1976. Emerging from thenew wavescene in the late 1970s, they consisted ofRic Ocasek (rhythm guitar),Benjamin Orr (bass guitar),Elliot Easton (lead guitar),Greg Hawkes (keyboards), andDavid Robinson (drums). Ocasek and Orr shared lead vocals, and Ocasek was the band's principal songwriter and leader.
The Cars were at the forefront of the merger of 1970s guitar-oriented rock with the newsynthesizer-oriented pop that became popular in the early 1980s. Music criticRobert Palmer ofThe New York Times andRolling Stone wrote that the band's musical style, "...have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends—punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures ofart rock, the '50srockabilly revival and the melodious terseness ofpower pop—and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend".
In 1978, the Cars were named "Best New Artist" in the readers' poll conducted byRolling Stone. The band's debut album,The Cars, sold six million copies and appeared on theBillboard 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 wonVideo of the Year for "You Might Think" at the firstMTV Video Music Awards in 1984.
The Cars disbanded in 1988. During this first hiatus, Orr died ofpancreatic cancer in 2000. In 2007, Easton and Hawkes joinedTodd Rundgren and others to form the offshoot bandThe New Cars. The surviving original members of the Cars reunited to record the band's seventh and final album,Move Like This (2011)toured in support of the album, and once again went on hiatus. In April 2018, the Cars were inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the band reunited to perform at the induction ceremony. This became the band's final performance before Ocasek's death the following year.
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 onThe 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 aCrosby, Stills and Nash-style folk rock band called Milkwood. In 1972 they released an album titledHow's the Weather throughParamount Records that failed to chart.
After Milkwood, Ocasek and Orr formed the group Richard and the Rabbits, a name suggested byJonathan Richman. The band included Greg Hawkes, who had studied at theBerklee School of Music and had played saxophone on Milkwood's album. Hawkes left to tour withMartin 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 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, Danny Schliftman on keyboard, and Todd Roberto on bass, whose jazzy playing 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 ofWBCN disc jockey Maxanne Sartori, who began playing songs from their demo tape on her show.[2]
After being rejected by several record labels, Ocasek fired the bass player, keyboardist and drummer and resolved to form a band better fitting his style of writing. Orr took bass guitar and Robichaud was replaced byDavid Robinson, best known for his career withthe Modern Lovers andDMZ. 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.[3]
After a warmup gig in a motel lounge outside ofBoston, the Cars played their official first show atPease Air Force Base inNew Hampshire on December 31, 1976.
Cap'n Swing's keyboardist Danny Schliftman (later to joinGov'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.[2]
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 andWCOZ.[4] The band was offered record deals byArista Records andElektra Records and finally signed with famedA&R executiveGeorge Daly to Elektra-Asylum, a label with comparatively fewer new-wave acts.[5][6] The band's debut albumThe Cars was released in June 1978, reaching No.18 on theBillboard 200.[7] "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 theBillboard 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 ofThe Cars, peaking at No. 3 on theBillboard 200 album chart, 15 spots higher than the debut album. Featuring a cover created by the famedPlayboy artistAlberto 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.
Following the success ofCandy-O, the band's third studio albumPanorama was released in August 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 ofThe Cars andCandy-O, withRolling Stone describing the album as "an out-and-out drag."
In 1981 the Cars purchased Intermedia Studios in Boston, renaming itSyncro Sound.[8] The only Cars album recorded there was the band's fourth albumShake It Up, a more commercial album thanPanorama. It was the band's first album to spawn a top-10 single withthe 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 andNiagara Falls, respectively).
.jpg)
The Cars reunited and released their most successful album,Heartbeat City, in March 1984. The first single, "You Might Think", helped the Cars winVideo of the Year at the firstMTV Video Music Awards. Other hit singles from the album included "Magic", "Hello Again" and "Why Can't I Have You". "Drive", with Orr on lead vocals, gained notoriety when it was used in a video about theEthiopian famine shown at the 1985Live Aid concert atWembley Stadium in London,[9] although the Cars performed at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia. The song became the band's most successful single, reaching No. 3 on theBillboard Hot 100. Actor/directorTimothy Hutton directed the song's music video.
The band's 1985Greatest Hits compilation included another hit single, "Tonight She Comes", which peaked at No. 7 hit on theBillboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on theBillboardTop Rock Tracks chart. In 1987, the Cars released their sixth album,Door to Door. It contained their last major international hit "You Are the Girl", but the album failed to approach the success of their previous albums. The group announced their breakup in February 1988.[9][10]
Orr died frompancreatic cancer at age 53 on October 3, 2000.[11]
In 2008, the band's first album was released for the video gameRock Band.[12]
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
In 2010, the surviving founding members of the Cars suggested a reunion when Ocasek, Easton, Hawkes and Robinson placed a photo of the four members together, taken at Millbrook Sound Studios, on their Facebook page.[13] On October 13, they also posted a snippet of a new song titled "Blue Tip". A picture ofJacknife Lee in the studio was posted, hinting that he would produce the new album.[14][better source needed]
In October,Billboard reported that the Cars were recording a new album at veteran engineer Paul Orofino's studio in Millbrook, New York. A music clip of the new song "Sad Song" was added to the band's Facebook page on December 7, 2010. A clip of a song titled "Free" was shared on January 1, 2011. The official debut video for "Blue Tip" was released on February 17. The video features the members of the band and New York-based street artist Joe Iurato. The surviving Cars agreed to not replace Orr, so Hawkes and Lee handled all of the bass parts.[15]
The new album,Move Like This,[16] was released on May 10 byHear Music/Concord Music Group, debuting at No. 7 onBillboard's album chart. It featured 10 songs in under 40 minutes.[17] "Sad Song" was released to radio stations on March 1 as the album's first single.[18][19] In May 2011, the Cars embarked on aten-city tour of the United States and Canada[20] and also performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago in August. On the tour, Orr's bass parts were performed by Hawkes on keyboard and bass, and the vocals for songs originally sung by Orr ("Just What I Needed", "Let's Go" and "Moving in Stereo") were performed by Ocasek. In an interview, Ocasek was asked whether the band would have reunited if Orr had still been alive, responding: "Ben and I had a real cold war going that lasted about 23 years. I could never really figure out exactly why, but I think there was a lot of jealousy because I wrote the songs and I got a lot of attention. And there was all kinds of weird stuff, like he said, 'My girlfriend writes songs, let's use one of those or two of those.' I said, 'No, that's not the Cars.'"[21]
The Cars once again became inactive after the tour's conclusion in 2011.[citation needed]
After seven years of inactivity, the group reconvened, along withWeezer'sScott Shriner on bass, to play a four-song set at their 2018 induction into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame.[22][1] The band played "You Might Think" (which Weezer covered for theCars 2 soundtrack), "My Best Friend's Girl", "Moving in Stereo" and "Just What I Needed." They were introduced byKillers frontmanBrandon Flowers.
On September 15, 2019, Ocasek was found dead of natural causes at his New York home at the age of 75.[23][24]
The Cars' music has been described asnew wave,[25][26]power pop,[27][26]pop rock[28] andsynth-rock,[26] and is influenced byproto-punk,garage rock andbubblegum.[25] They have also usedrockabilly in songs such as "My Best Friend's Girl".[29] CriticRobert Palmer wrote that the Cars "have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends—punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures ofart rock, the 1950s rockabilly revival and the melodious terseness ofpower pop—and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend."[30]
| Studio albums | |
|---|---|
| Compilation albums | |
| Singles |
|
| Other songs | |
| Concert tours | |
| Related articles | |
| The New Cars | |
