The Cars | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

With their campy groundbreaking videos and catchy songs, The Cars emerged from the late-1970s/early-1980s New Wave movement to become one of America's best selling musical acts. This Boston band led by Ric Ocasek scored thirteen Billboard Top 40 hits from 1978 to 1987 with thinly-veiled sexual innuendo songs like "Shake It Up," "You Might Think," "Drive," and "Tonight She Comes."

Formed in 1976 out of the ashes of various local Boston bands, including the Jonathan Richman-fronted Modern Lovers, The Cars landed a major label deal with Elektra after a demo of "Just What I Needed" became a hit on local Boston radio stations. The group consisted of Ric Ocasek on vocals and guitar, Ben Orr handling vocals and bass duties, Elliot Easton on guitar, Greg Hawkes playingkeyboards and former Modern Lovers drummer David Robinson behind the drum kit. The Cars' aesthetic jumping-off point fell somewhere between AM radio bubblegum pop, new wave quirkiness, Brian Ferry-esque art-pop, and the bombast of Album Oriented Radio: a combination that appealed to a wide variety of consumers.

Early on, The Cars established themselves as one of the bestselling new wave bands in America. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1978, spawning a number of hit singles, going platinum, and staying in the album charts for two and a half years. They released a string of hit albums, including Candy-O, Panorama, Shake It Up, and Heartbeat City, before they took a two year break starting in 1985 so that Ocasek, Orr, and Easton could record solo albums and pursue other projects (such as Ocasek's appearance in the John Waters film, Hairspray). By the time The Cars regrouped to release 1987's Door to Door, the band had run its course, creatively and commercially. After a tour supporting Door to Door, The Cars broke up in 1988.

Although their pop radio-friendly songs were a major reason for their popularity, The Cars also gained attention with their music videos—something that distinguished the post-MTV era from other periods of popular music. Their most acclaimed video was the Andy Warhol directed "You Might Think," which sported groundbreaking (for the time) computer animation. The success The Cars had with their videos, along with a few other artists that were regularly played on MTV, demonstrated the burgeoning music channel's power as a marketing device.

In addition to his work as the frontman of The Cars, Ric Ocasek produced a number of important underground, avant-garde, and punk bands that didn't sell a lot of records, but which proved extremely influential. Among the most significant Ocasek-produced bands were the Washington D.C. hardcore punk group Bad Brains and the New York City duo, Suicide. Ocasek also produced albums by the commercially successful Romeo Void in the early 1980s and, in 1994, he produced the platinum debut by Weezer. Because of his role as a major contributor to American underground and commercial music, Ric Ocasek had a large number of high-profile fans like Billy Corgan, the leader of 1990s alternative rock icons, Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan paid homage to Ocasek by producing Ocasek's 1997 solo album, Troublizing.

The Trouser Press Guide to New Wave. Ed. Ira A. Robbins. New York, Scribners, 1983.

Heylin, Clinton. From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World. New York, Penguin, 1993.

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