Review: 'The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told'

The Cars were one of the few bands who arrived fully, 100% formed on their first album. The Cars was so confident, perfectly constructed, and jammed with iconic songs that I wrote that it might as well have been called "The Cars Greatest Hits" in my book 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute. I thought I was mildly clever for that.  Except, I wasn't the first person to make that observation (it was something the band themselves often said), as I learned while reading Bill Janovitz's much better book, The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told.

Farewell, Ric Ocasek

At a time when The Cure and Devo were still a wee too weird for audiences of cheerleaders and jocks, The Cars were tuneful and non-threatening enough to drag the New Wave into the mainstream. This does not mean they skimped on the oddness. Mixed amongst irresistible pop confections such as "My Best Friend's Girl", "Good Times Roll", "Just What I Needed", and "Let's Go" were quirky numbers like "Shoo Be Doo", "Moving in Stereo", "Candy-O", and "All Mixed Up". Plus, you had Ric Ocasek's disaffected hiccups leading even the catchiest Cars tunes. The guy exuded cool with his shades on a beanpole image, and his knack for writing perfect pop songs makes that first Cars album sound like a proper Greatest Hits comp. 

Ocasek was also an outstanding producer, helming works by an impressive array of artists that include Suicide, Romeo Void, Bad Brains, Weezer (he's behind their career-defining "Blue" album), Bad Religion, Jonathan Richman, and Le Tigre. And I for one will forever insist that he did not help Guided by Voices create a too-slick career misstep when he produced 1999's Do the Collapse; he helped the band make the best album of the 1990s.

Sadly, Ric Ocasek was found dead yesterday in his apartment in NYC. No specific cause of death has been revealed yet. By most accounts, he was 75.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 219

The Date: May 6

The Movie: Over the Edge (1979)

What Is It?: A cult movie for the pimply teen in all of us: a bunch of kids living in a depressing planned community stage a revolution by locking the PTA in their high school and laying siege to the joint. Such a story demands a great Rock & Roll soundtrack and those demands are met by Cheap Trick, The Cars, Van Halen, The Ramones, and Hendrix. Alice Cooper would have been overkill.

Why Today?: Today is No Homework Day.