Can’t somebody sue somebody?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe audience members?\u00c2\u00a0 Like those "American Idol" fans wanting their money back from Clay Aiken for being gay?<\/p>\n
"Good Times Roll" is one of the best album-openers of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 Better than the tracks opening most Stones albums, and they perfected the paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 First it sounded a bit off, but then on subsequent listenings you got into the synthetic drums, the little flourishes, you wanted to hear it AGAIN AND AGAIN!\u00c2\u00a0 Still brings a smile to my face every time I hear it.<\/p>\n
And the Cars’ debut is their best work.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they did that album with Mutt Lange, "Heartbeat City", but although it had hits and sold a zillion copies, it was more about him than them.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the debut that counts.<\/p>\n
The cover was awful.\u00c2\u00a0 In a day when established acts sported serious photos and designs on their albums and the English new wave was full of attitude.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the Cars were AMERICAN!\u00c2\u00a0 And not exactly punk like the Ramones.\u00c2\u00a0 They were just a bit different.\u00c2\u00a0 Taking traditional forms and pushing them.<\/p>\n
In an era when corporate rock was crumbling but still ruled the Cars came in to eclipse the old bands on car radios, at frat parties, instantly the Boston act became part of the fabric of society.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the hit was "Just What I Needed".\u00c2\u00a0 But even track 8, deep in the album, "Bye Bye Love" was infectious.\u00c2\u00a0 And "Moving In Stereo" was just experimental enough, just out there enough, for us to believe the band wasn’t playing it safe, but testing the limits, winking at us with their pop material.<\/p>\n
"Candy-O" was a mediocre remake, with the lovable "Dangerous Type", and then one had to give up.\u00c2\u00a0 "Panorama" sucked and "Shake It Up" had the hit but not much else.\u00c2\u00a0 "Heartbeat City" allowed them to play in the new MTV era, but then it was done.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cars were no longer new, but established.\u00c2\u00a0 And not being able to test the limits and go forward, they ran out of gas.<\/p>\n
One would have expected Ric Ocasek to break through with a solo career.\u00c2\u00a0 But all Ric was too much of a grating thing.\u00c2\u00a0 He needed Ben Orr to balance him, or at least inspire him to write better material.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the rest of the players…well, it was a band, but they didn’t appear to be primary elements, they were part of the mix, and without their leader, they were done.\u00c2\u00a0 Another band bites the dust.\u00c2\u00a0 Leaving our memories intact.<\/p>\n
But then we get this abomination of a reformation.<\/p>\n
Ric, like Robbie Robertson before him, is not participating in the dash for cash.\u00c2\u00a0 One hopes, like Roger Waters, he’ll ultimately reconsider, but for now, the KEY element of the Cars reunion is absent.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s WORSE!\u00c2\u00a0 The other integral element, Ben Orr’s voice…well, that ain’t NEVER coming back, because Ben is DEAD!\u00c2\u00a0 But instead of getting some faceless name to play their parts, they got Todd Rundgren.\u00c2\u00a0 Who is more talented and whose career has had more impact than seemingly every band from Boston ever other than Aerosmith.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like watching Willie Mays play AAA ball.\u00c2\u00a0 Or Pete Rose sign autographs in Vegas.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, Todd needs the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t we take up a collection?\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t we sue someone for ripping him off?\u00c2\u00a0 Where did all the money from producing "We’re An American Band" GO?<\/p>\n
And Todd is a fearless mimic.\u00c2\u00a0 He proved his chops on his own album "Faithful".\u00c2\u00a0 But that was an artistic experiment.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a mercenary effort.\u00c2\u00a0 In the public eye.\u00c2\u00a0 As good an imitator as he is, watching Todd sing Ric Ocasek’s part on last night’s Leno could only make one wince.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the rest of the band, WHO CARES!<\/p>\n
It was like Lou Reed fronting INXS.\u00c2\u00a0 It made one wish every rocker died at age forty, certainly FIFTY, before they lost all their charisma, before they were revealed to be human, before bad business decisions forced them to do shit they’d NEVER have done in their twenties.<\/p>\n
This is a fucked up business.\u00c2\u00a0 Couldn’t SOMEONE say no?\u00c2\u00a0 The agent?\u00c2\u00a0 The talent buyer?\u00c2\u00a0 Does everybody’s legacy have to be dragged through the mud, does the audience no longer count, is everything just grist for the mill, part of the flat affect of America?<\/p>\n
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Can’t somebody sue somebody?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe audience members?\u00c2\u00a0 Like those "American Idol" fans wanting their money back from Clay Aiken for being gay? "Good Times Roll" is one of the best album-openers of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 Better than the tracks opening most Stones albums, and they perfected the paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 First it sounded a bit off, but then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-5K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}