The Album Review Club - End of Round #9 Break (page 1904)

journolud said:
Had a first listen just after 6 this morning, probably not the best time as I play it quiet so as not to disturb others in the house. Second listen this afternoon had more impact. Seems the Cars have a very distinctive, to me anyway, chugging sound which can be a bit repetitive but no real complaints about the album so far but nothing standing out either.

Followed it just out of interest with "top tracks" on Spotify, the obvious Just What I Needed, Best Friends Girl, Drive and after a dip with Good Times Roll and Let's Go which struck me as a bit formulaic it was Moving in Stereo which was the b side to Best Friend's Girl and this clarified for me why I wasn't so taken by the greatest hits when I got it. Best Friends Girl is a great pop song but I really liked the b side and was hoping that they had more like that but it seems not.

It's inoffensive stuff and we're not doing bad being two listens in already with most of the week to go so it might well have the chance to become really familiar.

Back to that chugging sound, and absolutely by the by, reminds me of a pretty obscure artist called Moon Martin, recently deceased I believe, who also churned out pretty formulaic stuff but was a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. Anyone heard of him? (Better know for writing Rolene, covered by Mink DeVille and Bad Case of Loving You, covered by Robert Palmer)
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Mink DeVille.Classic single.
 
Bill Walker said:
Not seventies yet.
I was 20 in 1973.
I grew up listening to every Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Neil Young albums as they were released.
I then got seriously into prog. Obsessed really.
Now I'm obsessed with Jazz.
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Not sure why it took me so long to discover Miles Davis , Ron Carter , Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams ( the non Platters variety ) but I realised just how little I knew about music despite having a son in a band and a nephew in a band and learning to play guitar and piano as my mother played in many of the old music halls when you met your life partner in a dance hall until I did.
 
journolud said:
Had a first listen just after 6 this morning, probably not the best time as I play it quiet so as not to disturb others in the house. Second listen this afternoon had more impact. Seems the Cars have a very distinctive, to me anyway, chugging sound which can be a bit repetitive but no real complaints about the album so far but nothing standing out either.

Followed it just out of interest with "top tracks" on Spotify, the obvious Just What I Needed, Best Friends Girl, Drive and after a dip with Good Times Roll and Let's Go which struck me as a bit formulaic it was Moving in Stereo which was the b side to Best Friend's Girl and this clarified for me why I wasn't so taken by the greatest hits when I got it. Best Friends Girl is a great pop song but I really liked the b side and was hoping that they had more like that but it seems not.

It's inoffensive stuff and we're not doing bad being two listens in already with most of the week to go so it might well have the chance to become really familiar.

Back to that chugging sound, and absolutely by the by, reminds me of a pretty obscure artist called Moon Martin, recently deceased I believe, who also churned out pretty formulaic stuff but was a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. Anyone heard of him? (Better know for writing Rolene, covered by Mink DeVille and Bad Case of Loving You, covered by Robert Palmer)
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I know Palmer gets dissed a lot and maybe he deserves it but I love his version of Bad Case of Loving You and a lot of his other stuff.
 
mancity1 said:
Not sure why it took me so long to discover Miles Davis , Ron Carter , Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams ( the non Platters variety ) but I realised just how little I knew about music despite having a son in a band and a nephew in a band and learning to play guitar and piano as my mother played in many of the old music halls when you met your life partner in a dance hall until I did.
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And that's the great thing about these threads -- we are going back over enormous catalogs from talented people over decades and technology allows us to do that and rediscover so many older treasures.

@Bill Walker I hope when you're up you'll consider doing a jazz album you really love. I have three very old friends/roommates from uni who were my musical partners in crime in the 1980s and as a group we had a couple of thousand records and tapes collectively. It's interesting that two of them shortly after college effectively shifted their entire musical focus to jazz and away from rock. In fact my complete collection of New Order vinyls comes from one of them -- I bought them when he was selling his old record collection and buying jazz albums.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
And that's the great thing about these threads -- we are going back over enormous catalogs from talented people over decades and technology allows us to do that and rediscover so many older treasures.

@Bill Walker I hope when you're up you'll consider doing a jazz album you really love. I have three very old friends/roommates from uni who were my musical partners in crime in the 1980s and as a group we had a couple of thousand records and tapes collectively. It's interesting that two of them shortly after college effectively shifted their entire musical focus to jazz and away from rock. In fact my complete collection of New Order vinyls comes from one of them -- I bought them when he was selling his old record collection and buying jazz albums.
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Agreed Fog I didn't even know my nephew was a closet fan of Fountains of Wayne until you gave it to the us.

I have to thank you for that because it gives us another connection we didn't have before.

I hope you grand children if any of them share your diverse love of music can listen and watch the likes of Sammi Davis Junior in your company when you are in your slippers , gown and pipe in tow as then you will dismiss all notion of the myth that is the generation gap (LOL).
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
The Album Review Club – Week #33

The Cars – Candy-O (1979)

Selected by FogBlueInSanFran

View attachment 43623

Well done to @Mancitydoogle -- the animals in my clue are all associated with cars (Mustang, Bee(a)tle, Jaguar), and my selection is The Cars’ second record “Candy-O” from 1979.

This is an album I’ve loved for over 40 years. After the rush I got with Bad//Dreems, I almost changed my selection to something garage-ier (pun intended), but I revisited this album recently and I still enjoy it a lot. So here we go.

To some extent The Cars were the punchier new wave Roxy Music, or maybe The Ramones meet Roxy Music, if Gary Numan was somehow, you know, in The Ramones (and therefore named Gary Ramone).

Unlike most fans I have always thought "Candy-O" is the best of what they had to offer. Most early fans would say their first record is definitive; pop fans would say “Heartbeat City” is. But I like this one because it’s bouncier, rockier, more cynical, has sharper guitar, and keyboard hooks everywhere.

This record takes me back to age 14 when suddenly punk was morphing to new wave and suddenly bleeding into pop and suddenly on the radio. Music was changing fast and everything was on the table, as became apparent in the early 1980s.

Like The Pretenders, The Cars were one of the most influential transitional bands everyone always forgets to cite – at least in the States, they were one of the first tagged with the “new wave” label who broke into pop radio. Surprisingly few followed them at the time, which is one of the reasons they retain their freshness, IMO. No one’s ever really sounded quite like them.

Noted physically-unattractive singer-guitarist geek Ric Ocasek has just as distinctively thin a vocal range as David Byrne without the quirkiness, but a lot of the best songs come from bassist Benjamin Orr (he who wrote and sang their biggest hit “Drive”), and Greg Hawkes’ semi-cheesy keyboards and Elliot Easton’s super-clean guitar all contribute a lot too.

The lyrics are pretty direct – girls screw up guys’ lives, and as nice as we try to be, we all get hammered in the end and they win, and thus men are resigned to a dark obsessiveness. I’d take this theme more seriously if Ocasek hadn’t nabbed Paulina Porizkova, one of THE super-models of the era. Rich rock stars have it tough, eh?

Romantic obsession is where the Bryan Ferry comparisons are pretty apt, though Ferry had (has?) style, while Ocasek decidedly did not. Roxy Music is also much more a collection of crazed genius weirdo musicians than The Cars.

As usual for me when it comes to pop, I like quality and quantity and to love a record I need every song to stand on its own as one that I’d put on shuffle, and to me, this record is chock full of potential singles beyond the three that were released. But one that was deserves special mention.

A long time ago bluemoon had a “perfect song” thread, and I think I offered up Sugar’s “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”, but I am certain I thought through a few Cars songs, especially “It’s All I Can Do” with its clever, wistful lyrics (“One too many times / I twisted the gate / When I was crazy / I thought you were great”), pristine guitar solo and chorus harmony with the organ chords backing up the last stanza and sending the whole tune soaring. I love it.

The opener (“Let’s Go”) is fun, and the two closers are strong, especially “Dangerous Type”. About the only weak spot is “Lust For Kicks.” “Shoo Be Doo” is a little odd (and less than two minutes long), but morphs right into “Candy-O” and “Nightspots”, two completely different songs (one rocks, one bounces) but my favo(u)rite 1-2 punch on the record.

I don’t think The Cars were quite as popular in the UK as the US, but if you don’t know them or aren’t old enough to remember the emergence and confluence of pop and new wave, this record marks a great examination of that crossroads.

Happy listening!
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Love The Cars. Their run from 78 to 84 is excellent. Candy-O not their best, have always preferred the debut and Heartbeat City, but still a very good record. 'Let's Go' is a class opener.
 
mancity1 said:
Agreed Fog I didn't even know my nephew was a closet fan of Fountains of Wayne until you gave it to the us.

I have to thank you for that because it gives us another connection we didn't have before.

I hope you grand children if any of them share your diverse love of music can listen and watch the likes of Sammi Davis Junior in your company when you are in your slippers , gown and pipe in tow as then you will dismiss all notion of the myth that is the generation gap (LOL).
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My 19 yo son has better playlists of sixties and seventies classics, than I do.
 
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