If you had never heard of Ric Ocasek and The Cars prior to 1984,<\/p>\n
Heartbeat City<\/i> and the videos from this album opened your
\neyes really quick.<\/p>\n
The Boston band was quickly recognized by a wider base of fans
\n(thanks in no small part to MTV) for their pop sensibility and
\ncatchy songs. Even fourteen years later,
\nHeartbeat City<\/i> remains an enjoyable, but dated album.<\/p>\n
Ocasek leads the band through ten solid numbers, ranging from
\nthe solid rockers (“You Might Think, “Magic”) to the introspective
\nballads (“Why Can’t I Have You”, “Drive” – featuring vocals from
\nBenjamin Orr), all the while keeping their same level of balance on
\nall the tracks. The shift in styles is almost perfect, even
\noccasionally allowing one track to begin seeping onto another as
\nthe latter track ends (e.g.: “Magic” kicking off just as “Looking
\nFor Love” ends).<\/p>\n
Listening to this album again, the one thing about The Cars that
\nsounds dated on
\nHeartbeat City<\/i> is the use of (oh, my God) electronic drums.
\nWhile this was all the rage in the ’80s, nothing – I repeat,
\nnothing – takes the place of the real thing when it comes to the
\nskins.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, many of the hits still sound as good today as they
\ndid back then. “You Might Think” will always be a killer track (and
\nis one that I wish someone I know would take a close listen to –
\nmight explain some things), while “Magic” is an enjoyable little
\nditty (even if you don’t see the Christ-like images of Ocasek
\nwalking on water without the TV in front of you). I never was a fan
\nof “Drive,” though I can appreciate it without it being hammered
\ninto my head all the time (peaking at number 3, it was the highest
\ncharting single for The Cars). Two other minor singles, “Hello
\nAgain” and “Why Can’t I Be You,” are still fresh.<\/p>\n
The non-single tracks sometimes show why they weren’t selected –
\nfor example, I just can’t get into “I Refuse” or the title track.
\nOther songs, like “Looking For Love,” could have been contenders
\nfor singles, and one wonders why they never made the cut.<\/p>\n
You can criticize the ’80s for many things, but
\nHeartbeat City<\/i> isn’t one of them. If there’s any one Cars
\nalbum to own, this probably is the one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5637],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39168","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-cars","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39168"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}