{"id":30413,"date":"2026-02-09T05:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T10:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30413"},"modified":"2025-11-18T14:02:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:02:53","slug":"take-five-classics-from-the-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/09\/take-five-classics-from-the-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Classics from The Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Cars were at the forefront of the American new wave movement. Debuting in 1978, the Boston-based group combined the best qualities of power pop, stripped-down rock and intelligent use of synthesizers for a winning style that earned the band more than a dozen Top 40 hits and five multi-Platinum albums in the U.S. as well as significant chart success abroad. The band broke up in 1988, but reunited twice: once in 2011 for a reunion album (the well-received <em>Move Like This<\/em>) and tour, and again briefly in 2018 for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Neither of those reunions included bassist\/vocalist Benjamin Orr, who died in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>The Cars\u2019 legacy is well established and enduring ; while leader Ric Ocasek died in 2019, recent news comes that a cache of songs written but never completed will now form the basis of a new Cars release; that project is slated to include the three surviving members of the group: lead guitarist Elliot Easton, drummer David Robinson and keyboardist Greg Hawkes. In honor of the 40 year anniversary of the release of <em>The Cars Greatest Hits<\/em>, here are five standout tracks (and hit singles) from the band.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cJust What I Needed\u201d from <em>The Cars<\/em> (1978)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Cars roared out of the gate with their self-titled debut album. Released in June \u201878, <em>The Cars<\/em> spawned no less than five hits, reaching No. 18 on <em>Billboard<\/em>\u2019s album chart and eventually earning the 6x Platinum designation. Sung by Ben Orr and an exemplar of the band\u2019s style, \u201cJust What I Needed\u201d is a taut, catchy single that established the band\u2019s signature sound.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TB4gJ7shVD0?si=CS4aD_5XjMDMjMtJ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cLet\u2019s Go\u201d from <em>Candy-O<\/em> (1979)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Cars deftly dodged to so-called \u201csophomore slump\u201d with their second album,<em> Candy-O<\/em>. The 1979 album yielded three songs, two of which charted. The album\u2019s centerpiece is the propulsive \u201cLet\u2019s Go.\u201d Like \u201cJust What I Needed\u201d \u2013 and many Cars hits \u2013 the song was written by Ocasek but featured lead vocals from Orr. \u201cLet\u2019s Go\u201d hit No. 14 on <em>Billboard<\/em>\u2019s chart.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eo683EaXFEg?si=ChETt-avK9IV9nw2\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cTouch and Go\u201d from <em>Panorama<\/em> (1980)<\/strong><br \/>\n1980\u2019s <em>Panorama<\/em> featured a darker sound, and the album was met with more muted commercial success than its predecessors. But in The Cars\u2019 world muted success still meant a Platinum record and a Top 40 single in \u201cTouch and Go,\u201d composed and sung by Ric Ocasek. The record\u2019s two other singles failed to chart, but bigger success was just around the corner.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L7Gpr_Auz8Y?si=JCBLxZz3MjECNIXS\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cShake it Up\u201d from <em>Shake It Up<\/em> (1981)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Shake it Up<\/em> was a major breakthrough. Without altering their style in any significant way, The Cars placed four of the album\u2019s five singles on the charts. \u201cCruiser,\u201d \u201cSince You\u2019re Gone\u201d and \u201cVictim of Love\u201d all landed on the US Rock singles chart, but the album\u2019s peppy title track soared to the No. 2 spot on that chart, and the No. 4 place on the <em>Billboard<\/em> 200. <em>Shake it Up<\/em> went double Platinum, too.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K3SA5Z-cbC8?si=Y6S_DIeDt5opGXeQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cDrive\u201d from <em>Heartbeat City<\/em> (1984)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe momentum continued with The Cars\u2019 fifth LP, 1984\u2019s <em>Heartbeat City<\/em>. The album eventually went 4x Platinum, with a staggering seven singles released from its ten tracks. The Benjamin Orr-sung ballad \u201cDrive\u201d showed a different side of the band\u2019s musical character, and ended up being The Cars\u2019 most commercially successful song worldwide. \u201cDrive\u201d went Top Ten in more than a dozen countries.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xuZA6qiJVfU?si=5sv6uyElw8SGzmvm\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cars were at the forefront of the American new wave movement. Debuting in 1978, the Boston-based group combined the best qualities of power pop, stripped-down rock and intelligent use [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5811],"class_list":["post-30413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-the-cars","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30415,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30413\/revisions\/30415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}