MUSIC MONDAY: The Cars | Self-Titled

Your weekly Spotify embed highlighting a full album worth listening to.

I’m a sucker for click-bait “top ten” and “best” lists and the like — part of the reason I’m posting that kind of stuff here. I can’t think of how many “best debut album” lists I’ve read over the years. Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Band, Van Halen, and Boston spring to mind as showing up on those lists. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t remember The Cars self-titled debut showing up.

But it should, because it’s a pop masterpiece.

The Cars were an amazing amalgamation of styles — part simple garage rock, part 50s rockabilly revival, and a heavy dose of syn power pop. While Ric Ocasek was the bands primary songwriter (and rhythm guitarist) be shared lead vocal duties with bassist Benjamin Orr, giving the album a wonderful diversity, with most songs flowing into each other.

There isn’t a bad song on the album and it easily ranks as a rare “no skip” outing. Two songs (I’m in Touch with Your World and Don’t Cha Stop) aren’t quite as good as the other seven, but that’s because those are pretty much pop perfection.

An amazing album worth a full listen. If you’ve never experienced it that way before, I’m envious.

Enjoy!