Panorama

Performer: The Cars
Producer: Roy Thomas Baker
Distributor: (Independently by Label)

Notes: The Cars: Ric Ocasek (vocals, guitar); Ben Orr (vocals, bass); Elliot Easton (guitar, background vocals); Greg Hawkes (keyboards, background vocals); David Robinson (drums, percussion). All tracks have been digitally remastered using HDCD technology. PANORAMA takes the forward-looking electronic soundscapes of CANDY-O and fashions them into driving, catchy pop tunes. Its both the most urgent and the most angular of the Cars' recordings, as the band's self-consciousness modernism works overtime to achieve maximum accessibility. If that sounds like a compromise, think again; "Misfit Kid" and "You Wear Those Eyes" are a couple of the most trenchant compositions in the band's career, and the unrelenting power of the hooks in "Touch and Go" and "Up and Down" blows right by any superficial notions of "selling out" (as if the Cars were ever anything other than a perfect pop conglomerate to begin with).

Debuting in 1978, the Boston-based Cars managed to achieve both massive commercial success and New Wave credibility with their mix of power pop, Roxy Music-influenced art-rock, and melodic synth hooks. Despite his fame, leader Ric Ocasek proved to be a champion of the underground, producing albums by Suicide, Bad Brains, and Peter Dayton (later he produced hit records by Weezer and No Doubt). The band dissolved in the mid-'80s, and hopes of a reunion were complicated when singer/bassist Ben Orr passed away in 2000. Yet in 2005 the remaining members, sans Ocasek, enlisted the talents of pop guru Todd Rundgren and became The New Cars.

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