The Cars - Shake It Up
#541
November 6 1981
By Lori Alley
The Cars
Shake It Up
Genre: New Wave
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Rating 3 ish out of 5
Highlights:
Since You’re Gone
I’m Not the One
A Dream Away
Clunker: Cruiser
I’m kind of bossy so I’m going to tell you the optimum way to fall in love with this album: Imagine you’re in the fall of your senior year, and you’ve pretty much had just about enough of high school, and your damn parents. You might spend most mornings trying to decide what to wear (while listening to the The Cars on vinyl) and lamenting the fact that nothing looks very good because your thighs are just WRONG (did I HAVE to eat the whole bag of salt n’ vinegar chips? And what’s that on my face????). Your uncle went to Florida on vacation and he left his beater shift stick Subaru in your driveway. Yeah, it has a cassette player. Yeah, you can’t really drive a stick shift. But there’s NO WAY you can handle taking the bus again. You choose, maybe Bowie, no….Shake It Up for the cassette player and head off to school, stripping the gears in this car and starting to feel better since, hey, it’s THE CARS AND YOU’RE DRIVING YOURSELF TO SCHOOL!!!!! Once you pull into the high school parking lot, you’re feeling better than your usual low-grade moderate depression that nobody ever really notices and head into Algebra class with Since You’re Gone in your head.
I mean, that’s not the ONLY way to listen but I recommend it because I’m listening to it now and it doesn’t quite have the same punch. STILL! What was it about The Cars that was so appealing back then? Honestly, I’d like to write them a love letter, they way you might to your first love who sort of just faded away. “Dear The Cars, thanks for all of the memories. You were more important to me than you know.” Something like that. I think this is the answer: They manage to make catchy love songs sound somehow dark, dour, dangerous. Look, you wouldn’t think a song called “Shoo Be Doo” (from Candy-O) would sound foreboding, but you’d be wrong. That’s quite an appeal for a teenager, this is music that was edgy for it’s time, it had a new dark, VERY DREAMY sound but the lyrics and the romance and the catchiness of the hook combined for something that was really upbeat at the same time. Just like teenager-ness feels. When one Cars song has a dirgelike beginning, don’t give up! Before you know it there’s a super catchy fun turnaround of attitude and all of a sudden it’s fun! Want to dance? It’s like they say about the weather in Maine, “if you don’t like it just wait a few minutes.” ( A Dream Away is a great example of this).
This album seems like it might be a contract obligation, although I can’t prove this. It’s produced by the ultra-prolific Roy Thomas Baker (no, not the guy in Hud). He practically produced every single album in the world. Okay, that’s an exaggeration but from Cheap Trick to Devo, he’s your guy. It’s the 4th studio album and doesn’t really have the energy of the first two. It’s ALMOST lounge -esque. But that’s okay, they didn’t sell their souls or anything. The radio hit was of course, Shake It Up with the unfortunate choice of Cruiser for the B side. Was this a cry for help? Why do they always do that??????
No matter what you think of The Cars you have to admit they were the essential 80’s band. They had the look, the dark guy (Ocasek who marries the beautiful model), the blonde guy (Orr) and the nerdy guy (Elliot something…) . Hey, wait a minute, am I describing Wayne’s World? To sum this album up, it’s well produced, great lyrics, songs all together so-so. Some gems in the mix, mostly parts of songs that are good. I wouldn’t say this is their most consistent album, but I still consider it good driving music- not too challenging, not too distracting but interesting enough. And with all the choices out there, I guess that’s saying something.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4lDlCfyIhAXwP3hO2GVUaw?si=q71w6OBIScuOEUhzu4U1Yg
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