Lucky Town - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Lucky Town - 1992

That's better.

The songs of Lucky Town are much more stripped down, less "produced" and poignant and sharp.
"Better Days" harkens back to "Ain't Got You", the themes of which are both what it's like to be successful and yet that not being the end all be all.
"Local Hero" is apparently about the time he saw a picture of himself in a storefront and went in to buy it only to be told that it was a picture of "local hero".

For my money, the best track on the album, well, one of them, is "If I Should Fall Behind". Which is actually better on the reunion concert video, and always better live, and also became one of my wedding songs.

Lucky Town is the anti Human Touch. Clocking in at just under 40 minutes it's a "record". At a time when every single album was supposed to use as much CD time available, resulting in 65 minute epics of filler, Lucky Town seems like an EP by comparison. 15 years before and 15 years later it would be the acceptable length (again). It's brevity, in comparison to the over worked predecessor, is welcome.

As are the songs. There's nothing "bad" here. When it's good, it's really good. When they aren't, you just move on.

Grade: B-
ASide: Better Days, If I Should Fall Behind
BlindSide: Local Hero, The Big Muddy, Leap of Faith
DownSide:

Human Touch - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Human Touch - 1992

Almost terrible. Not quite but juuuuuuuuust about.

The songs all sound kind of the same, imbued with that early 90's AOR sound.

Some are just dumb. "57 Channels and nothing on", for example. It should come across as some kind of indictment of pop culture and television dependence  but it doesn't. It sounds half written. Like Bruce was watching his tv and said, "Man! We've got, what? 57 channels? And NOTHING'S ON!" and then, he bolts up from the couch and pens this ditty, doesn't rewrite it, puts a production sheen on it and, bam, hit record.

Except that it wasn't.

"Loving you is a Man's Job"!?!? Are you kidding me????

And then he pulls out some ancient trope (Etta James had a song like this, I believe) and declares that when he sees the woman he lost with someone else he wishes he was blind. Extreme much? I don't buy it. Hey, Bruce, if you don't wanna see that, just close your eyes. Or man up. Turn the corner. Walk away. Something. Anything.

Human Touch was released at the same time as Lucky Town, because, hell Guns n Roses did that with Use Your Illusion 1 & 2, surely that is the new way to bilk money out of fans. It's a callous record. 50+ minutes of bad, and worse, forgettable, songs.

Grade: D
ASide:
BlindSide: Roll of the Dice
DownSide: Man's Job

Tunnel of Love - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love - 1987

"Ain't Got You". Man. If Bruce was confessional here and there on the last record, this song is the real deal. I don't know who it is he ain't got, but he's out there telling us all he's fucking rich, he's made a fortune but he still aches for the love that has eluded him.
Wow, Bruce. Just...wow.

Tunnel of Love is Bruce's adult record. It's where he really grew up and addressed and merged the dour sadness of, say, Nebraska and parts of The River, with a bigger production sound. If his producers had an eye on another 12 million seller, it sure doesn't sound like Bruce was interested in giving it to them. This is a big, anthemic, almost country album. (I see the bolo on the cover, Boss) It's heartland extreme.

And it works some of the time. It's a cold record. A post breakup record by a man looking inside and trying to figure out how to be whole. It's Nebraska on steroids, since he only used the band here and there. This is a man pushing 40 who has become some of the characters he's written about.

It's hard for me to love Tunnel of Love, because it's not really my kind of record, it still feels like it's written by and for adults, even though I'm older than Bruce was when he made it. But, I also love it because it brings me back to my first months in Los Angeles and it's like an orphan.

Some songs, like the first and the crackling "Spare Parts", which is a reexamining of the same characters we've heard before, the single mother who was left by an immature sperm donor to fend for herself. But, like I said, it crackles. And the heroine of the song, Janey, might lament her lot in life and try to give up her kid, but she looks at him and finds her hope and plunges on. I have hope for her.
The title track, despite it's deeply ploddy 80's sound, contains not just the most emotionally requesting lyrics since, I dunno, "I Wanna Marry You", but also the best guitar solo on a Springsteen song in a while.
Also, "Two Faces", which contains the same tone of and could be a companion piece to "I'm On Fire", but is a decidedly more honest song.

Other songs, like "Cautious Man" has its roots in Nebraska and, sadly, would be the kind of maudlin storytelling that Bruce would revisit throughout the 90s. And I know you feel guilty and like you're in the wrong relationship, Bruce, but, jeez, leave it off the MOR crap like "Walk Like a Man", with it's obnoxious heavy synths that have me reaching for the ff button.....

The album is good but not great. On first glance it appears to be a sad capstone to the era of Bruce phase 1. But, since he basically jettisoned the E Street Band, using them as special guests or session men here, this is really the beginning of Bruce Phase 2.

It's gonna be a long time in the wilderness.


Grade: B-
ASide: Ain't Got You, Tunnel of Love
BlindSide: Tougher than the Rest, Spare Parts, Two Faces,
DownSide: Cautious Man, Walk Like a Man, When You're Alone You're Alone

Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA - 1984

11 years in the making. Ladies and Gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen, megastar.

The 80s were a time for musical acts that blew up into the stratosphere. Michael Jackson. Madonna. Bruce.

It was the time when Reagan and his ilk tried to commandeer the title track on the merits of the uplifting, bombastic sound and the proto-anthem chrous, without giving one whit about what the song was about, which was in direct contrast to the sound. Did it matter that the deadbeat character, prone to violence, was sent to kill the vietnamese? Nope. He's 'merican. He's a soldier. He was BORN IN THE U.S.A., motherfucker.

As timeless as The River sounds, as immediate while definitively "classic rock" as Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town are, Born in the USA, sounds of its time. It's 80's production, a stadium in the studio, with echoing drums and giant hall sounds, Born now sounds like a relic more than a classic.

Some of the songs don't merit the overproduction. Like, "Glory Days", for instance. And "I'm on Fire". Wrapped up in the radio friendly sounds, the characters that populate these songs are not heroes.
But, those that do deserve the epic sound, like the title track, are a punch in the gut and a fist in the air.

The relationship is crumbling in "I'm Going Down",  but because of the over the top production the song doesn't have the oomph, the power of, say, "The River".  I find myself tapping my feet during a song about a guy whose lover has left him. And the same with "Glory Days". These people are looking at the past through the rosiness of what was once great. Only in the video when Bruce was playing catch with his "son" did you get the sense that there was hope or at least acceptance of his fate. The production, hoever, just makes it a good ol's singalong. It's the "Sherry Darling" of USA. And many of the other songs just sound like hollow sketches, like "Working on the Highway". After a decade of fully realized characters and mindsets, this kind of track just feels like piffle. Like a "The River" leftover.

There's some great stuff here, though. Like the wannabes in "Darlington County" and the reflective, nostalgic love note to youth in the rocking "No Surrender" (one of the most kick ass Side Two openers in Bruce's career).

 Even the ode to his friendship with Steve Van Zandt, "Bobby Jean" is great fun.
And, if you can get past the weird, Cars like arrangement of "Cover Me", it's not bad. Really, though, it sounds like "Shake it Up". With bigger drums. (And it suffers from 80s-ism. It's over at 2:39 mark but goes one for another 40 seconds. This is actually an illness that much of the record suffers from. "Glory Days" being the most egregious offender)

It's quite possible that my appreciate for USA is marred by how ubiquitous it was in 84-85. Just about every song was a single, deserved or not. I'm a big fan of the big hit, "Dancing in the Dark". The production and arrangement ruin the song and it's notorious that it was written because Landau didn't think the album had a hit single, but that's what it's about: Writer's block. Bruce had to write a song. But he ain't got nothing to say. So he said that. And then Roy Bittan and the gang muscled up into something that flew up the charts. And it's Bruce's most blatantly confessional song, maybe ever.

Go figure. The 80s were weird, man.

If it sounds like I don't like the album, that's not true. I'm making the horrible mistake of reviewing the sound and not the mood or the songs. This album has punch. It resonates. It's strong. And, where Nebraska hit the emotional nadir, USA has more in common with The River in that, even when he's talking in the voice of a loser or the downtrodden, he has filled the album with either real hope or contrapuntal "hope". Without the deep emotions of, say, "Independence Day", "Point Blank" or "The River", the album just can't have that seminal timelessness. But, heck, it's pretty damned good for the most part.

Grade: B+
ASide: Born in the USA, Darlington County, Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark
BlindSide: No Surrender, Bobby Jean
DownSide: Downbound Train, I'm on Fire

Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska - 1982

If Darkness of the Edge of down was dark, Nebraska is downright suicidal.
Death is all over this record, a series of 4 track demos Bruce released years before Rivers Cuomo or anyone else would think to do the same. From the Chicken Man who was blown up in "Atlantic City" to the murderous Starkweather inspired serial killer in "Nebraska"to the unemployed robber sentenced to life in "Johnny 99", this album is stark.

The "Mansion on the Hill" is unattainable to these people. The "Highway Patrolman" who lets his criminal brother get away does it because he doesn't see another way and "nothing feels better than blood on blood". The driver who is hoping that the "State Trooper" won't stop him could be the same driver in The River's "Drive All Night".

These are the darkest, coldest songs Bruce will have committed to record yet. Stripped down to him, his guitar and his harmonica, even the cover, with it's vast expanse of nothing stretching out through the windshield of a car headed...nowhere, Nebraska is unexpected.

It's haunting.

It's harrowing.

It kind of amazes. But it doesn't invite repeat listening. The songs are great. Here's a great cover of the last song, "Reason to Believe" by the Beat Farmers, a far more exciting version, in fact.

But their presentation is meant to scare. I think Bruce is mining some deep territory here. The father son relationship isn't just a separation like the one found in "Independence Day". No. This is the aftermath. In "My Father's House" I think we've seen that boy finally come to terms with his dad, come back to look for him, only to find that he's gone. Strangers are living there now.

The windshield may be heading to the unknown and desolate future, but it's really whatever would be found in that rearview mirror that this album is about. It's about the bad shit that has happened to people. People with no future.

Bruce has never sounded so hopeless.

Grade: B+
ASide: Atlantic City, Badlands, Reason to Believe
BlindSide: Johnny 99, Highway Patrolman, Nebraska
DownSide: Nothing is bad....just very very depressing.

The River - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - The River - 1980

Let's just get this out of the way: Gary W. Tallent is the unsung hero of the E Street Band. From the opening "Ties that Bind" all the way through the rest of the record, the dude is center stage and on fire. He makes The River one of the best, if not only, albums that I want to Air Bass to.

Okay.

The River opens like a concert. Four big, brawling rockers in a row. "The Ties that Bind", "Sherry Darling" (Simply one of the most fun and rapacious songs ever, tearing apart a mother in law with glee and abandon), "Jackson Cage" and "Two Hearts". We NEED "Independence Day" just to breath. And, dammit if that song isn't the Field of Dreams of songs. A boy and his father's parting. I am years away from it, and NOT looking forward to it.

And that's side one.

The River is the phoenix from the ashes of Darkness on the Edge of Town. Elegiac and majestic, bombastic and buoyant. With such heaviness that preceded it, The River HAD to be a double album. And it HAD to come fast. I'm not sure, knowing how much Bruce tours, how he managed to get the tracks and band together to record this, but maybe that's the trick: Because this album sounds better than all of his previous. Without giving in to commercialism.

Even though his biggest hit single from it, "Hungry Heart" seems tailor made for 70s rock radio (and it was ubiquitous at the time), he wrote it for The Ramones (!!!) and sang in a way that he almost never would again. With the swinging backup singers and the boardwalk calliope organ of Danny Federici, it's impossible not to tap your feet, feel good and want to go out on a first date down the shore when you hear it.

On The River, Bruce and his team so successfully bridge the 50s doo wop and 60's Spector influences and meld them into Bruce's own epic, stadium ready workaday, blue collar sound that the album is rendered timeless.

Bar band confections like "Crush on You" and "I'm a Rocker" and "Ramrod" and "Cadillac Ranch" are dust bowl singalongs that I just can't resist. I'm moving in my seat as I type. And there's a riff buried in "You Can Look But You Better Not Touch" that Keith Richards would be jealous of.

But it's the ballads that will break your heart. The lonely man, pining for the single mother in "I Wanna Marry You", the hopeless narrator in "The River", (who could, for all intents BE the father in the previous song - has there been a song that cut to the core of dead end life?), The welfare queen in "Point Blank" (who could be the same girl)...these tracks speak to a weary life of the lower than middle class, perhaps the heroes of "Born to Run" looked at through the filter of a harsher reality. It isn't enough to just wanna get out of town and leave a trail of romantic dust. That makes a great shot in the movies. But, afterwards, there's the residue of life. The aftermath. Unwanted children. Trapped marriages. It's not enough to pine after the girl after she's left you. It's the plaintive wail of one who doesn't want to just fade from her memory, her life. (And the damned thing fades out, too! Genius)

Bruce can break your fucking heart.

Look, I can just go on and on, you know? I mean, is there anything more heartbreaking than the narrator admitting that the letters he wrote to the girl made her feel 100 years old on "Stolen Car"? Probably not. Or as harrowing as the nearly torpid "Wreck on the Highway"? Not really.

I hadn't really listened to The River in earnest in a couple decades. I was missing out. Does it all get sort of exhausted by the fourth side? Sure. "The Price You Pay" doesn't cover new ground and you almost don't make it to "Wreck on the Highway" because of the show closing dirge that is "Drive All Night". But, those are transgressions easy to forgive.

Grade: A+
ASide: The Ties that Bind, Sherry Darling, Independence Day, Hungry Heart, Out in the Street, The River,
BlindSide: You Can Look But You Better Not Touch, Crush on You, Point Blank, I'm a Rocker, Fade Away, Stolen Car, Wreck on the Highway
DownSide:

Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town - 1978

How do you market Bruce Springsteen? I guess part of the mission is "get that mug on the cover!"
It doesn't seem to matter that he looks like someone just caught him as he is getting over a cold and is surprised to discover he owns a leather jacket.
Can you guess that I hate this photo?

Darkness came 3 years after Born to Run. In 70's terms that's a lifetime. Today, Pearl Jam takes 4 years to release a record and it's part of the cycle. But music was coming a lot faster in those days. Bruce's first two records were released in the same year. Everyone was spitting out music by the ton.

After legal woes and production concerns, Darkness came out. I listen to it today and I can't quite get past the studio feel of songs that I have come to love in concert like "Badlands" and "Candy's Room" and "Adam Raised a Cain" and yes, oh, yes, "The Promised Land". That's not really fair, though. Bruce got the sound he was looking for. and his Orbisonian obsessions come true on the echo of his vocals.  Just imagine how deep and harrowing "Adam Raised a Cain" would've been if Brendan O'Brien or Bob Rock or any of those early 90s producers had gotten their hand on it.
Damn, I wanna hear Temple of the Dog cover that right now. Or Soundgarden. Right now, dammit.

The album is wetter and danker than Born to Run. It's not as buoyant. It's not supposed to be, though. These aren't "Let's blow this town" stuff. It's heavy. And, if you can just get past Bruce's awful lead soloing, it's majestic.

"Poor men wanna be rich. Rich men wanna be king. And a king ain't satisfied til he rules everything."
Just hearing that lyric makes me wanna stand in a room with 30,000 other people and sing at the top of my lungs.

Darkness is a dark record. It's a bleak record. Bruce seems to really get his juices flowing when either he's unhappy or he's singing about people whose lives could use a little pick me up. He's a shaman for the working class and it's all over DotEoT. What's not on Darkness? The calliope, street vagabond busker feel of Wild, Innocent. Even the hopeful, soulful belief of the narrator in "The Promised Land" is rife with hopelessness. And, boy oh boy, if I never wanted to work in a factory, "Factory" sealed that.

Howzabout this? If The Wild and the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle is Bruce's Unforgettable Fire and Born to Run is his Joshua Tree, then Darkness is his Achtung Baby.

Except that he was doing it more than a decade before, so flip all that shit.


Grade: A+
ASide: Badlands, Candy's Room, The Promised Land, Prove it All Night, Darkness on the Edge of Town
BlindSide: Adam Raised a Cain, Racing in the Street, Street's of Fire
DownSide: Bruce's guitar solos. ;)

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run - 1975

Oh, seriously, what can I say that hasn't been said before?

This album is the culmination of vision, artistry, toil, craft and showmanship. It's the pinnacle. It's one of the greatest albums of all time and there's little more I can say.

So, I won't.

Or should I? This is a Reflecting Pool, after all. I can't remember when I first heard BtR. Greetings was loaned to me by a friend when I was a teenager in Maine and I was astounded by what I heard coming from my shitty little turntable. He also lent me Don McLean's American Pie but I only listened to that once, Greetings was the real discovery.

And WIESS was something I came to much much later. On vinyl, but in my 30s. Cuz I missed it.

Born to Run has just....always been there. It's always been a part of the tapestry of my musical life. Woven in through classic rock and contemporary rock in the 70s and 80s. It's a friend I can visit who always seems fresh and welcoming and never boring or bored.

The life of rock and roll lives in this 40 year old record. For me, at least. I'm sure there are some Beatles fans out there, somewhere.

Grade: A+

ASide: Thunder Road, Born to Run, Jungleland
BlindSide: Everything else if you haven't heard it yet.

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle - 1973

The puzzle isn't complete on WIESS. It's alllllmost there. It'll take another album to fulfill the promise made by marketing execs and Jon Landau.

But, this is a helluva sophomore record.

From the very opening, the lazy horns into the casual, jammy skiffle of E Street Shuffle, Bruce, the song writer, singer and leader is in fantastic form.

The album really shows its teeth on "Kitty's Back". This is where Steel Mill, the roots of Bruce, rear their powerful head. A band, tight and led but loose and comfortable, making unforgettable music. Anyone who wants to hear the earliest big band sounds of a big rock band, need only listen to the end of that song.
And, this is the one with "Rosalita" on it. Need I say more? The album sort of peter's out for me towards the end with the 9 minute New York Serenade. It's not bad, just nowhere near what he was about to come up with.

Springsteen's most experimental moments on future records will be hailed as left turns and an artist growing and trying new things. Feh. He was doing that 41 years ago.

41 years ago. Yikes.

Grade A
ASide: Kitty's Back, 4th of July (Sandy), Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
BlindSide: Wild Billy's Circus Story, Incident on 57th Street
DownSide:

Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ. - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

I didn't know if I would ever get to the big dog. I've been a Bruce fan since 1982, started seeing him in concert the first of 5 times in 2003. Like Rolling Stone I've always found myself being more forgiving of The Boss then i probably should be, since we are both from New Jersey, after all.
But, with the cover/original hybrid of High Hopes arriving this week, I thought, let's jump in.



Bruce Springsteen - Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. - 1973

I've heard that Springsteen wrote much of the tunes on the fly. Rewriting on the bus and so forth. There's so much legend and apocrypha surrounding the Boss it's hard to know what's true and what's not. But, see, even though he's a "man of the people", Bruce has been heavily marketed and branded from the beginning. His savvy on how to sell the Bruce Brand is remarkable. One of the reasons its so incredible is that he's managed to control his image, his sound, how he is perceived and heard without ever leading on that he is doing just that. In every way that he's been able to play the media/public game arena Queen was not. They always came across as corporate. Bruce seemed real.

The jangle guitar/bunch of dudes singing on a doorstoop street poet chaos of "Blinded by the Light" sets the stage. Once you hear it, it's impossible to enjoy Manfred Mann's cover, with it's over the top prog rocky-ness.

It's been written about for decades, but Springsteen's "New Dylan" mantle affects the album in a retrospective way. Turns it into a curio of sorts. Bruce would never wordsmith like this again. And some songs, like "Lost in the Flood" and "Mary, Queen of Arkansas" (shine boy for your acid brat? Yuck) suffer from it, where "Blinded", "Spirits in the Night" and "For You" (My personal favorite Springsteen song) all benefit. Weirdly, one of the best songs on the record, "Does this bus stop at 82nd st?" just feels half done. It doesn't end. It expires. Like he was writing it ON that bus uptown, and got to his stop and just stopped writing words. And yet, it works.

One of the things to love about records was that each side was a little show. We all know how Side 2 of Born to Run ends. The deepest cuts are inside the album. Sometimes the best are the ones closest to the center of the spinner.

Side 1 ends with the first attempt at an epic, "Lost in the Flood." The elements are there. The cars. The characters. It was the time of Mean Streets and street poets and Baretta. If Lost in the Flood feels like the streets of the lower east side it's supposed to. On the other hand, following it with The Angel is interesting. As a Side 2 opener it's terrible. The only salvation is knowing that the one two punch of "For You" and "Spirit in the Night" are next. Played in sequence, the angel could be an extension of the story of "LitF". The latter a macro look and the former a closeup of the story's main character. It works, even though the song is relatively weak and pedestrian.

Greetings is a disjointed album. Because the songs show up in concert often it doesn't sound dated but it's of its time. Vini Lopez's drumming is a treat every single time. He won't last with the band but the short time he was there he made an indelible mark.

Grade: B+
ASide: Blinded by the Light, Lost in the Flood, For You, Spirit in the Night
BlindSide: Does this Bus Stop at 82nd St? It's Hard to be a Saint in the City
DownSide: Mary Queen of Arkansas, The Angel

Bon Jovi - What About Now

Bon Jovi - What About Now - 2013

I know, I know...I never reviewed The Circle. I just couldn't bring myself to find it. To buy it. To borrow it...anything. And, yes, I've had a "Bon Jovi - The Circle" playlist on Spotify for over a year. Sue me.

I will, I promise. (I'm not promising you, whoever you are. It's a promise to myself.)

So, why give this a spin? I have no answer, truly. I'm kind of in the mood for big, dumb stadium rock. And BJ can usually satisfy that need for MOR toe tapping.

From the start, What About Now fulfills my craving. "Because We Can" is as a Jovi-esque opener as I've heard, although as I write this, the title track has come on, the third on the record, and I'm dumbstruck at what I'm hearing: Bon Jovi seems to have listened to Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball a lot this year and decided to just ape it. ("Pictures of You" is a leading offender here) Why not? They're both from Jersey and BJ has never had an original thought. It's not that "What About Now" is bad, per se. It's just something that sounds like it was written by committee. Or a machine. The Bon Jovi-Stadium ready-Rock Song Conveyor belt.
Tracks like "What's Left of Me" has that midtempo Springsteen contrapuntal music to theme ratio. But it works.

 Once you settle into that aesthetic it's easy(er) to accept the record. It's Bon Jovi with a helping of Bon Jovi in a Bon Jovi simmer sauce.
You know what you're getting here. We've been getting it. for 30 years. That said, it's listenable. If you want this stuff. Fortunately, it hit the spot.

Grade: B
ASide: Because We Can, What's Left of Me
BlindSide: Pictures of You, That's What the Water Made Me
DownSide: Room at the End of the World

The Cars - Move Like This

The Cars - Move Like This - 2011

And ironic title, considering that when The Cars played live they were like watching a Disney animatronic band.
Move Like This is exactly what one would expect from The Cars. Driving mid tempo, synth driven songs that could have been recorded in 1983.
Where Door to Door showed a band that was clearly ready to be done, Move is the opposite. There's nothing to lose for the guys. Egos are dispensed with. It's just time to make another, template cut, album.
Some tracks sparkle, "Blue Tip", "Too Late", "Sad Song", and the ballads find their way without being obnoxiously "inventive".
In fact, "Sad Song" is a near perfect rip of "My Best Friend's Girl". Handclaps, driving bass, provided by Jacknife Lee, swirling synths, aural space. It's a welcome old friend. As is "Free", which continues to mine the same Carsian tropes. Considering how often the band has let me down for their love of Ocasek's more experimental, arty pursuits, this is welcome. (Much like the recent Devo reunion album was)

Ocasek actually channels Orr's softer, higher register on "Soon" and, he creates a nice blend of the two of them. It's a sweet and gentle piece that evokes a gentler, less controlling aspect of the band. But it is unfortunate that the most sludgy piece is called "Drag on Forever". Cuz it does. (And it sounds a lot like a Cars version of a Monster-era R.E.M. song.....) As does the middling, "Take Another Look" which is covered in the stench of the 80s, like it's a song desperately seeking a soundtrack over whose credits it's crying to be played.

For the most part, Move Like This fits nicely in the catalog. Not as great as Heartbeat City, Candy-O or The Cars, but so so so much better than Door to Door and superior even to Shake it Up, although without that album's massive single.

Grade: B
ASide: Blue Tip, Sad Song
BlindSide: Soon
DownSide: Drag on Forever, Take Another Look

The New Cars - It's Alive [File Under: The Cars]

The New Cars - It's Alive - 2006

Okay, so this is a one off. But, I had to include it.
First off, Rundgren has Ocasek's nervous, forced, paranoia voice down.
The backing harmonies, spot on.
Easton's Roy Thomas Baker/Brian May inspired solo.....
The pulsating, driving beat...Hawkes' layering synths.....the snarky lyrics......

THIS is what I have been waiting for since Heartbeat City.

I'll leave the live portion of the album to you. I couldn't care less. The three studio tracks are all i cared about.

The New Cars was really just Easton and Hawkes. Prairie Prince of The Tubes played drums. The aforementioned Rundgren on Rhythm and vox.

The irony here is that The Cars, a band I saw perform live at Madison Square Garden in 1980, was one of the most boring live acts EVER. I remember it vividly because there was no reason to see them. They sounded JUST like the album and nobody on stage moved. At MSG! And yet, the record they put out was 3 studio tracks and the rest was a live album. Hilarious.

"Not Tonight" is the lead single. And it's one of my favorite Cars tracks...ever.
"Warm" is the "Drive" of the album. Mediocre but spot on.
"More" is the would-be second single. Fun and stupid. And makes me wish there had been a whole album.

Grade: B+

Ric Ocasek - Nexterday [File Under: The Cars]

Ric Ocasek - Nexterday - 2005

It took about 27 years but Ric Ocasek finally made his dream come true: An album of songs written by him, sung by him, produced by him and, most importantly, featuring instruments played by him. Well, not all. He didn't play bass. And he didn't play guitar on ONE song. Or keys on TWO. And he had help with the rudimentary drum programming. But, hey, this is as close as he's been able to get.

Some of the songs, like "Bottom Dollar" &"Don't Lose Me" would probably actually sound pretty good if they didn't just sound like demos recorded in someone's spare bedroom on a laptop. And there's something so inviting and relaxed about "A Little Bit" that I like. Or maybe I've been beaten down after 2.5 decades of this guy's music.

"Silver" is Ric's song for the late Ben Orr. I've never found Ocasek to be very emotionally engaging. An ominous bass leads off, a two note throb takes over and then...lyrically, knowing what the song is about...it's heart wrenching. "You were my right hand. You were my friend. You were always strong until the end." It's easy to forget that they started the Cars together and had known each other since the early 70s in Boston. They were in a folk band called "Milkwood" who released one record in 1972. Obviously, Orr meant more to Ric than I ever imagined. Right up to the end. "You were my good time. You were my rave. You're the one that always set the stage......"
Devastating.

Nexterday demands very little from the listener. It's easy and comfortable, like an old slipper. Ocasek is a rich, elder statesman rock star with children and a wife and none of the trappings. So, he's got no one to impress, he just wants to make music. And that's what he does.

Grade: B-
ASide: Bottom Dollar, Silver
BlindSide: Don't Lose Me
DownSide: I'm Thinking

Ric Ocasek - Troublizing [File Under: The Cars]

Ric Ocasek - Troublizing - 1997

four tracks produced by....

Billy Corgan?

Really?

The first thing I noticed on the very first track is that this sounds like a heavy, 90s era Cars tribute band. "The Next Right Moment" would have fit perfectly on Shake it Up, albeit without the gritty, fuzzboxed guitars. It doesn't take too long, the next song, "Hang On Tight", actually, to get back to that minimalist Cars basics, but something else happens between the notes: Edge. With that bass pushed way up front and the floating guitar/key work dancing in the background, Ocasek's voice and paranoiac sound is given time to shine. The same happens later on the fun but slightly pedestrian "Not Shocked".
I think the heart of the album is the title track. A creeping and moody piece that, put in a minor key, might have appealed to Black Album era Metallica. Then again, maybe not. But, when the guitars and drums and, well, real instruments don't just take backseat on an Ocasek track but, rather, sit side by side and flesh out the song together, you know Ric has had a change of his synth-loving heart. Perhaps Weezer's influence was showing. After all, this album comes out 3 years after he produced the blue album and brought that band it's first success, galvanizing and helping shape the burgeoning Alternative movement. So, it's not really a surprise that "Situation" sounds like an outtake from the Brian Bell chord progression songbook.
Of course, the beat poet in Ocasek can't just stop himself and rears his ugly head on the Cormac McCarthy world "Society Trance", which is just...ugly.
Just as weird, the last track, "Asia Minor" is not by Ric, rather it was written by Billy Corgan. So...Smashing Pumpkins version of The Cars, I guess.

All told, Troublizing shows growth on Ocasek's part and, more importantly, a willingness to relinquish control. It's no Quick Change World or Fireball Zone, though.


Grade: C
ASide: The Next Right Moment, Hang On Tight
BlindSide: Troublizing
DownSide: Here We Go, Society Trance, Asia Minor

Ric Ocasek - Quick Change World [File Under: The Cars]

Ric Ocasek - Quick Change World - 1993

The familiar bass line peeks through the first real cut, "Don't Let Go", a song at once so familiar and yet, sort of fresh that, after the spoken word Laurie Anderson-esque opener fills me with hope, that this album might actually build on the promise of Fireball Zone.
Good news. It does. The sound is bigger and less cluttered. The songs are tighter and not without the requisite Ocasek paranoia.
Just like the first side starts with a spoken word against a post-apocalyptic soundscape, so does side two, only this time exploding into the galloping "Come Alive", one of the most energetic in the man's repertoire. Later on the same energy can be found on "Hopped Up" and it's not a moment too soon.
The first time I find myself not like the album comes late, with the title track, a lame attempt at a funky dance rhythm. And the spoken word experiment continues on "What's On Tv", but that one doesn't fare as well. It's well intentioned. And a bit hypnotic, if pretentious. Ric wants to be a relevant poet and I give him props for that, but it's not exactly the kind of stuff I want peppered throughout the album.
However, it really works as a bookend and the last track, "Help Me Find America" is one of the most human he's concocted, even though it features more electronics than any other he's put out.
I do wish the album hadn't been cut apart. Originally it was intended to be two separate pieces, a song cycle and a poetry cycle. But, the label left him in the dirt and had other ideas. But, it's sort of always been Ocasek's way to put the more difficult material on the second side/half of his albums. The first half really pops, however. So, it's worth a quick spin on the old SpotiWheel.

(Oh, yeah, since it's the 90s, there's a hidden track. Another mood piece. Not awful, but I'm really glad that trend is over.)


Grade: B
ASide: Don't Let Go, Hard Times
BlindSide: Come Alive, Hopped Up, Help me Find America
DownSide: Quick Change World

Ric Ocasek - Fireball Zone [File Under: The Cars]

Ric Ocasek - Fireball Zone - 1991

The first sign of life from Mr. Ocasek in ages. Co-produced by...Nile Rodgers of all people, Fireball Zone opens with the scorching "Rockaway" and really just keeps cruising for a while.
Easily much more accessible than his previous solo records, he seems to have kissed goodbye to The Cars and embraced his own muse. No longer trying to distance himself from his devotion to Bowie/Numan, he comes into his own in many places (also gets a little funky at times) and scores. It's sort of strange to hear Ocasek try so hard to sound like Bryan Ferry meets Spandau Ballet on "The Way You Look Tonight", but, then again, it's not surprising, listening back to the direction he was always taking The Cars and his solo work.
So, it is surprising when he comes up with something like "Flowers of Evil", which, for lack of a more imaginative description, sounds like it fell off Adam Ant's Manners & Physique. Which is also to say that it's the most alive anything Ocasek has put out...in years.  And something has heavy as "Balance" seems out of place in the rest of Ric's catalog but, on FZ it's perfectly fine. In fact, I want more.

There's a lot to like on Fireball Zone. It doesn't sound like The Cars. And that's a good thing. Because I think I've heard enough of that for a while.

Grade: B+
ASide: Rockaway
BlindSide: Over and Over, Flowers of Evil, They Tried, Balance, Fireball Zone

The Cars - Door to Door

The Cars - Door to Door - 1987

Remember that muddy, cloudy, dense production that was smeared all over Panorama? It's back. "Leave or Stay" might have actually been good had anyone thought to put some air between the instruments. Fortunately, the sparsity of arrangement on "You Are the Girl" can overcome the shoddy production.
Door to Door is one of the most maligned albums in any band's catalog. It's not that this is the record that ended the band. It's that The Cars were done by this time. 9 years from that first, perfect release and, well, they just had nothing else to say. They were always basically a one trick pony. That trick worked for a handful of singles. But, it was always going to run out of steam at some point. That point was just before Door to Door.
This album is turgid and worse, anonymous. It could be any synth band of the era. Devoid of ideas, heart, emotion, or fun.
Avoid it.

Grade: D
ASide: You Are the Girl
BlindSide:
DownSide: Fine Line, Double Trouble, Ta Ta Wayo Wayo

Benjamin Orr - The Lace [File Under: The Cars]

Benjamin Orr - The Lace - 1986

Do you like "Drive"? Oh, good. Then you would like 60% of this album. Wait, what? You say you don't need to hear mid-tempo, synth driven, electric drum driven 2nd rate Cars songs?
Oh. Then skip it.

It's not that The Lace is BAD. It's that it's inconsequential. It aims for the middle. Except for the opening track, "Too Hot to Stop" and the burning "That's the Way" there's no there there. There's some promise on the title track, but, in the end, it's much ado about the same old same old. Definitely superior to anything Ocasek had put out on his own, not as much fun as some of Easton's effort, but definitely in the wheelhouse of mid-80s Cars. I do have a warm feeling for "This Time Around", the album's closer. It's pretty honest about what it is. Sort of "Drive" part 2 but with more of an eye on being on the soundtrack to some 80s rom-com like "About Last Night".

I always like Orr. He was my favorite Car. He was the best looking, the most androgynous and he sang lead on so many of their hits. His was a solid 80s voice, he wasn't the creepy club crawler that Ocasek's voice was. He could have probably sang anything. Especially of that era.
I wish his only solo record was better.

Grade: C+
ASide: Too Hot to Stop
BlindSide: The Lace, That's the Way, This Time Around.
DownSide: There's nothing unlistenable here.

Ric Ocasek - This Side of Paradise [File Under: The Cars]

Ric Ocasek - This Side of Paradise - 1986

Opening with an abstract, paranoid soundscape, "Keep on Laughing" suggests that it might be Ocasek's Low or Lodger but, in no time, those familiar Cars tropes kick in, the steady, mechanical beat, the airless, futuristic, spacey environs, this time buttressed up against glam metal guitar solos and we know that not much is going to change. The sound might be a hair heavier, but Ocasek, who never really had much to say beyond cliche and never met a refrain he couldn't repeat ad nauseum, offers no surprises.
I'm not sure why Ric fails on his own so utterly and completely. It's not like The Cars were a democracy, he was always in charge.
But, if you listen to This Side of Paradise as though it was a Cars record, it's fine. If you told someone it was a Cars record they might respond with, "Really? But it's so much heavier....oh, well, maybe they changed their sound. A bit."
And they wouldn't be wrong. See, Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes plays on the entire record. Ben Orr sings backup on a bunch of songs, and that harder rocker I wrote about, "True to You"?. Features them and Elliot Easton's guitar. So....save David Robinson (who I'm convinced Ric just didn't care for), it is a Cars song.
It's not until the end of side one that the promise of the very first few moments are made manifest. "Coming for You" is an ominous, dark, dangerous track sidelined only by Hawkes' needless filigree. Other than that, it's as close to what Ocasek's been pretending to be about as anything else.
Like Beatitude before it, Paradise is a near waste of your time. Slow, meandering, uninspired and dull.

Grade: D+
ASide: Coming for You
BlindSide: True to You
DownSide: Mystery, True Love, PFJ