The Cars' Heartbeat City

I take it's not your thing? LOL!! I pick up on nuance, you see...

Ed

 

Great album. I voted for everything except "I Refuse".

 

It's your awesome spidey sense at work!!!!

 

I think I have a Door To Door in my sights soon, but otherwise we run parallel on the promo collection.

Folks should grab em' up!

 

Thanks, there is 4 minutes and change I will never get back.

 

Wow, sorry....thought the geetar/more old school sound would work for ya'....hard to account for poor taste!....

 

There, there...



Ed

 

Ha@ That's priceless!!!!!!

 

My second least favorite Cars album. It's too slick--that's saying a lot after Roy Thomas Baker who was perfect for the band.

 

I love the album, and have bought several masterings of it over the years in three formats.

I was never crazy about "You Might Think", but my favorites are "Magic" and "Drive".

 

I will use the certificate eventually as an avatar I am truly touched. For the rekkid I do like the album, owning the Mofi and the AF versions but I rate it fourth best overall. If that is considered poor taste I will somehow live with it.

 

No, no, it is I who is "truly touched". Surely that's obvious by now...

Ed

 

My statement on taste was based on you visiting a Cars HBC thread and trashing Stranger Eyes....a statement I stand by!!!

 

Yeah.. have the 24k.
Vroom Vroom Very good.

 

I am wondering if enough of us contact MoFi to indicate interest in having them do 'Panorama' on SACD & Vinyl, if they would do it? MusicDirect(who I believe owns MoFi?) were selling Gold CDs of 'Candy-O' and 'Shake It Up', which sound pretty good to me, although not sure why they did Vinyl for 'Shake It Up' and not do SACD at the same time. The Gold CD for 'Candy-O' got more expensive($29.95) since I bought it(($19.95)-same price as 'Shake It Up' is currently on Gold CD. Although, MusicDirect is currently offering 20% off but for 'Candy-O' Gold CD, it says product is not eligible for further discount, so I realize $30 is steep price to pay, but it might be limited #s left on it for sale.

 

I bet it would depend on previous sales #'s of HBC, Candy-O, S/T and Shake it Up and more importantly whether it can be licensed from the artist and label. I would certainly be "in" if they released it.

 

Well, like I was saying upthread, Elliot has said that Lange had him each note of the guitar chords separately on its own track. I dunno if you play guitar, but that is not the norm. Guitar tracks that normally took a few days to complete turned into several months of work. That's not a task master -- that's...err....excessive. Even for non-lazy people! Roy Thomas Baker would have the band in and out of the studio in a matter of weeks, whereas Lange took half a year to produce Heartbeat City.

 

Not a big favorite. For me it was confirmation that the Cars were done doing interesting things and just wanted to have hits on the radio. Devo, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Police, the B-52's etc., all succumbed to the same temptation. I get it. There is nothing necessarily noble about toiling away in obscurity and in those days, bands could still make a lot of money from hit records and videos. It's just that, for a brief shining moment, these bands were doing work that was both challenging and accessible and so very different from what had come before. It was a little disheartening to see them get swallowed up by the mainstream machine, however inevitable that might have been. I know I'm being a romantic old fool to think it could have been otherwise, but I just can't help myself. Panorama forever!

 

Within a small landscape of the UK I was pretty positive that The Cars were brought to my attention with the performance at Live-Aid (1985),
although having noticed this thread and spending some time looking for any related releases it seems previous to Live-Aid I was aware of Heartbeat City, maybe?

Side One, stand out song / composition / track, would be Drive
Side Two, is a much stronger side, and it would appear my preference for the top spot has now change if the purchasing of a 12” single signifies a previous favourite.


Listening again after a long hiatus the vote now is for Heartbeat City (Jacki), wonder what it would be in another 33 years or so.

 

Did not RTB have them do many vocal overdubs on at least one album that got rather intense. Maybe not as laborious as the geetar?
And maybe I'm mis-remembering?

 

If there's a story, I'm either not familiar or not remembering it. Not quite sure what caused them to look to a different producer for Heartbeat City, either...??

 

Any Cars experts know whose decision it was to use the electronic percussion? Ocasek did turn to that on his solo albums, maybe it was him that wanted that sound?

My favourite tracks remain:

1. It's Not The Night
2. Heartbeat City
3. You Might think
4. Drive

 

I'm no expert but Mutt Lange has used it on virtually everything that's not AC/DC so it was likely him.

Ed

 

Yes... They sucked live. Dull as dust.

 

To be honest I think this is the one where they jumped the shark. It certainly hasn't aged well, but even back in the day, I found it to be deadly boring - sounds like computer-generated, corporate music. After being put into the Mutt Lange homogenizer, they might as well have been (fill in the blank - Def Leppard, Foreigner, etc etc). Digital drum click track hell.

The high sheen production tends to mask a rather lackluster set of songs. I do like the title track a lot though, killer, and the one that really works with the production to my ears; and "You Might Think" and "It's Not the Night" could have been contenders too if they'd been approached with their old ballsier and quirkier production style.

It speaks volumes that it was the first Cars album I didn't run right out and buy, I was so disappointed in what I heard on the radio. A friend ended up getting it for me on my birthday, I listened once and then put it on the shelf (after putting "Heartbeat City" at the end of a cassette comp for the car). Just doesn't do it for me. I missed RTB badly.