(via LouderSound)
“I always wanted our songs to pop and kick,” The Cars’ Ric Ocasek told me in 2005. And on the band’s fifth album, Heartbeat City, they did just that.
You might think of the pop in Pop Art terms: bold colours, sleek lines; bang-vroom choruses, the kick of a lyrical subversion that sneaks up on you, hinting at fragile mental states, with elliptical drug references and some kinky S&M.
Of that contrast in his songs, Ocasek said: “One kind of holds you down to earth, while the other takes you somewhere else.”
After running the album-tour track annually from 1978-81, The Cars were looking to go somewhere else. The title of their fourth album, Shake It Up, hinted at just what they needed to do.
The first major shake-up for Heartbeat City was bringing in producer Mutt Lange, best known for his high-gloss hit-making on AC/DC’s Back In Black and Def Leppard’s Pyromania. “I thought that the combination of the sound he gets and what we do would mingle pretty nicely,” Ocasek said in 1984. “Mutt’s never done a band like us; he’s done a lot of heavy metal. But I thought the two could mix.”
Every Moment Has A Song 