Oh, MTV…how you ruined a kid like me. Thanks to adults that had anything better to do than to keep their eyes on little old me, I fell for music videos hard. And in the late 1980s, MTV was actually playing music videos. I know, it’s a wild concept. Between a house filled with aunts and cousins who were all in their early twenties and my parents, who were just as young, I’ve got a pretty strong appreciation for 1970s and 1980s music. I grew up on the likes of AC/DC, Van Halen (both Roth and Hagar), Twisted Sister, Bob Seger, and many more. I can’t tell you what it is that drew me to the music of The Cars. But I dove into the songs of Shake It Up and Heartbeat City quickly and only started listening to the first self-titled album and Candy-O in the 1990s as my tastes were broadening. I’m certain you can blame MTV for that…the videos that the band put out were in heavy rotation and were high-quality. The video for “You Might Think” was one of the first to use computer graphics, while Andy Warhol directed “Hello Again”.

With two capable singers and no hesitation for experimenting with their music, The Cars were going to do well. When they mastered MTV, their popularity skyrocketed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to last. In 1988 the band broke up, in 2000 bassist and vocalist Benjamin Orr passed on from pancreatic cancer and sadly, yesterday we learned that vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Ric Ocasek passed on at the age of seventy-five. Ocasek had many talents, including a solo career, poetry, acting and production for bands like Weezer, Nada Surf, No Doubt and Bad Religion, among others. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was a friend and fan of his work and even covered “My Best Friend’s Girlfriend” in his last public performance before his death.

The Cars made many songs that are worthy here, but ultimately I had to go with one of the major hits, simply because it showcased one trait that some of the other videos didn’t: the connection between the music and the cars. For most of the band’s releases, some kind of car theme was used, from the Alberto Vargas pin-up art on Candy-O to the 340 Duster on Heartbeat City’s cover, with is a Peter Philips piece from 1972. And, of course, there was the band’s name itself.