twelvepoint wrote: Mon Feb 24, 2025 10:43 am

Tree wrote: Mon Feb 24, 2025 7:44 am Nine songs on the album and twelve of them are hits. Drums sound fantastic.

NOT CRAP

Love David Robinson’s playing. Former Modern Lovers drummer, but also was in this aggro garage punk band DMZ, who also had Jeff Monoman Conolly of the Lyres. That DMZ s/t record is not crap.

DMZ kicked ass! Serious Boston rock family tree there if I recall.

Would be a flawless album if they'd left off "Don't Cha Stop" and gotten rid of all the goofy whistles and shit in "I'm in Touch with Your World."

I think every Cars record is great, save for Door to Door.

NOT CRAP.

Just What I Needed is my favourite song, and this is one of my favourite albums.

NC

One of my favorite albums ever. Another one of my dad's cassettes that I wore out when I was like 8 or 9 years old.

RTB's drum production is so distinctive that it's almost distracting because every tom fill sounds like a Queen album. That's not a bad thing.

"Moving In Stereo" always reminds me of my mom frantically trying to fastforward thru the sexy parts of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a movie she obviously loved but was maybe too earnest in showing me (aged 11) and my brother (13) in such an upstanding Catholic household.

absolutely NOT CRAP

Never really got into it; somewhat disconcerting mix of a strikingly stilted sound and a very arch, alienated posture WITH super catchy, well arranged compositions. So ultimately post-punk / new wave for the classic rock crowd, but the final product is much closer to the Boston debut than say, Wire or Devo (or whatever).

I'm leaning towards a crap vote here.

I listened to the album for the first time the other day during my work drive. I definitely got the feeling that there were enough classic rock touchstones mixed in with the synths and Ric’s Byrne-esque voice to make a new wave album that wasn’t gonna scare the hoes too badly. The drums in particular sound like if you put Phil Rudd in Talking Heads. Not exactly a chocolate/peanut butter combo to my ears.

And yet, the songwriting and arrangements are so good. At least enough for a solid Not Crap.

Boston debut also NOT CRAP

As if Wire ever learned how to chicken pick! The country-isms of The Cars is one of my favorite parts of their whole schtick.

Debut album, stylistically unique in its day, nearly every song is a banger, 2/3 of them charted hits...

NOT CRAP

Thinking it over further, it reminds me of Cheap Trick In Color (and in Back and White) where there's kind of a flat, drab quality that never really jumps out. The songs are there in both cases, but I'd sacrifice some of the pop gloss for more rock (and with CT we get that in other places). Also that kind of Moog usage in rock is cutesy and grating (its imitators are way worse, of course).

For the drums.. some of y'all like wacky tuned, freakishly panned toms I guess.

Boston: More Than a Feeling is an admittedly well done radio song, otherwise fuck that 'band' and his Kmart guitar distortion.