The Cars get provocative and panned by critics with Panorama

The Cars : Touch And Go

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On August 15, 1980 The Cars released Panorama, their third and most underrated album. Within four weeks it would peak at #5 on the US album charts. despite a lukewarm reception by critics.

 “I hardly saw a bad review of the first album, but the second one was a totally different story," said keyboardist Greg Hawkes in a Rolling Stone cover story that year. "And now, with Panorama, we’ve had reviews saying stuff like, ‘What happened to these guys?’ It’s as if we made one good record and then totally blew it.”

The US#37 "Touch And Go" is the only hit on the album. And even that was a surprise considering that it has 13 bars in 5/4 time before it launches into 18 bars of 4/4.

Rolling Stone described the album  as “an out-and-out drag.” Far unkinder was the review from Deborah Frost of The Boston Phoenix, an early supporter of their hometown band:

 “Certainly, some of their fans will think they’re really putting their necks on the line this time. Bullshit. If they are, it’s not because the music or ideas behind it are so brainy, but because this is a slapdash job.” Elsewhere, Frost concluded, “This year’s model is a lemon….”

Dr. Robert Christgau tried to diagnose Panorama in his B- review:

The problem's not immersion in formula. The problem's not exhaustion of formula. The problem's boredom with formula. This is longer, slower, and denser as well as older, with lyrics that skirt social commentary and music that essays textural pretension. Its peaks are "Touch and Go" and "Up and Down." Savor the rhythm of those phrases, Ric, and grow no more.

While Jon Pareles wrote:

“[These] new songs seem designed to separate Cars’ fans from the pop crowd: they use odd meters and desperate-sounding chords….The Cars’ audience may be loyal enough to follow them this far—who knows if that’s what the Cars want?”

One of the more interesting influences on the album is Suicide, the band whose second album was produced by Ric Ocasek.

“I think Alan Vega is one of the few real artists I’ve ever met—but he is sort of scary. I was petrified when I first met him, until I realized that he’s just this really gentle soul with a tough, Harlem-bred exterior. Actually, what he’s doing is more jazz and R+B than rock+ roll, though he’s instilled it with a punk-minimalist aesthetic. It’s monotonous, which I like, because monotony can be soothing. Except Alan’s lyrics really aren’t soothing at all.”

The pulsating deep cut "Shooting For You" sounds like it could have been a Suicide song. In fact, ega covers the song his 1985 album Just A Million Dreams.

Panorama is an album worth revisiting, especially if you joined the critics in dismissing it. This is the sound of a band fulfilling its promise to make an album that please themselves.

On The Brink of Tears

Ian Lloyd : Slip Away

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In October of 1979, Ian Lloyd ( who sang the 1973 #1 hit "Brother Louie" with Stories) returned to the U.S. charts at #88 with "Slip Away", a Ric Ocasek song The Cars had recorded between their first and second albums. Lloyd even gets some help from Ocasek on backing vocals and from The Cars' Benjamin Orr on bass and vocals. Despite everything that's going for the song, it only peaked at U.S.#50 a month later. 

The Cars original demo appears on the 1995 Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology.

Dream Baby

Suicide : Dream Baby Dream

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In 1979 the New York duo Suicide released "Dream Baby Dream" b/w "Radiation" . Produced by Ric Ocasek of the Cars, the A-side is a hypnotic six and a half minute tune that is, like most dreams, open to interpretation. The electronic drums sound like a ticking clock. There's a wash of keyboards, a counter melody that could be played on a child's toy and Alan Vega murmuring the lines "Dream, baby, dream, forever".

In 2016 Alexandra Pollard of The Guardian called the song "the unlikely anthem of 2016", as Bruce Springsteen and Arcade Fire both performed the songs in concert and the song appeared on the soundtrack of the critically praised independent film American Honey. 

It would be tempting to try and find a reason that the song has been reimagined so often in recent years. To suggest, maybe, that its enigmatic and contradictory tone are fitting in today’s unsettled climate. But, in truth, the song’s appeal is no more tangible now than it was almost 40 years ago.