The Cars - Heartbeat City

WARNING: The following blog entry is likely a little more disjointed than usual, and let's be honest a lot of my meanderambling is hard to follow at the best of times. Heartbeat City was a really interesting experience as I had somehow convinced myself that this was dated and by default a lesser entry in the band's catalogue as a result of it's commercial success. I had long thought less of this because of the "drum machines" and it more or less became the narrative I started with ... of course as I listened I found a different experience awaited ... 

If you're seat is in the upright position let's get going. 

When Hearbeat City dropped I thought it was hands down the coolest record The Cars had ever released. After years of cool songs they perfected their rather unique blend of technology and rock and roll and the results were spectacular ... except for "You Might Think" a song that while a hit, to me was irritating, except for the killer guitar solo, THAT SAVED THE SONG. However the song that epitomized this marriage was "Magic" and boy oh boy it was magic indeed. Boy howdy I'm spreading great dollops of hyperbole on everything ... The band's album sales reflected this new approach making it one of their best selling records. It went four times platinum in the States. At the time I had wrongly assumed this was their biggest album ever. Their debut is still their best selling album.

The Cars would return in 1987 with Door to Door and this would be the band's final album with the original line up. The album was okay but it felt like an attempt to repeat themselves, something the band had always seemed to avoid doing in the past. I guess if I'm going to reach for a similar misstep by another artist Bowie did it with Tonight a year after he ruled the world with Let's Dance (yeah yeah, I know it's not the same). Door to Door would go Gold, but the band's platinum run was over.

Over the last year I've spent quite a bit of time with the The Car's back catalogue and while I'm still looking for Candy-O (I will find it eventually) it's been a really enlightening journey for me. Which is why it was a surprise to me when I got to what I thought was the band's crown jewel it didn't resonate the way I expected it to, at least not the first couple of times I played it through.

It occurred to me that it wasn't the songs, it was the marriage of technology and rock and roll that didn't hold up. Whereas their previous albums were a marriage of technology and organic instrumentation that maintained balance over the years. Much of this can be directly attributed to David Robinson's drums. On previous albums his use of toms and the way he tied everything together was a bigger part of the band's sound that you may realize. With Heartbeat City David still provided the band's heartbeat but it was now more like a pacemaker ensuring a steady and uninterrupted cadence. In the credits beside David's name is a single word: DRUMS. However, the credits for Fairlight CMI programming list Greg Hawkes, Andy Topeka and David Robinson.

I know I just said a whole bunch of stuff about the marriage of technology and the balancing of organic instrumentation, but dagnabbit I can't imagine an acoustic kit on these songs. The tension comes from the musical arrangements, the vocals and guitar as a counterpoint to the technology (keyboards). The drum programming is well thought out, and the patterns and fills are meticulously mapped out. They're part of the sound and texture.

This was cutting edge at the time and while some of the sounds are embarrassingly goofy now but they still work. Take the Munchkin-style vocals and orchestral blasts from the opening track “Hello Again.” Out of context, they’re like sonic bricks to the head - elements that today would derail a song as easily as they once enhanced it.

It's funny, when I first put this on I was comparing it to the band's past singles and albums, and often thinking somewhat nostalgically that this had aged poorly. I kept that opinion for the first spin, and then as I played it more all of the memories of the album started to bubble up and for all my fondness for their debut and their other killer songs, there was, and still is something special about Heartbeat City.  

It remains a near perfect synthesis of technology and pop mastery. I don't know how much of this can be attributed to Mutt Lange's production but credit where credit is due. This sounded like The Cars but it was so much more. Right from the heavy gang vocals that kick off "Hello Again" you got the sense this was going to be something special. The music was still quirky and while Ric Ocasek sang the majority of the songs, it was Benjamin Orr who was given the album's crown jewel and emotional centre: "Drive." There was a time every rock band had to include at least one power ballad per album. The Cars delivered with a classic no one saw coming. It was formulaic and on the surface a cookie cutter song, but the textures and emotional payoff was so unexpected and profound from The Cars it was massive.

There are no misfires here. The Cars were firing on all cylinders and they were a finely tuned machine. This was as good as it got, and while one can argue whether this was the band's best album or not there's no denying the miles of pleasure on the odometer. 

Thanks for making it to the end. You can get out now, I'm going to park this in the garage.