Speaker 1: Hey, this is Jim and Lindsay from the Children of
the Eighties podcast, and.
Speaker 2: You are listening to the Surely You Can't Be Serious podcast,
hosted by our friends Dee and Jason.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello again, Hello, Hello again. Welcome back to Shirley listeners.
We are back for the second part of a nineteen
eighty four album matchup. First part was last week. It's
Brian Adams and Reckless, a mind endingly awesome album, and
now we have its contender, Heartbeat City by the Cars.
Speaker 3: Two great albums. D this is gonna be tough. We
gotta go track by track to figure this one out.
Speaker 1: It is a great matchup. So I had somebody ask me, like,
why these two albums, and I was like, well, they
both came out in nineteen eighty four, they're both forty
this year. This one just passed its fortieth birthday back
in March, and I mean, why not with hits.
Speaker 3: They're absolutely loaded with him and had some great videos
on MTV.
Speaker 1: We hear stories about all kinds of bands, you know,
outside of the bands themselves, but these are a couple.
I mean, Brian Adams and his band and the Cars
are a couple of groups that they just kind of
fly under the radar. They are bands that like everybody
loves you know, you can be a cowboy.
Speaker 3: Aiks Blood Blood, we be Yes.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves them, right, everybody loves them. That's right, and
and it's true for both, you know. They just they
make good music and they mind their own business and
they kind of get overlooked because of it. And so
why not compare these two killer albums from nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Yeh, I've got another connection, which I know you know,
but I'm gonna put it out there for our listeners. Okay,
So what do Brian Adams, the Cars, Shania Twain, ac DC,
and def Leppard have in common?
Speaker 1: They have Mutt Langa in common.
Speaker 3: Mutt Lang produced Heartbeat City. He actually produced Waking Up
the Neighbors, which is second album after Reckless of Brian Adams,
which sold a bazillion copies in the early nineties. Yeah,
and so they both have gone to school with Mutt Lane.
Speaker 1: The University of rock and Roll, if you will. So
let's get started talking about this album track by track,
first song out of the Gate. Hello again, My gosh,
these guys have such a unique sound. And now Mutt
Lang's fingerprints are all over it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so this is pop rock, new wave, all stuck
in a blender with Mutt Lang, and you get those
sounds and those layers.
Speaker 1: That first Hello, Hello again. It is the Mutt Lang
whisper effect, right he has. You know, he'll have his
artist sing a line, singing again, sing it twenty more times,
and layer all of those, then do it an octave lower,
and then he'll come back and he'll go, Okay, now,
whisper it like you're the roar of a crowd.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: And that's how you get that whisper effect that Mutt
Lang does. But this is the perfect song to begin
the album because this was a comeback album for them.
Speaker 3: It absolutely was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so hello again, here we are. Don't forget us yet.
We brought Mutt with us this time. So when we
did our Best of nineteen seventy eight, we did our
Top five of nineteen seventy eight. I hit the Car's
debut album and I was like, holy crap, these songs
came out in seventy eight. This is the sound of
the eighties and like it was hit hit after hit.
I was like, just what I needed. My best friend's girl,
good times role how do I pick which one of
these I love the most? Right? Sure? So that was
a great debut album for him. That was in seventy eight,
seventy nine, that came out with Candy O right album
artwork by Alberto Vargas. Keep that in mind for a
later tipbit. Okay, yeah, that one hit number three that
did better. It was a number three album that which
was better than their debut album had Let's Go on
It And then they did Panorama and Cricket Crickets right, Yeah,
Panorama didn't have anything. They kind of lifted the needle
again in nineteen eighty one with shake It Up, which
had shake it Up, but that was the only song
on that album to hit the top forty and it
barely hit it. If you're the record company, you're like, okay, guys,
it's it's been a while.
Speaker 3: We really liked your first album. Could you make some
more hits for us, please?
Speaker 1: Exactly? And so this was this was going to be
a make it to break it album for them, right,
and so hey, let's call it munt Langer. Because Robert
Thomas Baker, who had produced all of these first four albums,
was not available.
Speaker 3: I got a story for you on that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, like you said, Robert Thomas Baker is not
available to do Heartbeat City, which by the way, was
originally titled Who's Going to Drive You Home? That was
the I think we can figure out where that's where
that's from. But so they interviewed producers and they almost
settled on Steve Lilly White.
Speaker 1: Is the name ring a Beltie, Yes it does.
Speaker 3: So he did a lot with you too. Dave Matthews,
he's a big Dave Matthews guy. He did Rolling Stones album,
he did frieda go back to our Patreon episode on
There's Something going On, but they instead chose Muttling because,
my goodness, this guy did Back in Black, he did
Highway to Hell. Of course, he did Pyromania in eighty three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was the second album that he had
done for def Leppard. He had done High and Dry,
but yeah, I mean he had done a bunch of albums,
but he really kind of came into his own with
Highway to Hell, which was the last ACDC album with
Bond Scott, and then he did Back in Black, which
I mean everybody was wondering what was going to happen
bringing in Brian Johnson and then holy cow, let's blow
the doors off a rock and roll.
Speaker 3: Let's sell a bazillion copy as while we're at it.
Speaker 1: He does four and four four and four Man that
has some great songs on it, and then does High
and Dry. He does Pyromania, and then he was gonna
do Hysteria, but we talked about this in our Hysteria episode.
He wasn't available because why Mutt.
Speaker 3: Lang was not available because he was busy doing Heartbeat City.
Speaker 1: There you go if you want to jump back to
that one. They used another guy for a little while,
Jim steinmon It did not go as they wanted it to,
but that's all right. You go back and check out
the def Leppard episode. We're not here to talk about that.
But man, you hear this. I mean, he has built
his own sound and you hear it, especially all over
this first song.
Speaker 3: Gosh, there's so many layers and layers of noise and
sound and music notes. It almost broke the band up,
like they were so done with Mutt Lange. I don't
think Rick ric Ocassick has said I never want to
do an album like that again.
Speaker 1: They gave their body, they gave their best.
Speaker 3: Yes, they did. Benjamin Orr said it was the most
precise album he's ever made. They traveled to London to
make the album, and Rick Ocassik asked Mutt Lang, how
long do you think this is gonna take? Man? Like
where we were moved our whole lives to London. Mutt
Lang says a couple months. What he really meant was
as long as it takes.
Speaker 1: You know, he kind of gets a bad rap of
being so meticulous about things. But you listen to guys
who have you know, when we talked about Rick Allen
waiting and waiting and waiting to play some drums and
then he's like, okay, Rick, hit the high hat for us,
and Rick's like pop and he's like, okay, I'm not
quite getting the sound. Wait. Wait, Rick's finally like, you know,
as the drummer, maybe I can help, and He's like,
I'll ask for your help when I need it, Rick,
And so Rick chunks the drumsticks at him. Yeah. But
you listen to an interview of Rick and he's like it.
It wasn't that he was a task master, it was
you wanted to be a better drummer because of him.
He had this style and this technique. Brian Adams said
the same thing. When he worked with him, it was
like he drove him to be the best that he
could be in a way that made him appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I remember the story. We talked about it when we
did our Hysteria episode. The guys had gone to lunch.
They came back and much like, hey, guys, listen to this,
and he played him like thirty seconds of what he
had put together on Rocket and they were blown away.
And if you know, I mean, just look at his resume.
Highway to Hell, Back in Black, High and Dry, Pyromania, Hysteria,
Waking Up the Neighbors, Heartbeat City. These are a great
selling albums. So the record company is going to be
patient with Motley.
Speaker 1: Arguably the best producer of music in history. Someone has
described him, and this is for you, buddy, as the
James Cameron of music producers.
Speaker 3: Sweet I love it all right, Okay, before we go
in for the we got to talk about the music
video for this. Oh my gosh, it's nuts man, Yes,
before we do that. Hello Again was the fourth single,
released October fifteenth, nineteen eighty four. It reached number twenty.
This is the fourth song off this album to be
a top twenty hit. So the music video is directed
by Andy Warhol. You have this weird PSA announcement at
the very beginning where they got like teen beat talking
about sex and violence and music videos like, oh my gosh,
I see more sex and violence at high school than
I do in music videos. It's really dumb. But you
have a very young Gina gershawn in this music video
showing you her tongue. She is tongue in the heck
out of that guy which is more tonguey this or
the karatey kid when they're at the golfing.
Speaker 1: Set or whatever.
Speaker 3: Gina Gershawan, who you might remember from Show Girls. I
know you're gonna say, but Andy Warhol brings all of
his weirdos into this music video. There's all these weird people.
One girl named Diane Brill, she's rubbing her boobs all
over everybody. And this other guy, his name is John Sex.
Speaker 1: He's got a snake.
Speaker 3: He's got a snake he's playing with. It's really a
wild music video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So if you guys don't know who Andy
Warhol is, he was one of the pre eminent pop
artists of the sixties and seventies, and you can see
his pop art weirdness all over this video. There is
another pop artist that we need to talk about. His
name is Peter Phillips. So, Peter Phillips was from England.
He came over to the US saw what was going
on with pop art there and was like, hey, I
really like this. I'm going to do something with this.
And one of the pieces of art that he created
had a picture that Alberto Vargas had done of a
pin up girl, Vargus girl, if you will, and it
also had a nineteen seventy one plymouth duster on it.
And so when the Cars were picking out their art
for their album cover for Heartbeats, they said, hey, we
like the Vargus girl. I mean they used one on
candy O. We like the car because we're the Cars.
How about we pick this piece of art by Peter
Phillips And that is the cover. And this cover is
freaking awesome. I love it. It's the style that and the
makeup of the piece of art is fantastic.
Speaker 3: It's really cool. I love it too. By the way,
have you ever seen the movie Hello Again with Shelley Long.
Speaker 1: I feel like I actually saw it in the theater,
and I think I forgot it after I walked out
of the theater.
Speaker 3: Wow, that was what she left cheers for. Yeah, Gabriel
Burns first movie.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: He said the experience almost caused him to walk away
from movies. So not all movies from the agies were great?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: We done with this one, yep, all right?
Speaker 3: Song love it?
Speaker 1: Time to move on. Song number two, looking for Love? Okay,
So Rick o'cassick tapping his inner lou Reid on this one.
He's got all kinds of velvet underground tones on this one.
Speaker 3: I love it, okay, all right, this one sounds like
it belongs in a John Hughes movie to me. Yeah
for sure, you know that new way. I know John
Hughes like new wave stuff. But this is like, you know,
Sloan and Ferris kissing right before Faris starts running back
home night.
Speaker 1: It's got that great kind of talkie verse to it,
and then it comes into a very hooky chorus. Great
great song, great makeup to have your perfect eighties song? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: Do you remember Austrian rock singer Falco of.
Speaker 1: Course, Amadeo's Almade's.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you remember rock Mama Davis? Of course. Yeah,
let me play a song for you. This song is
called Munich Girls.
Speaker 4: Okay, hey, does that sound familiar to you?
Speaker 1: I would like to keep the faith and kill the light.
But Derek Carmer sar, that's a dagum stolen song right there.
He even says, it's all right?
Speaker 3: What's it's like? A redo of looking for love?
Speaker 1: Did I mean did they ask for permission? Do we did?
Did Falco go? Hey, that's my song?
Speaker 3: I mean I don't know the full story on it.
I do know that this came out in nineteen eighty
five on Falco three, which that's where Rock Mayamadas is on.
Speaker 1: Oh so Falco is the one that stole it from
the Cars. Yes, oh see, I thought you were playing
me like an old Falco No no, no, okay, okay,
so Falco stole it?
Speaker 3: Yes, all right? Yeah, even does the sugar Sweet. This
song is written by rick O ric Ocassick writes most
of the stuff we probably should talk about. The members of.
Speaker 1: The band Yeah, so yes, ric Ocasik wrote all of
the songs on this one, seven of them. Greg Hawks,
who is the keyboardist, gets a co writing credit, So
We have two lead singers in this band, Rick Ocassick
and Benjamin Orr. Yes, Rick Ocassick also plays rhythm guitar.
Benjamin Orr also plays the bass. Greg Hawks, as I said,
was on keyboards. You have David Robinson on drums and
drum programming a lot for this particular album, right, and
then you have their lead guitarist, Elliott Easton, who underrated guitarist.
He's a fantastic rock guitarist who kind of gets overlooked
because he's in this new wave sounding band. When you
get so much you get heavy keyboards and heavy programmed drums,
people don't really pay attention to how good some of
these leads are, and they are incredible.
Speaker 3: Ric Ocassick started writing songs at age ten.
Speaker 1: So here's here's here's a tidbit. Ricu Kassick's dad was
a systems analysis with NASA. What yeah, like like you know,
he was the it guy back when before you know,
computers were simple things. He was. He was a computer
for Runner. If you will, I wonder if you knew
Jack Blake's mom, right, you know who knows? Maybe?
Speaker 3: Okay, so how did these guys get together?
Speaker 1: Okay? So Ocassick when he was a kid writing songs.
Happens to see Benjamin Orr as a house band on
this TV show A Beat. Yeah, I think it was
also called like the Big Five Show. But Benjamin Orr
had a band called the Grasshoppers, and they were the
house band for this show. Right, it's like a local
broadcast kind of show. And so they meet each other
in Cleveland and then they do other bands and stuff.
By the way, we didn't mention that Benjamin Orr's last
name is not really or it is Orzi Showski, which
is easy for me to say. When he was a kid,
his friends used to call him Bennie eleven letters.
Speaker 3: I love it so funny.
Speaker 1: He By the way, his mom was not a scientist, Vanessa,
but she was a devout Byzantine right Catholic and she
would not let him drive his car until the local
clergy blessed the car.
Speaker 3: So who would drive him home?
Speaker 1: Nice? Thank you nice. So anyway, I'm sorry, let me.
Speaker 3: Get my that joke has thrown you off the set
right there.
Speaker 1: That's right, right, right right. So Rick and Ben are
in various bands. They both moved to Boston in the
early seventies and they formed this band called Milkwood. They
put out an album, but it fails to chart. Next
group that they put together is called Richard and the
Rabbits and that's when they get joined by Greg Hawks
on keyboards. Now Greg has to leave because this big
band on him to come tour with them. Big band
is Martin Mull and his fabulous furniture. Like mister mom,
Martin Ull, like one, whatever it takes that Martin Moull. Yes, whoa, yeah,
so I guess he. I mean Martin was an accomplished musician,
but he had a comedy act that involved a band.
It was a musical comedy act, and so he had
a touring band. He went on tour with the band,
and Greg Hawks was the keyboarders for that.
Speaker 3: Nugget right there. Man, Yeah, I did not come across that.
Speaker 1: So then Rick and Ben formed this band called okasikan
Ore and it's like them playing acoustic guitar at the
local Idler coffeehouse there in Cambridge.
Speaker 3: Saw a picture. Rick's mustache was pretty pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: At that time. Was it a real mustache or It's
a good question, so tell me why.
Speaker 3: Well, because rumor has is that he has alopecia and
that he is completely bald. I do know, like it's
been verified in my MTV book over here that recocassicks
a wig all the time.
Speaker 1: Wow, Well they don't only do the you know, Simon
and garfunkl acoustic duo. They form another band after they
meet Elliott Easton, and the band is called cap'n Swing.
Captain Swing, not Captain Swing, but cap'n Swing like cap'n Crunch,
You got it. They make a demo tape. It's like
a two track demo tape, but it's got some of
the songs that they came up while they were doing
came up with while they were their duo, which ended
up being on the Car's debut album.
Speaker 3: Six their their classic rock classics YEP.
Speaker 1: And they catch the ear of a local DJ there
in Boston named Maxine Satori, and she loves cap'n Swing
and so she starts playing some of these songs on
the radio, which is kind of unheard of, and so
that catches the attention of record companies. Electra Records is
the one they end up signing with, and then this beautiful,
beautiful thing happens. Electra Records says to Roy Thomas Baker, Hey,
this band's pretty good. You should go check them out. Well,
they're playing at a high school gymnasium, like that's where
they are in their career, right, And there's a snowstorm
going on, like a blizzard going on, and like thirty
people show up to this concert. But Roy Thomas Baker
pushes through, drives through the snow, watches them play, and
that night he says, let's make an album. Wow. Now,
if you don't know who Roy Thomas Baker is, he's
the guy that produced Queen's first five albums, just say
Bohemian Rhapsodies, and you know what kind of chops this
guy has, right, And he shows up and says to
the cars, let's make an album. Wow, that's incredible. A
few days later, they're flying to London. They have plenty
of songs in their arsenal because they've been playing for
a while. By this time, Greg Hawks has started playing
with him again into the tour with Martin mull. So
they all fly out to London and in twelve days
they create one of the greatest albums of the seventies.
Twelve days, twelve days.
Speaker 3: But laying takes twelve days to get one verse of
a song right.
Speaker 1: Can you play that chord again and again? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, let's move on to song number three.
This song is called Magic.
Speaker 1: So I cannot hear this song without thinking about the video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I mean, it's played all the time on MTV.
Speaker 1: I think you know of this album. There are two
videos that if you were raised in the eighties you
think of. This is one of those two.
Speaker 3: They played this in the summer of eighty four. This
was on Every fifth.
Speaker 1: Time Definition of Heavy Rotation. But it's great, it's funny.
It's a funny video. You know where they shot it?
Speaker 3: I do know where they shot it.
Speaker 1: Tell me.
Speaker 3: So they shot this at the Hilton's house, like Paris
Hilton's parents house.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think Paris was born yet, but.
Speaker 3: Yes, she was at school.
Speaker 1: Shut up. How old is she?
Speaker 3: I don't know, and she's.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on, huh. Born in eighty one, so this
is eighty four. She's three. So she's like at pre school,
her nursery school.
Speaker 3: They're rich people, I mean, they do weird things. They
send their kids off to pre school or whatever when
she's three years old. Yeah, here's what I do know
about this video. So it's it's a really cool video.
Ricocastick is walking on the swimming pool like Jesus the
entire time. It's really cool. And as a as a person,
as a young kid watching this, I'm like, how did
they accomplish this? Like, how did they do that? It's
really cool effect. Well, it turns out it's a plexiglass shield, right,
so he's walking around in this plexiglass thing. But so
they had it all set up, they had the cameras ready,
they had the actress ready, they had the lights ready. Okay,
here we go. Take one. As soon as he steps
on the plaxic glass shield, it breaks and he falls through.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, was he hurt?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: Just first take breaks, the whole thing breaks. They've got
a like change his clothes, restart, like delayed the whole thing, Like, yeah,
somebody grabbed Rick's wig.
Speaker 1: You get a dry wig please.
Speaker 3: Here's the other thing. Do you know I sent you
a video clip. I don't know if you remember this.
It's been a little while. Okay, what movies closing scene
was shot around this swimming pool?
Speaker 1: Closing scene Blind.
Speaker 3: Date with Bruce Willis and Kim Basis.
Speaker 1: I got you, yes one are your favorites? I still
haven't seen that movie.
Speaker 3: Oh it's so good, so good. So yes. The Hilton
Family Home nice. By the way. David Robinson, the drummer
we talked about. His mother watched the video and she's like,
why aren't you in a Dave. He's like, I am
in it. She's like, I didn't see you. So he
had to like record it on a VHS dape, pause
it and say see this guy right here barely off screen.
That's me.
Speaker 1: Well the I mean, if you remember the video, like
the pool is surrounded by all these wacko characters, right yeah,
and then they're all like kind of marveling in him
walking on water, and toward the end of the video
they're like you know, Peter, They're like, oh, I'll come out,
and they just go right in.
Speaker 3: Drop in that's right.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, how do they fall in? And
he didn't fall in? You know what it was? What magic?
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, this video has the feel of some
of those early davidly Roth videos. Yeah, you know the
goofy not in my story, you don't, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right right, it's if you saw weird you know,
the weird Al Yankovic story. It's very much like the
Pool Party. It's it's kind of a cross between It's
kind of a cross between the Boogie Night's Pool Party
and the Car's video for Magic. Right.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this was the second single released May seventh,
nineteen eighty four. Yep, right around my twelfth birthday. It
reached number twelve on the Hot one hundred. Okay, please
tell me I got it?
Speaker 1: I got right, all right?
Speaker 3: So, and this is a who's who because summer of
eighty four was packed with great music, right yeah, yeah,
it's my contention. This is one of the best songs
of nineteen eighty four. In fact, I had it on
my list, but we marked it off because we knew
we were doing Heartbeat City Gotcha?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Number twelve is Magic. Number eleven is Let's Hear.
Speaker 1: It for the Boy, right off a foot Loose Gotcha.
Number ten is legs zz Top covered It yep. Number
nine is hard a rock and roll here we loosened
the News covered it. Number eight is almost Paradise, also
off of Footloose covered It.
Speaker 3: Number seven Time after Time by Cydey Lauper.
Speaker 1: That is a big hitter that we have not yet,
right Yeah, Her and Madonna probably need to do a comparison.
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 3: We do Number six Eyes without a Face.
Speaker 1: Oh, Billy Idle just got done with that one, compared
it to zz Top. That's right.
Speaker 3: Number five the Reflex Duran Duran.
Speaker 1: Yep, we talked about that one at least, and we
didn't cover I mean, that was on a different album.
But that's one of my favorite Duran durand songs.
Speaker 3: Number four self Control by Laura Brannigan.
Speaker 1: That was on my top. That was on my list
on Best of eighty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Number three Jump for my Love Sister.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Number two Dancing in the Dark.
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen covered it next to Huey Lewis, Keep Going,
Keep Going.
Speaker 3: Number one Windows Cry.
Speaker 1: Oh of course I was waiting for Prince. I'm like,
where the heck is Prince? Yep, there he is?
Speaker 3: There you go, Okay, love it one of my favorite
songs I did. This is probably my favorite song in
the entire album.
Speaker 1: Really, I love it. Yeah, it is a great It
is a great tune.
Speaker 3: Darts for that in my eyes Love Darts in my eyes. Okay,
we ready to go for like maybe the biggest hitter
of all.
Speaker 1: I think it's time.
Speaker 3: The song is called Drive.
Speaker 1: I want to listen to the whole song. That so good, right,
and we got a nice change up. We've had these
new wave poppy hits, we've had Rick singing and then
you come in with Benjamin or I mean forgive me.
But whenever you had to differentiate between the two singers,
you said, you know, there was the ugly one and
the good looking one. Right, Yeah, yeah, I'm and he's
got and he's got a beautiful voice. And in the
interviews that I mean, he doesn't seem to have a
big hit, you know, even though he's he's a good
looking guy who's got this amazing voice. And this song
is I mean, if you had to play a bunch
of car songs, my kids would be able to identify
this one. They were like, they would know this shirt.
Speaker 3: This is the one, right.
Speaker 2: Who's gone?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it has the lasting power these There are
so many great songs on this one, but this one
has stood the test of time from generation to generation.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the cool story on this is that Rick
UKs wrote this song in like nineteen eighty two. Yeah,
he o it and was gonna include it on his
solo album. I mean when he took it, he knew
this is the best song I've ever written, but he
looked at it and he said, I think Benjamin Or
can sing this better than I can. Yeah, so he
held it for the next Cars album.
Speaker 1: It's it is truly the right decisions, as sacrificial as
it was the right decision for him to make, because
I heard Rico Cassick singing this song like I heard
that version. Yeah, and it's there. He's got the tune,
but there's just something about Benjamin Orr's voice that makes
this song melt your heart.
Speaker 3: Okay, So we got to listen to the demo. Let's
listen to it, and without that magic mutt ling touch.
Speaker 2: You can't go on thinking nothingntroll.
Speaker 1: There nothing compared to the final product, that's right.
Speaker 3: So this was the third single released July twenty third,
nineteen eighty four, reached number three on the charts.
Speaker 1: This is their highest charting song. Yeah, we are talking
about a band that was an icon from seventy eight
to eighty eight, right Rocketbell Hall years they never had
a number one hit. What is wrong with the world?
Speaker 3: Okay, So let me let me tell you what blocked
this song from number one? Okay. So on September twenty ninth,
nineteen eighty four, you had Missing You by John Wade
at number two, Son of a Bitch, the biggest weenie song.
Speaker 2: Of the eighties.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I mean that he came up when
we talked about Journey.
Speaker 3: And then number one was Let's Go Crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, stupid Prince ruled that year with that song. So good,
but at least they could have gotten a number two. Right.
Speaker 3: Then the next week number two song is I Just
Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 1: Listen, I like that song and I know I like
it more than you do because you hate Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 3: Right, second biggest wienie song of the eighties.
Speaker 1: But this song's better than that song, Okay.
Speaker 3: And that week number one was Let's Go Crazy. And
then finally the third week at number three was Let's
Go Crazy at number two, and I Just Called to
Say I Love You.
Speaker 1: At number one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, that sucks crazy. So you know who is
a big, big fan of this song. Paul McCartney.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
Speaker 3: Paul McCartney cited this song as an influence for the
upcoming album he was writing.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: I mean when one of the Beatles says I listened
to Let's Dance by David Bowie and drive by the Cars,
and I knew that's where I wanted to go.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
Speaker 3: This is the Designated Driver theme song. Have you heard?
Have you heard the urban legends around this song?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: So supposedly their urban legend is that Rico Cassik met
and was talking to a girl at a party.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I have heard this. Yeah, I can't keep
going mouse.
Speaker 3: She had too much to drink. He offered to drive
her home, she said no, and she died in a
car accident on the Whitehouse. I don't know if there's
any truth to it, but it makes a great urban legend.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I think the version that I
heard was that the girl had the boyfriend, and the
boyfriend was too drunk and he was trying to talk
her out of writing home with the boyfriend. Oh okay,
as the version of the story that I heard. Okay,
But as you pointed out, this is really just an
urban legend, like he's he's just he's made up a
song because he's a creative artist. That's what they do, right.
But I said earlier, if you think of one of
two songs, the video of one or two songs, but
this video is pretty freaking memorable as well.
Speaker 3: Well, we got to talk about Paulina Proskovit at this point,
don't we.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so. The video, if you'll remember, it's got
this beautiful woman in it. She's only nineteen years old. Ah,
and she was one of like one of two people. Now,
she had already fallen in love with ric Ocassik from
prior videos, but she didn't know who he was. She
didn't know that he was in the cars. She just
knew of this guy and was in love with him.
She gets the part, and all of her scenes are
with him. Benjamin Or is sitting in a chair singing
the song. She is face to face with ric Ocassick.
Speaker 3: You're telling me that one of the Haws girls in
the eighties is in love with a guy that looks
like an upside down exclamation point.
Speaker 1: We could call it the Billy Joel effect if you'd like.
That's it. That's it. Yeah, she had totally fallen for
him before she even got the part in the video,
and it was just dumb luck. Now, as it turns out,
they started dating and they got married, and they were
married for over thirty years. Tragically, they were in the
middle of a divorce in twenty nineteen when Rick passed away.
What made that even more tragic was after thirty years,
he said, she gets nothing because she abandoned me. Yeah.
Back to this video. Yeah, I watched this again. I'm like, holy,
I called you up. I'm like, dude, I don't know
why she didn't do more in the acting world, but
she is amazing. I mean, she's playing somebody who obviously
has some mental health issues that she's dealing with, some
strong emotional issues. But there is a scene where she
transitions from one emotion to another emotion to another emotion
that she is dealing with some big, heavy stuff, crying, laughing,
all this thing, and it'll she does such a good job.
It'll tell her your heart open. I mean, it's amazing
what she does. Wow.
Speaker 3: Now, before we get into her, Yeah, I gotta tell
you the story behind the director of this music video. Yeah,
I called you up, and I'm like, you know who
directed this? Timothy Hutton from Taps from Taps and Turk
one eighty two, Yeah, and a million other things.
Speaker 1: In the eighties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he lived next door to the car's manager his
name was Elliott Roberts, and they were hanging out and
Elliott Roberts brought over like an early edition of Heartbeat City.
I was like, here, let me play the New Cars
album for you. See what you think. And Timothy Hutton
really zoned in on Drive. He said, man, that is
a great song right there. In fact, you really need
to make a music video. And if you're gonna make
a music video, here's what I would do. I would
do in black and white, and I would have the guys,
you know, sitting in chair or whatever, and he like,
cast this vision on the video. The manager of the
Cars is like, I'm gonna tell Rick Okasik your ideas
and if it's okay with him, I'd like you to
direct this music video. So he goes to Rick. Rick's like, hey, yeah,
let's do this. So Timothy Hutton, star of Turk one
eighty two, is the director of this music video.
Speaker 1: If not for Timothy Hutton, Paulina Porskova and Ricukassik might
never have met.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 3: So we've got to talk just a touch about Pauline Porskova.
She was born in nineteen sixty five to Anti Soviet
dissident parents, okay, which essentially they were living in Czechoslovakia.
They had spoken out against the Soviet Union. Well, the
Soviets invade and they've got to run for their lives,
Like they escape to Sweden. They leave her with.
Speaker 1: Her grandmother in Czechoslovakia.
Speaker 3: In Czechoslovakia, okay, okay, this is the Warsaw packed invasion.
They moved to Sweden and they expect, you know, she'll
be coming along shortly. Well, they don't let her go.
The Soviets are like, no, she's staying. So when she
was seven, her pregnant mother sneaks back into the country
to rescue her and like bring her out of Czechoslovakia. Well,
they found her, captured her placed her under arrest. But
because there is so much like political pressure, they actually
let Paulina go with her mom. Oh my gosh, how
about that.
Speaker 1: That is a heck of a story.
Speaker 3: When she's thirteen, a friend who wants to be a
makeup artist says, you're kind of pretty. Could I try
out You're kind of pretty? You're kind of pretty? Could
I try out my makeup styles on you and take
photographs of you? And so the friend makes her up,
takes photos, sends it to a model aid agency hoping
to get hired as a photographer, and they're like, who's
the girl in the pictures? And so she was discovered
by John Casablancas. She goes on to be on the
covers of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in nineteen eighty
four and nineteen eighty five at age eighteen and nineteen,
and goes on to be the highest paid model of
nineteen eighty eight six million dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Married ric Ocassic in nineteen eighty nine, had two sons.
How about that crazy?
Speaker 1: Okay? That brings us to track number five. This one's
called Stranger Eyes. Okay, So you start off with this
almost Debo esque whistley kind of synth lead right, a flute, Yeah, yeah,
it's you got to get the whosh sound like you're
blowing into something, right, Greg Hawkstudent, which is one type
of music. Then Elliott Easton comes in with this almost
like golden earring style of lead guitar riff, which I
don't know how you put those two things together and
get this song, but this was a this was a
discovery for me. I had not heard this song before.
I really like it, like this, this was a nice
little oh kind of dig this and then he starts singing.
I'm like, Okay, this is kind of cool, and then
the chorus comes in. Dude, this is a really kick
butt song. I'm surprised this was not on the singles chart,
you know, I mean, why didn't they throw this one
out there as a single?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you I like it too. I think
it's great. I love the chorus on this. There's an
urgency to the beat of this. This was the song
that they attached to the earliest versions of the trailers
for Top Gun.
Speaker 1: Oh it's perfect for that. It is perfect for that.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: They didn't have danger Zone ready, they didn't have to
take my breath away. None of that stuff was ready.
So they had to pick a song, and they're like,
how about Stranger Eyes for by the Cars?
Speaker 1: Fantastic?
Speaker 5: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay.
Speaker 3: I was gonna tell you, I got this great quote
from Vernon Reed, Vernon Reid of Living Color, Yes, of
Living Color, Okay, and he was talking about the videos
for the cars.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, So this.
Speaker 3: Is what he said, if you weren't beautiful and hip.
You had to be quirky in some particular way. In
those cars videos. Rick is just too tall, too thin.
That was the hook. He was a gangly scarecrow with
great tunes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That nails it. That nails it.
Speaker 3: Yep, very memorable face. Okay, So let's talk about Benjamin
Or for just a second. Yeah, I believe he is
the singer on this song.
Speaker 1: It sounds like him. I mean, it is difficult to
tell their voices apart in certain songs, and this one
he doesn't. He's not as melodic as he is in
like Drive, But I believe that this is still. Yeah,
I believe this is Benjamin Or.
Speaker 3: Actually, when I first heard this, I would have given
my last paycheck that Mike Reno of Loverboys this song.
But anyway, Benjamin Or aka Benny eleven Letters, in April
of two thousand was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Yeah, but
I mean he continued to sing and tour and.
Speaker 1: Yeah up until lay days before he died.
Speaker 3: He died October third, two thousand, at age fifty three.
Speaker 1: The day I turned there you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he did have one big hit song in
nineteen eighty seven called Stay the Night and Rick Ocassik
wrote the song silver as an homage to him.
Speaker 1: Nice. There's a that it was nice. They got the
band together for like one last interview where they kind
of talked about the good old days and their career together.
But yeah, Ben, you can tell he's been fighting cancer.
He's so thin and not look good. He did not
look like his normal self. But and he didn't. He
was not very vocal during the process. But it was
nice to see them get together together again before the end.
Speaker 3: All right, hit stop in your tape player, kick it out,
flip it over for side two. Let's kick it off
with the first single.
Speaker 1: You might think, can we say perfect pop song?
Speaker 3: This is a great pop song.
Speaker 1: It I mean, this is kind of a throwback to
what they were doing on their debut album. It's so
hooky and then perfect for nineteen eighty four, they create
one of the coolest videos of all time.
Speaker 3: I mean, the story here is really the video, right, yeah,
one of the very first videos to use computer graphics.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This video, I don't know if you know this or not,
is based on a National Inquirer commercial.
Speaker 1: Has Wayne Newton split with his wife and hit the
jack pop with his new romance inquiring minds.
Speaker 2: One, hold, I want to know.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, you told me about this.
Speaker 3: Yes, So they would do all these weird like Princess Diana.
I was doing this and they'd have little cutouts and
they'd it would move around the screen. The National inquirer
is what gave them this idea?
Speaker 1: Right? Well, it gave the director of the video the idea, right, okay.
Speaker 3: So this music video was directed by Robin Sloane of
Electro Records Creative after director Jeff Stein showed her samples
from the New York based visual effects company Charlex.
Speaker 1: That's weird, okay, because, like I looked up the video,
there are four different directors listed, including Jeff Stein Charlex,
also including Alex Wheel and Charlie Levy, but no Robin Sloane.
So I don't know why what's going on with IMDb
on that deal, But I would think of all the
videos in the world, this one you would have an
accurate listing on director because this one video of the
year in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, now, are you telling me this video
beat thriller?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: And every breath you take yes and rocket yes. Yes.
This one video of the year was the first MTV
Music Awa winner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they gave him the moon Man. Yeah, well I
didn't even know were they moon Man at that point.
Speaker 3: In fact, I read a story that ric Ocassi used
that Moonman as a doorstop.
Speaker 1: Well they didn't. They thought the idea for the video
was stupid.
Speaker 3: Right, There's like King Kong and one guy's a dentist
and he's drilling this. You know, the pretty girl is
getting her teeth drilled. They're like singing and playing on
a bar of soap. And when they brought this to
the band, they're like, here's what we're gonna do. Guys.
One guy said, why don't you just have us play
on a turn in the toilet bit. This is one
of the most memorable music videos of all time.
Speaker 1: It absolutely is and throw back to our Karate Kid
episode was used as inspiration it and raising Arizona, primarily
for the sweep the Leg video that William Zappacac director.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, hey, speaking of karate Kid, the actress in
this music video, her name is Susan Gallagher.
Speaker 1: Yes and us off.
Speaker 3: Right Well, IMDb has her listed as being homeless Linn
in Cobra Kai. That's right, and I'm like de do
you know who that is? And you're like, oh, yeah,
you know homeless Lynn.
Speaker 1: I'm started. I was like, I've gave you the mind
blown thing, right, I was like, oh my gosh, I
can't and I keep looking and I'm like, that doesn't
really look like her and.
Speaker 3: All pretty ladies.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So there is another Susan Gallagher who was
in the video. She ended up marrying some big time
MTV executive and you know, had a happy life being quiet.
And the other Susan Gallagher, who's in Cobra Kai, didn't
really start her career until later on. They're both kind
of close to the same age. But yes, two different
Susan Gallaghers.
Speaker 3: Screw you, IMDb for screwing that up. Okay, so this
song only got to number seven.
Speaker 1: Please tell me you get another list, Okay.
Speaker 3: I do, so you might think is number seven? This
is February of nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Number six is Loved Somebody by Rick Springfield.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 3: Number five is missed Me Blind by Ultra Club. What
number four is Hold Me Now by Thompson Twins.
Speaker 1: Okay, I can go there.
Speaker 3: Number three is Footloose, Sure. Number two is Hello by
Lionel Richie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's big.
Speaker 3: And number one maybe the best song of nineteen eighty
four against all odds by Phil Collins. Shut up, I
love that song.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, well yeah, like four of those seven
need to have lost to that. That's right, that's terrible.
Speaker 3: You ever seen the movie The Sure Thing John Cusack,
Daphne Zuniga. No, oh, it's so good. They featured this
song in that in that movie.
Speaker 1: Oh awesome.
Speaker 3: All right, we're done with this one.
Speaker 1: Yep, great song, incredibly memorable video.
Speaker 3: I did want to tell you one last thing.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, yeah.
Speaker 3: To the sun filled one last thing. There are two
versions of this music video. Apparently it grows some people
out when Rick Ocassick like removed his face and like
water came out of it at the end, okay, and
then like at the end they splat the fly and
it says the end.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So some of them end with the face pull off
and some of them do not. Apparently that was upsetting
to some people.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take his face off. John wu was inspired.
Speaker 3: All right. Next song on the album is called It's
not the Night.
Speaker 1: Okay, nice arpeggio beginning to this thing, but honestly, I'm
a little bored. Really yeah, I like this one, well
until the chorus.
Speaker 3: The.
Speaker 1: Arpeggio goes away and you get some and you get
more of a rock to it, and so to me
the song is I would be worried. As a kid,
I would probably be like boring and skip it. If
you hold out and you wait for the chorus on
this one, you will be rewarded for your effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I like this song. It's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a big hit for a single, but
it's good. Yeah. But I young nineteen eighties me would
have called it a skipper, but today's me held out.
I was grown up. I linkeded my attention span. I
listened to the chorus. I'm like, Okay, this song has
some promise to it. It kind of reminds me of
a song a little bit, but rob reminds me of
a song off of the debut album you know the
Big Three that I already mentioned from the Cars?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Have you heard of a song called moving in stereo? Okay,
play it for me. I will play it for you, sir,
I will play it for it. Thank you, thank you,
And I guarantee you're going to remember the song, but
the question is will you remember where you remember it from?
Speaker 5: Okay, here it comes in.
Speaker 2: Except.
Speaker 3: Okay, I recognize it, but I can't place it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I would say probably one hundred percent of
our male listeners recognize it as well, and about half
of them are in the same boat that you are.
That they're like, where do I this?
Speaker 3: Rod?
Speaker 1: Dirty movie was I I'm about to blow your mind? Okay, okay.
It involves a swimming pool and a red bikini and
the most memorable dream sequence in early eighties music history
with Miss Phoebe Cates.
Speaker 3: You're blowing my mind. There you go, Fast Times Origement High.
Speaker 1: You got it? Wow?
Speaker 3: Perfect.
Speaker 1: I have been sitting on that for this entire episode.
I was so excited. It's just like, oh my gosh, she.
Speaker 3: Blew my mind.
Speaker 1: Good job, Yeah, good job.
Speaker 3: I want to talk for just a minute. The Cars
broke up in nineteen eighty eight, goes on to be
a record producer, and he takes what he learned from
that mutt laning experience. I mean, he produces some big names.
Speaker 1: Listen to this list.
Speaker 3: He produces albums by Bad Religion, YEP, Guided by Voices, Suicide,
Bad brains.
Speaker 1: Bro He produced No Doubt, We just who Just James
Buckley sent us a video of them. The band is
back together performing at twenty twenty four Coachella. Right, Gwen
Stefani looks the same as she did back in the nineties.
Speaker 3: She's drinking from the same fountain of youth somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Tom Cruise is but.
Speaker 1: He produced Weezer like the Blue Album and the Green
like the biggest Weezer albums of all About that.
Speaker 3: That is so cool. Okay, let's move on to the
fifth single. This song is called why Can't I Have You?
Speaker 1: So this was the last single released in the US,
but it was only the second to the last single
released in Okay, that's right, Which is weird that they
would release another single in the UK because even the
band has said this, Basically, UK hates them, like their
songs never do as well over there. Really Yeah, I
don't remember what the what the story was, but basically
they didn't like them, which is also kind of weird
because a lot of people think that the cars are
from the UK. They just kind of, I guess, have
a style or whatever that David Robinson influenced what their
fashion style was like. Okay, and I guess it kind
of brought a UK vibe, so I think a lot
of people thought they were from the UK. Or maybe
it's just because Ricocastack looks like a Chimney sweep.
Speaker 3: Jim Jimminy, Jimmy Jimmy, just Lord.
Speaker 2: Time to tell you my mind?
Speaker 3: So yeah. This was released January seventh, nineteen eighty five.
This only reached number thirty three. I think this is
a great song. I think this is single worthy. I
think it's makeout worthy.
Speaker 1: That's what was gonna say if you were a deep
dive cars fan. This was on the Makeout Mixtape of
nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3: Yes, but man, in eighty five, there's so much competition.
I just want to roll through the top five. And again,
this only made it to number thirty three. Yeah, number five,
as we are the World, okay. Number four is lover
Girl by Tina.
Speaker 1: Marie, which we talked about.
Speaker 3: Top Gun soundtrack.
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, Tina Marie.
Speaker 3: Number three Can't Fight This Feeling by Ario Speedwagon.
Speaker 1: I was huge.
Speaker 3: My son's girlfriend, Gracie and her mom went and saw
Ario Speedwagon the other night. Gracy and Tracy, Gracy and
I told I asked Cracy the other day, I'm like,
how were they She's like, they were awesome. They're like
seventy years old, amazing, So apparently, are you Speedwagon's still
worth going to see?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: Then number two Material Girl by Madonna, Yeah, and number
one One More Night by Phil Collins. We're covering Phil
Collins next summer. Okay, okay, I like this song. It's great.
Move on to the next one. Okay, Okay, moving on
to the next song. This song is called I Refuse.
I like this one. I think the verses are better than.
Speaker 1: The chorus, though I do not like the chorus. Yeah,
it's a very nice melody on the verses that I
do refuse. I mean, I think if you just pick
some different words, it might be better. But it's just
it's not pleasant to listen to.
Speaker 3: I don't like it, right, So it kind of loses
its steam in the chorus. But this is the sound
of the mid eighties. I can deafin see this as
in the soundtrack of some domb eighties movie like Gotcha
or Breaking All the Rules.
Speaker 1: Or Your Science. Yeah. Yeah, it is a bummer about
the chorus on this one, because in all other respects
it's good music, it's good sound, it's good fun. Yeah,
but not my favorite. This is probably my least favorite
song on the album. Okay.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's a skipper, but if there is, this.
Speaker 1: Might be it. Yeah, it might be it. So we
kind of mentioned the members of the band. We didn't
talk about how they got their name. Yeah, tell me so.
The name came from David Robinson. Okay, Now, I thought
maybe he was a car guy, right, and I did
some research and just back in twenty twenty, he was
actually on an episode of Chasing Classic Cars, which how
appropriate is that? And they restore I'm not sure if
it was a sixty nine or a seventy, but it
was a de thomas O Mangusta. I showed you this car.
It is bad, sweet, Yeah it is. It is like
a seventies era Lamborghini slash Ferrari, cool lines. It's very
much of spy hunter kind of car. I think he
is into automotive stuff, but I don't know that that
had anything to do with choosing the band name. Do
you know the story on this?
Speaker 3: Okay, So, as I understand it, they were looking for
a name for the band. Yeah, and David Robson. Everybody
came up with a list of four or five things,
and he came up with the name The Cars. And
they just kind of read through everybody's suggestions and they
were like, Hm, the cars short, it's memorable, we like it,
let's do it.
Speaker 1: Well, there you go. Sometimes it's it's just as simple
as that, right, Yeah, so they you know, I mentioned
that they had been Captain Swing before, but Rick Ocassick
just felt like that most of the band was not
the right fit for his music. I mean, he was
writing all of the music and Benjamin Orr wasn't playing anything,
he was just singing. But Rico Cassik fired, the drummer fired,
the bass player, had ben Or takeover on bass, fired,
the guitarist, brought in Ellie Eastman, and then that's how
they became the new band that decided they needed the
new name of the Cars.
Speaker 3: Hey. You know, they actually make a conscious effort to
not include like car related things on their videos or
make references everything.
Speaker 1: But drive. Well, think about I was gonna say they
didn't have a car and drive. It was just the
name of the song, right, Who's going to drive you home?
Speaker 3: There you go? Yeah, Okay, last song on the album.
This song is called Heartbeat City.
Speaker 1: So the name of the song was originally Jackie, right,
which seems like a more appropriate title to me.
Speaker 3: It's not as cool, but it's not as.
Speaker 1: Interesting, that's right. Heartbeat City is an interesting name, and
I can see why they chose that as the album name.
Speaker 3: Ye, Jackie falls flat a little bit, a little bit, Yeah, okay,
I changed my answer. This is my skipper.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This was the sixth single. This was released only in
the UK. This doesn't really do a lot for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again, it's got it's got a polished
sound to it, and it's got a good melody, but
it is just kind of dry. Okay.
Speaker 3: Now, they performed four songs at Live eight.
Speaker 1: Okay, you might think banger right, drive all time, huge, right,
just what I needed in heartbeat City, right right? Well,
I think that there is I think there are some
people who enjoy this song. It's just not my bag
man right now. We of course have the Mutt Laying
sound on it. It's very clean, very precise, and we
mentioned before that a lot of the guys who worked
with Mutt, you know, even though he was very obsessive
about how good the sound had to be they enjoyed
working with him. I don't think that was the case
for the.
Speaker 3: Cars, No, definitely not now as I understand it.
Speaker 1: They basically did most of the work with him, but
finally just kind of had enough and they're like, hey,
we're good. We're just going to take what we've got
so far and head back home.
Speaker 3: I saw that too. That really kind of surprised me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they've got I don't and I don't know
where they end and ended up finishing the album City
It was in New York City, okay, because they have
their own studio. Like early on, like in nineteen eighty one,
they bought a studio there in Boston is called Intermedia Studios,
and it looked pretty cool, like they redid it and
they did it the way they wanted it. Like I
watched this old weird documentary that I sent you that
was like Cars Drivers and Elliott Eastman, like Easton. I
was like, was Elliott Easton the star of this movie? Right?
But anyway, they'd go into great detail about how they
built this studio, but the only Cars album that they
recorded there was Shake It Up. So I think it
ended up just being like a hangout place they would
talk about, how, you know, like Iggy Pop would showup.
They're like, hey, let's go over the studio and just
they just sit around and play music and just have
fun in this studio, which pretty cool idea, It is cool.
But I guess they did not finish the album up
in Boston. They finished it up in New York City.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, it's time for final judgment.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, we're done with the album already. Now
we have to decide is it this Heartbeat City or
is it Reckless? By Brian Adams. Yes, okay, I told
you when I knew that we were doing another mud
laying album. I didn't want to just use my at yourbuds.
I didn't just want to use my car stereo. I
bought myself some over the ears noise canceling headphones, and
it was worth the money to buy them. This is
what I did when I listened to Pyromania for the
first time, and it was worth it then as well.
It's just I just pretended like it was nineteen eighty
four and I just bought the album sticking this thing on,
and my mind was blown. Like he makes so much
use of stereo and panning and volume, and it is
a pristine work of art. Okay, I love it. Yeah,
I love so many of the songs on this album,
but walking out the Door, I cannot overcome the rock
beauty of Reckless Summer sixty nine. Run to You, I mean,
just run to you. Just That's all I want to say,
over and over is run to You and banger after
banger after banger. There is not a skipper on that album.
And it was an album that it wasn't very familiar
with before we started doing this episode, and it could
be different on it in any given day, but right now,
as I'm sitting here, it's the winner for me. It's
Reckless by Bryanos.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I think I was the one who came
up with this matchup. We were talking about what were
we going to compare Reckless to. We talked about doing
Phil Collins, we talked about doing some other things, and
I'm like, you know, a album packed with hits from
nineteen eighty four is really what we're looking for, and
that was Heartbeat City. And I own this album and
I love this album, and I love Mutt Lang. He's
like James Cameron of album producers. So anything he does
I love. There are no skippers on Heartbeat City. There
are some that are less than others, but there's no skippers.
There's no skippers on Reckless either. So the question then
becomes what songs do.
Speaker 1: I like better?
Speaker 3: I would love to disagree with you, but I cannot.
Reckless is the better album based on the sheer rock
beauty that Reckless puts forth. However, the video game for
the cars is much stronger. The videos for you might think,
and Magic and Hello Again are better really than anything
anything Brian as put out. True, he didn't concentrate on
music videos. He concentrated on the songs, and that's fine.
The songs are better, but the cars videos are much better.
That's where I come down.
Speaker 1: Wow. So this is one of those few times where
we're in agreement.
Speaker 2: Age.
Speaker 1: They seem to be happening more and more of these days.
Baker streeted this one again. We ran together. Well, guys,
tell us what you think. Hit us up on Twitter
or x or whatever it is now at Shirley Podcast,
hit us up on Facebook, or you can email us
simple email or remember Shirley Podcast Surely Surely Podcast at
gmail dot com. We've had so many people emailing us
and giving us ideas and thoughts. We had a great
email from a guy named Chuck Bryan, who's now going
to come co host an episode when we compare Phantom,
Menace and Star Trek the Motion Picture as you know,
a couple of well were these of swinging a miss?
Or should you revisit these movies and take a look
at them again?
Speaker 3: I want to know what our Canadian friends thought about
Reckless versus Heartbeat City. So that's Cameron Eckert, That's Tim App,
that's Atti Know, that's.
Speaker 1: Your buddy Chris Hancock. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Do you guys love Brian Adams as much as we
think you do?
Speaker 1: Right? Right? Do we have any fans in Boston? I
don't know anyway.
Speaker 3: Doug Huggins from Boston.
Speaker 1: There you go, Doug, what do you think of the
cars Man?
Speaker 3: There you go? Okay, Next week we are diving into
the best of nineteen eighty nine Top seven Songs of
nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna tell you, I feel like there's
gonna be a lot of rock ballads going on, a
lot of soft rock going on, a lot of love
songs going on.
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely kind of the peak of hair metal, but
a lot we had to eliminate from our list because
we already covered him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, come back for that.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't wait. Thank you guys so much. We
will see you next week. It's the track team that's
not even practicing anymore. They have texted no less than
thirty nine times in the last five seconds. What the heck.