Replay: The Cars, Candy-O, 1979

Woman enthusiast Alberto Vargas' cover art won lots of praise and even made it into a Rolling Stone 100 Best Album Covers coffee table tome. I don't own the book, but I'm morally torn between wondering how many women were on that panel of "distinguished art directors, designers, photographers and editors" and wondering how this one would look splayed on a coffee table instead of an insubstantial sportscar. I bought the CD (8-track needed replacing) in a nostalgic fugue state a few years back, took it home for some quality time, and when "Since I Held You" kicked in, my roommate guffawed.

"What's funny?" I say, and he says, "the tempo."

He was right. The song is somehow too fast and too slow at the same time. An unstable tempo. No one noticed it in 1979, but I think it's the drums: naked kicks and snares, loud and proud and naively on-beat, boom-thap-boom-thap. It was everywhere back then--a no-nonsense rock (and disco) conceit that reigned with unrelenting, cross-genre jurisdiction at the time, but that wouldn't be taken too seriously by hip hop-savvy folk of the future. We are the future, weaned on digital thunder, and their drums are useless against us.

Yo but check it-- grooves still abound on these early Cars tracks, if largely by the grace of other instruments. It was a more inspired era for guitarists and keyboardists, and Candy-O has ax-man Elliot Easton (with rhythm backing from elongate frontman Ric Ocasek) assuming a lot of percussive authority in addition to melodic hooks galore ("Got a Lot on My Head"). Greg Hakwes' chilly synth is everywhere, whether in the form of icy overlays or quick bursts syncopated with drums and guitars.

When it all clicks, it's a dream. Of course, any instrumentation can be a dream so long as the content isn't a drag. The Cars was songwriter Ocasek's band, and behind those dark glasses were bright ideas for the kind of "smart guitar pop" so often referred to when describing the innovations we heard back then, washed in with the first swells of new wave.--Dave Surratt