Talk:The Cars

Bad link

David Robinson links to a basketball star, not a drummer. heidimo 23:19, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Not any more. However, if someone would like to expand the David Robinson article, that would be nice... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.48.80.45 (talk) 23:40, 24 June 2004 (UTC)

You may wish to contact davids brother Paul he is on facebook and is happy to answer anything in regards to THE CARS! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.18.84.232 (talk) 16:20, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

First mention of name

Shouldn't the comments such as (born Rick OtCasek) occur when the name is first mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.115.54.113 (talk) 02:45, 31 August 2004 (UTC)

Biased

This text is very biased against the band. Could some please check these facts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.236.76.8 (talk) 07:40, 11 November 2004 (UTC)

It basically claims Elliot Easton was a poor musician, which is a blatant lie. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.255.135.211 (talk) 09:57, 11 November 2004 (UTC)

You are trolling. The article makes no such claims. -- FirstPrinciples 12:57, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Rhythm section

Here's what I don't get: Big tribute to Ocasek and Orr but no mention of the all world rhythm section. Have you ever actually appreciated how the the music is so well defined by the exacting percussion or do you just sing along in the shower??? If you change the drums they all starve and no one gets a supermodel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twodogsfishing (talk • contribs) 05:49, 31 December 2004 (UTC)

did this offend you personally? did you shed tears over this? are you suffering emotional pain from this? FIX IT YOURSELF BE BOLD IN UPDATING PAGES. If there is a problem or something you'd like to add, do it yourself, don't cry to everyone. geez--Elysianfields 06:24, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

The Cars was vs. The Cars were

Can someone explain the correct usage here on the Talk page to settle the ongoing tug of war in the first sentence? —Whoville 02:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

See [1] and [2] for lengthy discussions. The Copyeditor 02:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

We've settled through changing nouns for months now. It's RJN, he's the one who keeps changing back "are" to "is" and "were" to "was" for incorrect grammar usage of collective noun to such articles of american bands, for example he would change "The Doors were" to "The Doors was". I disagree that bands that have an "s" at the end of a band name are singular, but I'm not British, I'm American. But, I do not believe that the singular is correct. And for this band, it seems that the band members are talking about more than one car, for example "The Cars are parked in the garage". Still, the plural is correct for this band name. 65.222.216.15 00:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Elliot Easton comment

Hey there seems to something missing here...I think this was a comment Elliot Easton made but I'm not sure...someone was making an edit to it or something...when i logged in there was a box around this whole comment:

Really, The New Cars lineup is, more than anything, a combining of two great bands: The Cars and of course, Utopia, with Prairie being a long time associate of Todd's and Kasim's. We fly under the flag of The New Cars, but are equally proud of the legacy associated with both bands, as well as all of the members' work in various other configurations, such as Todd's work under his own name and Prairie's work with The Tubes and many other artists." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tamara4006 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Why ...

... is the section on the New Cars longer than the section on the Cars? Regardless of one's opinion on each act, wouldn't all agree that this disproportion should be corrected? Rapmasterjc 18:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rapmasterjc (talk • contribs) 19 September 2006.

Agreed. The amount of space devoted to the Colbert Report/Ocasek meme is overkill. —Whoville 21:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

No Vargas cover art blurb???

It's a travesty that there's not one word regarding Vargas' cover for Candy-O, which brought him out of retirement shortly before his death.

One could argue that the pinup girl imagery gave the Cars an additional iconic hook that they otherwise would have lacked (with the red-nailed live model cover of "Shake It Up" and the knockoff Vargas-girl on the cover of "Heartbeat City" continuing the theme.)

While sexpots and scantily-clad girls on album covers was certainly nothing new in 1979, hormone-ridden teens could look Mother square in the eye and say "Don't be a prude, Mother. It's *art!*"

In the pre-internet days when cheesecake pinups and pornography were accesible only at the bottom of Dad's closet, the Cars certainly knew they were guaranteeing a few hundred thousand album sales when they picked the Candy-O cover.

--Rocker311 17:28, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree with your "knockoff" reference to the Heartbeat City cover. That was a painting done in 1973 called Art-O-Matic Loop-De-Loop, incidentally, not commissioned for the album. It's a vastly different style from Vargas. But yes, you have a point about the importance of the album covers. Note that the albums which didn't feature a cute girl (Panorama and Door To Door) sold poorly in comparison to the others. --63.25.113.207 18:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe

If there is any proof of the demographic skew of Wikipedia contributors, it's the fact that this shockingly thin article about a very popular band includes no less than three mentions of Phoebe Cates' "pool scene" in Fast Times. (I like how it's euphemistically called the "pool scene" instead of the "boobies scene".) emw 23:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Singles layout

I'm trying a new layout for the Singles section. The previous layout, with the single table containing two sets of columns, was more compact, but a little confusing. The two sides need to have at least a small amount of separation, I think. For now, I've split them and used a columnar layout. It separates them a bit more than I had intended, at least in higher resolutions, but I think it's better than having them joined as they were. If anyone has a better idea that tightens up the tables a bit, go ahead and try it. --Fru1tbat 15:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

WHO studied at Berklee?

It's a known fact that Elliot Easton studied at Berklee College of Music, whereas this article only refers to Greg Hawkes doing so. I don't recall ever reading that Hawkes went to Berklee, only Easton. It's possible Hawkes did, but does anyone know for sure? I'm gonna see if I can fix this. --63.25.113.207 18:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Note to self: Read current articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere, instead of relying on your memory of the biography Frozen Fire, which you lost sixteen years ago.

I've merely added that Easton also went to Berklee. Sorry for the idiocy. --63.25.113.207 18:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:The Cars - Panorama.jpg

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"Punk scene"?!

The entry begins "The Cars were an American rock band that emerged from the early punk scene in the late 1970s." This is not only unsourced, it's absurd. There is, so far as I can tell (as a veteran of that scene) no connection between The Cars and early Punk -- stylistically or in any other way. The Cars emerged from the early New Wave scene, and anyone who was there will tell you that they were very different scenes. I've changed the first sentence to reflect this. If anyone has any verifiable evidence to the contrary, by all means -- let's see it. Bricology (talk) 04:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The Cars emerged from the early New Wave scene, and anyone who was there will tell you that they were very different scenes

That's ridiculous. "Anyone who was there" would actually know that in the very early days, the terms Punk and New Wave were most often used interchangeably as descriptions for the all of the underground-ish new music of the time (how else do you explain the Sex Pistols, Blondie and Elvis Costello and The Runaways ALL being labeled "punk"?). It wasn't until a couple of years into the Punk explosion that the two terms began to be differentiated based on musical approaches...New Wave of course being reserved for poppier/artier punk-type bands (at least for a while before it became a way to categorize all "crazy haircut pop"). 74.69.64.200 (talk) 21:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Percentage of lead vocals

I just counted: Ben Orr sang 22 out of a total of 61 album tracks. That total includes "Tonight She Comes". For songs in which the leads were shared ("You Wear Those Eyes", "It's Not the Night", etc.) I credited Ben rather than Ric, since he sang the majority of the leads in these songs. That equals 36% of the leads. Previously, the article said Ric sang "about 60%", with Ben taking "the remaining 40%", and there was a citeneeded attached to that. Instead of being pedantic, I changed it to Ric singing "the majority" and Ben singing "approximately one third" of the leads. Question: Why would a citation be needed for this? And what would be an appropriate source?? It's just a matter of checking the album credits. What, we should cite the albums themselves, duplicating a list that already appears in the article?
--63.25.104.164 (talk) 14:26, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

And for more information on the Legacy of Benjamin Orr please see his group called Benjamin Orr The Legacy located at Yahoo groups. This group has the largest fan collection of photographs and has a few projects in the works as far as Benjamin Orr is concerned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.18.84.232 (talk) 16:20, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Genre

There have been numerous edits to this article regarding genre recently with absolutely no discussion on this talk page. First, the infobox is for basic information which should not require references nor is there a field for references. Also, the sources that were used are commercial web sites and are completely unsuitable for wikipedia. As for the WNEW reference, I don't think it is a definitive source, plus its description of The Cars is very similar to what was already in this article and appears to have been recently posted on the WNEW web site on November 11, 2008. It's quite possible the unknown writer of the material borrowed from wikipedia which is one of the pitfalls of simply googling the internet for sources. While I don't disagree with the assertion that The Cars were part of the power pop genre, the insertion of musical genre (power pop) into an existing sentence describing instrumentation (guitar and synth) makes no sense. To address these problems, I have added a description of The Cars' musical style from a respected source with a citation. Lastly, there have been disputes over infobox genre in many rock music articles. The solution inevitably comes down to simplifying the infobox with broad labels such as Rock and New Wave and leaving the sub-genres to be addressed within the article. I strongly support leaving the infobox alone and adding a well-thought out, properly sourced paragraph if any editors think the article requires more information or is lacking in any way. Piriczki (talk) 15:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Rock Based?

They are actually a ROCK BASED band, and they were considered new wave but as many of there songs are a mixed breed of music genres. In over half of there songs they mix rock and roll, such as classic rock, poprock, and supposely art rock.

But in all of there songs, it always has a new wave mix in it, and over half of the time, variety types of pop like synthpop, and electropop. So they really have a huge mix of genres but to put it together, new wave poprock based. But to shorten it, simply rock based. MajorHawke (talk) 16:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Fix there/their issues in paragraph 2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.60.31.251 (talk) 00:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Punk rock?

they had a connection with punk rock — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.83.205 (talk) 20:08, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

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Timeline

I would like to remove the timeline. It is superfluous. Any objections? Bob Caldwell CSL (talk) 14:03, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I'll agree. - FlightTime (open channel) 14:13, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

No objection here. Piriczki (talk) 14:24, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Genre changes

Per @FlightTime:, I am starting a discussion on this talk page in regards to genre changes. I feel like pop rock and synth-pop should be removed from the infobox. Pop rock is not even sourced anywhere, and synth-pop is not a genre the band really embraced until their third album Shake It Up and continuing through Door to Door. As for that genre's sources, I propose moving them to the Musical style section with a brief blip on their synth-pop excursions as well as their dance music excursion on Shake It Up. I also propose keeping only new wave and power pop in the infobox. Both genres appear consistently and prominently across all seven albums, and can also describe most of their musical excursions (except for hard rock, art rock, garage rock, and rockabilly).

For the revised Musical style section, I propose something like this:

The Cars' music has been described as new wave and power pop, and is influenced by proto-punk, garage rock, and bubblegum pop. They have also used rockabilly in songs such as "My Best Friend's Girl". In addition, they have also written and recorded hard rock-oriented songs including "You're All I've Got Tonight", used dance music on Shake It Up, as well as synth-pop on Shake It Up, Heartbeat City, and Door to Door. Robert Palmer, music critic for The New York Times and Rolling Stone, described the Cars' musical style: "they have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends—punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures of art rock, the 1950s rockabilly revival and the melodious terseness of power pop—and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend."

This was on the page before it was rightfully reverted by FlightTime due to no talk page discussion taking place. And maybe we could expand this to include the bands/songs that influenced The Cars (E.G. Yummy Yummy Yummy influencing Just What I Needed) as well as the artists/bands influenced by them (E.G. Nirvana, Weezer, Fountains of Wayne, The Click 5, etc). Let me know what you guys think of these proposed changes. Moline1 (talk) 18:23, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2020 and 6 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alejandro AU.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2020 and 17 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gregory Dododzah.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)