You don't have to be a fan of baseball to know that Babe Ruth hit a fuck-ton of home runs in his career. He also led the league in strike outs. Because of all the home runs he hit, he was a hero to millions and a beloved symbol of American greatness. Those strikeouts were a small price to pay for all the awesome sauce Ruth brought to the ballpark. Warts and all, the man made baseball worth caring about again.
Like Ruth, The Cars hit a LOT of home runs on their self-titled debut album, which this writer bought on a whim based on the album cover (backside, too). It looked hot, cool, new, old, sexy, sophisticated, and that it just might rock.
Once my needle touched wax, I was quickly proven right as the sultry throb of "Good Times Roll" filled the room. The chorus hit me like a baseball from about 450 feet away.
"My Best Friend's Girl" was next up and, well, you've all heard it. Had the band let this tune bat clean-up, this would have been a grand slam.
Then, of course, came "Just What I Needed", which arrived seemingly from outer space with a bat in its hands and a steely eye toward the left field fence. Pop! Off it goes! Send us a postcard!
By now, like anyone else who found themselves listening to the album for the first time, I was beginning to wonder if all this band did was hit four-baggers.
Then came "I'm In Touch With Your World".
Now, I love this album like flesh and blood, but I will fully admit to only ever hearing this epic dud once in its entirety and that was on the fateful first-listen. Quite honestly, I'd have skipped to the next song at the ten-second mark, but after the album's first three tunes knocked me on my teenage ass, I was willing to give the boys the benefit of the doubt.
Those three-and-a-half minutes may have been the longest ten hours of my life.
Yes, the song is ambitious, its influences admirable, and the band's execution is flawless, yet when it brought my enjoyable listening experience to a screeching halt, I found myself seriously contemplating whether or not there'd been some sort of mid-pressing catastrophe at the record factory wherein an inferior song from another album was somehow inserted into a pressing in progress.
Ultimately, however, this listener was forced to acknowledge that the only mistake that had been made was when producer Roy Thomas Baker accidentally hit "RECORD" instead of ordering the band to never perform the song again in his presence.
Tags:
the cars