The Cars
Some bands have just one song, so distinctive no one else dares imitate it. The band may put different titles on 10 albums, with different melodies and sets of lyrics. But the result is only variations on an ingenious prototype. For the Cars, the quintessential tune seems to be My Best Friend's Girl, from their 1978 debut. Tough, sexy, icily mechanistic and full of vague portent, it was a great piece of pop-rock. The Cars have been putting new body panels on this same vehicle ever since, including Dangerous Type, Candy-O and most of last year's LP, Panorama. Now we have the new high-performance models—Victim of Love, Cruiser and the title tune on Shake It Up. After four albums, the Cars' identity is clear: reliable, progressive if not innovative, attractive if never surprising. Maybe from now on they ought to be called the Toyota Corollas.
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