The Cars
Move Like This
Hear Music
By Ellen Eldridge
The sentiment of music ages like a fine wine; that which we tire of and put away readily returns like a stray cat hungry for more milk. And so with The Cars, a late-’70s pop-synth band born out of the New Wave craze, which surged back into the mainstream when its debut album from 1978 made its entrance among teenage wanna-be heroes playing their parents’ favorites on Rock Band.
Move Like This brings back the beloved boys minus bassist Benjamin Orr who, sadly, passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2000. In 2010 the band started teasing audiences with clips of its first single, “Sad Song,” which warmly hints at summer’s arrival with an uplifting electric swell grounded in steady clapping.
“Blue Tip,” the opener and single with a video which creatively avoids showing the band members’ aging faces, swaggers into the room with a very ’80s synth effect that recalls “Funky Town” and carnival rides. It propels listeners into the following tracks and “keeps them moving” toward favorites such as “Soon” with its incredibly ’80s ballad feel and “Take Another Look.” “Soon” sounds like the lost single for Adam Sandler’s The Wedding Singer and “Take Another Look” belongs in the jukeboxes of local bars everywhere to drown out the karaoke. Those who enjoyed “Just What I Needed” will find themselves drawn to this track as it, somehow, seems like a slowed-down version updated for present times reaching toward the future.
Truly, taking another look at The Cars will revive a sentiment of times spent roller skating to disco hits and, for those unfamiliar with its past, The Cars will rejuvenate a sense of history without feeling tacky or cheesy. Move Like This will inspire audiences to enjoy New Wave again for the first time.
