Car Groups

I was listening to the Cars today - a solid 2 disc anthology called, appropriately, You're Just What I Needed. I got to thinking about bands named after cars, and a few fifties groups roared into mind - the Cadillacs, the Impalas, the Continentals, the Imperials, and the Eldorados. There've been a couple of bands that called themselves the Stingrays, and then there's the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Fairlanes, to name a few (The Beatles don't count).

I don't think that theme is still current, though. When The Cars took that name, it was kind of a post-modern take on the whole auto-infatuation thing (with intentional retro references, like the Vargas girl cover art). But there's no reason why there couldn't be a bouncy pop band called The Beamers, or a classic guitar rock quartet called The Four By Fours, or a sexy girl group called The Hummers or a doo-wop cover group called The Infinitis or a socially conscious neo-folk group called The Priuses...just a thought.

The Cars hold up really well, by the way (a tip of the hat to Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr) - but then I was always partial to New Wave (not "New Age" - totally different head, man, totally - as Johnny Slash would say). I liked the music that came out of bands like the Cars, Blondie, the Waitresses, Squeeze, the Pretenders, the Specials, the Talking Heads, and the Police - even Gary Numan. The Cars offer tight beats under well-crafted pop melodies, clever songs sung in a highly stylized timbre, and swooping synths all over the place. Songs like "My Best Friends Girl" and "You're All I've Got Tonight" and "You Might Think" can still get my happy feet tapping. New Wave was a loop out and back to the mainstream, and maybe ultimately a musical cul de sac (irony can just get you so far before it turns into ennui), but it was fun while it lasted, and it's a cool place to revisit.