Top 10 In Reverse - The Cars

10. This Could Be Love – co written by Ric Ocasek and keyboardist Greg Hawkes, this smokes and bubbles like red hot volcanic lava in the crater before the whole thing boils over. A great deep cut. [Shake It Up]

9. Moving In Stereo – famous for being the song played under the Phoebe Cates out of the pool scene from Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Yet another great track from the Cars debut. 

8. Strap Me In – 1987’s Door To Door was met with a lot of yawns. Who needs the Cars when you’ve got Bon Jovi riding a steel horse wanted dead or alive or that long, long, lonnnng awaited new Def Leppard, Aerosmith’s Dude Looks Like A Lady, Run DMC’s Raising Hell, Michael Jackson’s Bad, U2’s The Joshua Tree, Prince’s Sign O’ the Times… you get the idea. And the first two tracks are pretty syrupy and left a bad taste in my mouth for a long time. But over time, I have come to appreciate and really like this album. This is one of the really good, memorable tracks. [Door To Door]

7. Cruiser – the insistent drums and keyboards pushed along by a simple guitar figure and yet another great Ben Orr vocal. A showcase for lead guitarist Elliot Easton who was the Cars real secret weapon. [Shake It Up]

6. Let’s Go – the lead off track to the Cars’ sophomore album picks up right where we left the band at the fade of All Mixed Up on the debut. This upbeat slice of power pop nestled right alongside the Knack’s Good Girls Don’t and My Sharona, Toto’s Hold the Line, Foreigner’s Double Vision Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls and Robert Palmer’s Bad Case Of Lovin’ You on the top 40, giving us “Never Disco” rock and roller’s a little hope in 1979. [Candy-O]

5. Drive – the spring of 1984 was dominated by the Cars singles from Heartbeat City – You Might Think and Magic [March and May releases respectively]  and their groundbreaking videos splashed all across the radio waves and were in heavy rotation on MTV. But just as spring turned to summer, this smoldering moody ballad hit the airwaves. Benjamin Orr just lays down a smooth, understated lyric to go with a fairly scaled back band. One journalist said “The music reflects the lyrical tone with a lovely melody that rises and falls in a soothing yet sad fashion.” This is just a tremendous timeless song. [Heartbeat City]

4. Touch And Go – I have said and will continue to say that Panorama remains one of the Cars least respected albums. [Full disclosure, it was the first one I owned and I used to go to sleep to side 2 of this record a lot.] Even though it peaked at number 5 on the charts, one rarely hears anything of it on the radio. It’s not as sunny and fun or mainstream as those first two records nor even Shake It Up which followed. [Heartbeat City has a few moments like Magic and You Might Think but it is a darker record than Panorama.] But this, another one of Ric’s odd meter songs, is just as good as most of their other songs. [Panorama]

3. Bye Bye Love – while my unofficial count has 6 of the 9 songs on the debut album as staples of FM radio, this one with Ben Orr [the sometimes blonde bass player] on vox remains one of the ones in heavier rotation.  One could hardly imagine Ocasek putting the emotion Orr does into a line like “substitution, mass confusion, clouds inside your head…”  IMHO, Orr remains one of rock’s unsung [no pun] great singers. [The Cars]

2. Since You’re Gone – The lead off track and second single from Shake It Up, probably from the first second I dropped the needle on that record, this has been one of my favorite Cars songs. There’s that weird click track floating across the beats that sometimes feels “wrong” [Much like the middle section of Zeppelin’s Black Dog which has John Bonham playing 4/4 against Page and Jones riffing in 5/8.] the guitar solo that attempts to emulate an old E-bow device [famously used by Big Country] and of course Ric Ocasek’s deadpan vocals. On this one he delivers the killer line last: ‘Since you’re gone… the moonlight ain’t so great.’ Killer stuff. [Shake It Up]

1. My Best Friend’s Girl – falling somewhere between New Wave and Rockabilly or just plain old Rock & Roll [one could imagine the Beatles writing this, right? Elliot Easton admits that his riff coming out of the choruses seems to be the riff from the Beatles I Will…], this no frills, hook filled masterpiece remains as fresh as the day it was released way back in 1978. Also the first introduction of Ric’s offbeat lyrics.  [“You’ve got your nuclear boots / And your drip dry gloves…”] Surprisingly, barely cracked the Top 40, peaking at number 35. I guess being an FM radio / Classic Rock staple for over 40 years takes the sting out of that. [The Cars]

Top 10 In Reverse – Led Zeppelin

 

Almost made the list: Good Times, Bad Times; Dazed And Confused [Led Zeppelin], Custard Pie [Physical Graffiti], For Your Life [Presence]

10. The Rain Song – another one of the few really “pretty” Zeppelin songs. I love the live version from The Song Remains the Same – just the band and no overdubs. [Houses Of the Holy]

9. Trampled Under Foot – featuring John Paul Jones riffing away on a clavinet ala Stevie Wonder and Plat’s vocals based [like Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues] comparing a woman to a car this is one of the classics of the catalog that never quite gets old. A long time concert staple allowing the band to jam and groove a little bit. Very funky and fun track. [Physical Graffiti]

8. The Ocean – the closing song on Houses Of the Holy [ye gads these guys knew how to close an album] . Kicked off with John Bonham counting in “we’ve done four all ready / But now we’re steady / And then they went / one two three four…”  [according to Songfacts this was the fifth take of the track.]  The riff they kick into is pure Led Zeppelin. With the stops and turnarounds it’s easy to see how it took a few takes to get it right. After the third verse the song breaks into some some sort of fifties / Elvis tribute send up [much more successful than D’yer M’ker which turned out more Reggae and 50s rock] with Bonham and Jones singing doo wop style harmonies in the background. [Houses Of the Holy]

7. Wearing And Tearing – out-take from the In Through the Out Door sessions, originally intended for an EP [later scrapped] to show that while they were being accused by the punks of being dinosaurs and past their prime by the punks now raging in England, Led Zeppelin could still rock with energy. And they rock with breakneck speed for 5 and half minutes. Would have added a much needed burst of energy to the fairly mid-tempo In Through… [Coda]

6. How Many More Times – the closing track to Zep’s debut finds the band taking another 50s blues number and amping it up to great effect. This time the basis is Howlin’ Wolf’s song How Many More Years with a section of Page’s bowing sounding an awful lot like Beck’s Bolero from Beck’s Truth album and a few quotes from Albert King’s The Hunter thrown in. [Led Zeppelin] 

5. Rock And Roll – the title says it all. Famously John Bonham was trying to play the into to Little Richard’s Keep A-Knockin’ and Page spontaneously burst into the riff. On the actual take, Rolling Stones road manager, mobile studio manager and occasional keyboardist Ian ‘Stu’ Stewart lays down some boogie woogie with the boys. Also famously skids to a halt at 3:25 for eight seconds of Bonzo drum fill befor crashing down on the final chords. [Led Zeppelin IV]

4. Since I’ve Been Loving You – Zeppelin’s first truly original blues [maybe – Wikipedia notes the lyrics are remarkably close to Moby Grape’s song Never. But we all know Led Zeppelin would never nick anybody else’s stuff…], this is 7 and a half minutes of Zeppelin at their best and livest. Great organ and bass pedals by John Paul Jones. Great squeaking drum pedal by John Henry Bonham. I am always amused that for all of the attempts to sing in an American  accent, Plant pronounces “can’t” as “cahnt.” [Led Zeppelin III]

3. When the Levee Breaks – the closing track of the mighty Zeppelin IV [or Zoso or Runes – it is officially untitled] is just a simple twelve bar blues run through the blender. Immediately recognizable by the drums that kick off the song [recorded in the lobby of  Headley Grange which produced a sound Bonzo called Thrutch.] The effect on record is a combination of several mikes placed up a staircase and an echo unit. Backwards echo figures prominently on guitars and harmonica. The sound is further compressed into a wall of midrange sludge not unlike a lahar – the landslide/mudslide released by a volcanic eruption. Near the end the instruments start whirling around the rock steady in the center vocals creating a dizzying effect. [Led Zeppelin IV]

2. Ramble On – this early song is just the right mix of the light and heavy elements to Zeppelin’s sound. Plant’s lyrics foreshadow those of Ten Years Gone; basically “it’s me or this music thing,” “Well, I’ll drop you a postcard when I make it.”  On the 2014 remasters, you can finally hear John Paul Jones’ great bass line snaking along underneath everything. [Led Zeppelin II]

1. Ten Years Gone – this sleeper track that ends side 3 of this 1975 double  album is one of the prettiest in the Zep catalog. Wonderful chiming, ringing chords from Jimmy and sad lyrics of one of the ones that [maybe] got away.  [Physical Graffiti]

For Chris

Surfing up and down the dial, facing down the sunrise

Looking for a friend, surprised to find you

It’s been a while but your voice unmistakable

The voice that screamed like shards of diamonds to the eyes and ears

Shook the ground like a volcanic avalanche

Your whisper a hurricane, this hiss where the lava meets the cold sea

Your words hit like a sledgehammer, a buzz saw to my immortal soul

Punished my sin with chains rusted in holy water and black rain

Like a stone you waited for me to find you again