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That image was of Ric Ocasek as a fly.
Then, Ocasek as a tube of lipstick.
And a coat hanger.
And the face of an alarm clock.
Like many things from the 80s, it reads different now than it did then.
Now, that video looks like exhibit A in the weirdest, worst stalking case in human history.
At the very first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984,it won Video of the Year.
One of the nominees it beat?
Given that output, its extraordinary how many hits they produced and how enduring those songs continue to be.
The Cars appeal was wide because you could hear them in more than one way.
They sounded at once like pop-music past and pop-music future.
The Cars were the kind of band that everyone in your family liked.
(My mom loved them.
So did my older brother.
So did I.)
No one objected to the Cars, because what kind of weirdo objects to the Cars?
You could dance to their music, but you also could just chill out to it.
All of their songs, still, sound like summer to me.
And all of their songs are associated, first and foremost, with Ric Ocasek.
But Ocasek, as the primary songwriter, constructed the Cars entire sound.
Again: the past, and also the future.
All of these admirers seem to have little in common other than a belief that Ocasek is the messiah.
Which, honestly, seemed almost as cool as being the actual messiah.
We saw something different than the characters in the video did.
But our reaction the desire to be closer to the guy responsible for making that sound was the same.
He had a hold on us.
It was, indeed, magic.
