Our Friday Jams probably are the longest-running series on this website. The series began on August 5, 2011, the end of ALDLAND’s first week of public existence, naturally with Space Capone’s “Friday.” It was an appropriately strong debut for the nature and scope of this site, but, as concerns music-related debuts, it didn’t make even a flicker of a blip. In that sense, it’s the spectral opposite of the self-titled debut from The Cars, whose leader, Ric Ocasek, died last week. I have long believed that The Cars, released in 1978, is the best debut album of all time. The case for that claim, simply stated, is that every one of the nine tracks– eight of which are credited solely to Ocasek, and one of which to Ocasek and keyboardist Greg Hawkes– is a hit:
- “Good Times Roll”
- “My Best Friend’s Girl”
- “Just What I Needed”
- “I’m in Touch With Your World”
- “Don’t Cha Stop”
- “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”
- “Bye Bye Love”
- “Moving in Stereo”
- “All Mixed Up”
One thing I did not know about Ocasek was that, following the band’s breakup in the late 1980s, he found work as a producer. In that role, he helped to create the successful Blue and Green albums for the band Weezer.
That’s a neat footnote, but, for me, it always comes back to the beginning. That’s why The Cars, in its entirety, is this week’s Jam (videos will play sequentially):
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