Is New Cars Music Just What We Need?

"Because " Now and Then" can't have all of the fun, the three surviving members of the Cars have spent several years recording and fine-tuning "more than two dozen songs" that were in Ric Ocasek's vault when he died in 2019. The songs, according to Bill Janovitz's new book, The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told,come from several decades of Ocasek's career and could take the form of a new Cars album."

"One track, "Can't Stop the Rain," was written around the Candy-O sessions and discarded, while another, the ballad "I Just Can't Say," predates the band's formation and features vocals from co-front man Benjamin Orr, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2000. Two others, "Crossing the Line" and "Crazy Over You," are described as "loungey numbers" that Ocasek experimented with for a jazz standards album that never came to fruition."

Three surviving Cars members spent several years recording and fine-tuning more than two dozen songs from Ric Ocasek's vault after his 2019 death. The songs span several decades of Ocasek's career and could be assembled into a new Cars album. Keyboardist Greg Hawkes, guitarist Elliot Easton, and drummer David Robinson all contributed to the recordings, and Hawkes received the material from a close friend of Ocasek. The tracks range from classic Cars-like cuts to a discarded Candy-O-era song, a pre-band ballad featuring Benjamin Orr vocals, and loungey jazz-standard experiments. The surviving members remain hopeful that business disagreements will not block a release date.

Read at Vulture