Ric Ocasek: Death of an 80s Icon
Another music legend leaves us too soon.
“Ric Ocasek is dead.”
I stared at those words on my computer screen, but I had trouble putting them together into a coherent sentence despite the simplicity of it — subject, verb, predicate, period. Simple. No room for ambiguity. Still, it made no sense. There were only four words but they must be in the wrong order because how could this be?
Celebrities die because celebrities are humans. That’s a fact that crouches in the dark corner of your mind behind some random memory furniture that you haven’t pulled out and used in ages. When it occasionally leaps out, it surprises you. Every. Single. Time.
When some actors/musicians/artists/leaders pass away, that fact crouching in your mind jumps out so suddenly it’s startling. But you’re also left dumbfounded and slack-jawed. And so I was when I read that the most visible member of The Cars — a seminal and essential band of the late 1970s through the 1980s — had died, joining the band’s other prominent lead vocalist, Benjamin Orr (who died in 2000), on the other side of the rainbow bridge.
Like a few musician deaths before — John Wetton, Tom Petty, Prince, Richard Wright, and Chris Squire — this one really shook me.
It’s strange that Ocasek’s death had such an impact on me, because The Cars were never my absolute favorite band, but they were always a favorite. They were on the radio so often I never owned one of their albums until ordering Heartbeat City on cassette from Columbia House on the strength of Mtv’s World Premiere Video of “You Might Think.” Up to that point the only thing I’d bought was the 45 of “Let’s Go.” So, while they weren’t a band for whom I scrambled out to pick up their latest album the day it was released, they were just everywhere during my most impressionable years.
From 1978 through the end of the 80s you could hardly go more than an hour without hearing The Cars somewhere — the radio, Mtv, or in some movie. Can any male of a certain age hear “Moving in Stereo” without conjuring up images of Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High? I submit they cannot. The Cars were ubiquitous and they had earned the right to be with their blend of melodic punk/new wave/pop/surf/whatever it was they were putting out, all highlighted by the alchemy of Greg Hawkes’ keyboards and Elliott Easton’s guitar. David Robinson’s drums and Orr’s bass supported everything and at the forefront of it all were the vocals of Orr and Ocasek.
Orr’s singing was generally smooth and seemed effortless. Ocasek was less naturally gifted as a singer but his voice dripped with a charm and character that made the listener not really care about that at all. He often sort of talked in tune rather than really singing. As the band grew in popularity, it was Ocasek’s trademark sunglasses that stood out and helped make him an 80s icon.
Ocasek, like me, wasn’t from Ohio but grew up there. He graduated high school in Cleveland after moving there from Baltimore and spent some time at Bowling Green State University. He and Orr met in Ohio and even played gigs in a pre-Cars band around Ohio State together in the late 1960s. I learned stuff like this from watching Mtv or hearing stuff on the radio about this band that was getting so much airplay. Seriously, you can still listen to just about any classic rock station today and hear six of the nine tracks off the band’s self-titled debut album in just a few hours. This is a murderer's row of songs and it's all from one record:
Good Times Roll
My Best Friend's Girl
Just What I Needed
You're All I've Got Tonight
Bye Bye Love
Moving in Stereo
And the other three tracks from The Cars are good, too. I'm particularly fond of album closer "All Mixed Up."
I listened to the band’s entire catalog in the days following Ocasek’s death. It’s only seven studio albums and the last one was after Orr’s death (and his absence is noticeable even though there are some pretty good songs on it). It helped me move past the passing of an icon from my youth and reminded me what a fantastic band The Cars were. Ultimately, I was able to make sense of that four-word sentence at the top of this column.
But I’m still sad about it.