Customer Reviews

Candy-O (US Release)

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Although the first album is considered by many to be The Cars' one classic album, I'd put Candy-O on top. If you like driving down the highway with your 6(or 8 or 10...) speakers blasting on high, singing along to a CD, Candy-O will make you delirious. Ear candy of the finest order, The Cars' second album has many bright spots - chief among them being "Nightspots." The extended intro to this song - with Elliot Easton's great guitar lick - just has to be one of the most sublime moments in rock. And although every other reviewer has already mentioned it, the segue between "Shoo-Be-Doo" and the title track, like sex, is shiver-inducing. It will have you coming back for more and more, skipping back to that last few seconds of the first song as you crank the volume higher and higher until your ears bleed, just to get your fix of that first note of "Candy-O." I swear, it's like crack. The other songs are merely great. And unlike the first album, there isn't a stinker in the bunch. Sure, "The Cars" is a masterpiece and "Panorama" and "Shake It Up" have their merits, but "Heartbeat City," while a good pop album, is not the Cars I had grown and loved and played air guitar to on my tennis racket. And the less said about "Door To Door," the better. It was "Candy-O" that made me believe rock and roll was heaven-sent. Those first two Cars albums ROCKED, pure and simple. I just wish they'd get their due because, damn, that was a good band. Without "Candy-O" and The Cars (with a little help from Blondie and Devo), rock and roll might never have bridged the gap between guitar and synthesizer/keyboards. The Cars proved you could have both AND rock. Buy Candy-O today. Your musical health depends on it.

22 years, 6 cassettes, and 1 CD later, this album is still part of my driving collection. I can never get tired of it, and will continue to wear it out and replace it as long as I live. From start to finish, this album is rich in sound and word. Ric and Ben sharing vocals provide the trademark Cars sound. David's rhythmic, tight drums, Elliot's fantastic guitar licks, and Greg's experimental electronic sound all make this album a classic, in my book. Pay particular attention to "Since I Held You", and "Got a lot on my head". These songs stand out as classic hook-driven tunes conceived with careful forethought. Most of all, it reminds me of a time when you had to have talent to get a recording contract.

For a lot of bands, their second album makes or breaks them. For the Cars, Candy-o take the best elements from their debut and adds a much more mature direction. "Let's Go" kicks things off wonderfully, with a catchy synth line Ben Orr's fantastic vocals. "Since I Held You" is a great song. At first it starts out with a quirky guitar riff before the song becomes more emotional, and towards the end, Elliot plays a great guitar solo. "Candy-o" picks up the pace a bit, and features possibly Elliot's best guitar solo yet (even if it's only a few seconds long). "Nightspots" is cool too; heavy riffs, wacky vocals, and loud keyboards. To end it all is "Dangerous Type," and I really can't understand why this song doesn't get more airplay.
Totally reccommended for fans of the Cars, and anyone who like artsy rock.

Not sure why it is not listed as such but wanted to confirm that this $6.99 Elektra release of Candy-O is HDCD Remastered and sounds fantastic. The Cars and Panorama also received the same quality HDCD remaster and sound great as well. Unfortunately the Elektra $6.99 Shake It Up and Heartbeat City releases did not receive this remastering and the difference shows, especially on SIU.

The Cars released its second album Candy-O in June of 1979.
Following the success of The Cars' first perfect album (their 1978 self-titled debut), the band thought it would be nearly impossible to top it. Instead of laboring long and hard over a follow-up like many '70s bands did after a huge commercial success, the group (singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist Rik Ocasek, singer/bass player Benjamin Orr, lead guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboard player Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson) went to Los Angeles with producer Roy Thomas Baker and engineer Geoff Workman to record The Cars' sophomore effort, Candy-O which would be the band's best album (as I found out when I first got on cassette tape in 1985 (a few weeks before my 9th birthday)).
We open the album with the first single, the Top 20 anthem "Let's Go," which is a great song. Next, Rik steps out for the rocker "Since I Held You" which is another great piece. The gentle "It's All I Can Do" follows and was a rock radio hit. "Double Life" is next and was a rock radio smash and Rik was on vocal and a great song. Then we segue into the techno (before techno) sounding rocker "Shoo-Be-Doo" which has Rik singing punk lyrics with a synthesizer. The title track ends the first half of the album and remains one of the band's best rockers.
The rocker "Night Spots" is next and was written for the first album but left off due to time constraints. Next is Ben's lone lead vocal on the second half "You Can't Hold On Too Long" which is another great rocker. Next is the modern pop sounding rocker "Lust For Kicks" which was one of Ocasek's best vocal performances on the entire album. We then rock out with "Got a Lot on My Head" which featured stellar guitar work from Easton and a great song. We close with Ocasek's most well-known vocal from the album and a great song out of the rocker "Dangerous Type" (where the verse guitar riff resembles "Bang a Gong" before going elsewhere for the chorus).
Candy-O proved that the Cars were not one-hit wonders and gave the band their first Top 10 album and their second deservedly Multi-Platinum album here in the US. The CD version was remastered in the late 1990s by Joe Gastwirt and sounds incredible.
Recommended!

The cool-factor of "Candy-O" cannot be measured with current technology. Although it stands alone as a great record, it is best appreciated if you understand what came before it and what came after. "The Cars" was hard rock with new wave tinges, "Panorama" was new wave with rock tinges (slighty too few in my opinion), and "Candy-O" was a perfect mix of both. The Cars' ever-evolving sound has always fascinated me, and after many, many years of devoutly following them, I believe that "Candy-O" is THE QUINTESSENTIAL CARS ALBUM. From the icy (and very original) "rock-from-outer-space" sound to the greatest rock-album cover EVER (hands-down!!!), it really doesn't get any cooler than this.

p.s. Elliot Easton's lead guitar sound, which is consistent throughout this entire album, is unmatched and not-of-this-world. Each solo is a sonic masterpiece.

Before I finally bought this album, I read several reviews of it, and nearly every one of them said Candy-O was more or less a rehash of their debut. Now that I got it, I really have no idea what they're talking about. Candy-O may or may not be an improvement on the debut (it's hard to better that album), but it does cover more stylistic ground that before. It's funkier, deeper, and as frantic and stylish as new wave or pop can get. 'Let's Go' is the perfect opener; it's one in a (very) long line of Ric Ocasek songs that are set at night. Ocasek is himself a nightowl, and I think the Cars would be way less interesting if they were all about the brightness of day. 'Let's Go' flat out rocks, improving on the band's signature sound considerably. 'Since I Held You' is simply wonderful, with witty, charming verses contrasting with lovely, lonely guy choruses. 'It's All I Can Do' is the sole ballad of the album, and it is a great one. 'Double Life' is classic cool Ocasek, and 'Shoo Be Doo' is downright weird. I love it. Ric's shout of "just tell me what to do!" segues right into the slick title track. Benjamin Orr never ceases to amaze. 'Night Spots' is ordinary but still a great rocker, 'You Can't Hold On Too Long' is probably the weakest track on the album, but still very listenable. 'Got Alot On My Head' just rocks and hard. I have all the Cars' songs burned on my XBox so that when I play Grand Theft Auto Vice City, I end up driving really, really fast and recklessly whenever this song comes on. It's that kind of tune.
The last track, 'Dangerous Type', is far and away the best song on Candy-O. It's probably the ultimate Cars song; more classic Ocasek lyrics about a mysteriously sexy woman set to a rocking backing. When I first heard this song on The Cars Complete Greatest Hits collection, I was amazed I'd never heard it on the radio before. It's easily as memorable and catchy as stuff like 'You Might Think', 'Magic', or my favorite Cars song 'Tonight She Comes'. A great way to end a great sophomore album of new wave's most endearing and enduring band.

I must enthusiastically agree with all the other customer reviewers who raved about this CD. Most classic rock stations play a lot of tracks from the Cars' debut album, but Candy-O remains my favorite.

Each and every song on this CD is catchy and makes you want to turn the volume up a notch or two. I'm personally not that crazy about "Nightspots", which I consider the weakest track on the disc, but it's still listenable. "Shoo-Be-Doo", with it's segue into the title track, and "Dangerous Type" get my vote for the best tracks on the disc. The latter song conveys a sense of darkness and foreboding, as if something really bad is going to happen if singer Ric Ocasek keeps up his relationship with the girl in the song. Greg Hawkes' mesmerizing keyboard work is at its best in this track, as well as "It's All I Can Do".

Last but not least, the cover of "Candy-O" gets my vote as one of the most erotic album covers of all time. The cover art by Antonio Vargas, who illustrated for Playboy in the 60's and 70's, is incredible. I'd have bought the CD just for the picture alone, but guess what? The music is fantastic too!!

The Cars' debut was a breath of fresh air in the late seventies, a respite from the omnipresent disco. They mastered quirky pop with Beatle-esque harmonies, had two excellent lead singers and were one of the most musically adept of the blossoming new wave. So expectations were high for the second album. From the party-crashing first chord of "Let's Go" to the splendid keyboard fade of "Dangerous Type," "Candy-O" did not disappoint.

They certainly were continuing to explore the groundwork laid by that debut, but were still tinkering. The little love letter to the band Suicide, "Shooby Doo," squeezed all of the debut's side two experiments into two minutes, before Ocasek shouts "tell me what to do" and the band drives headlong into the flawless title track. "It's All I Can Do" was their first ballad. "Got A Lot On My Head" is probably the hardest rocking song the band ever cut.

Lyrically, as on the first album, Ocasek's quirky images often create vivid, near hallucinogenic pictures. Take this example from "Got A Lot On My Head;"

"Condition red, disposition blue,
Why am I so attracted to you?"

Or this post-modern observation from "Double Life;"

"Lead me through the wonder maze.
Alienation is the craze."

"Candy-O" saw The Cars rapidly pulling ahead of the class. Maintaining a wicked pop sense at the same time enjoying a mad streak of inventiveness, it remains a great album, just a notch below the debut and probably on an equal track as their great "Heartbeat City."

I purchased(in 2003)an HDCD copy of this album which is superlative, given the original high quality of the Cars original mixes anyway.
Great, I thought, they will be releasing their whole catalogue with HDCD encoding. I especially could not wait to get my hands on Shake It Up remastered in this way.
What happens? Nothing!
Now I don't even see this album advertised as HDCD mastered anymore!!!
Does anyone out there have the same copy I do? Does anyone have Shake It Up with HDCD?