Customer Reviews

Quick Change World

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

 

 

This has got to be the best solo work of Ric Ocasek ever released. WOW! If this album was released back in 80s this would be a number #1 album with She's On, Hopped Up, Feelings to got to stay, and Riding Shotgun. Definetly Cars material here and some Ocasek.

Pick this one up, because you won't be able to find it for long. This CD is a great mix of styles from the Cars to Ric's offshoot style of darker tunes. Perhaps the strongest songs on the release are "A Little Closer", "Don't Let Go" and the title cut "Quick Change World". The style on this album is most closely analagous to one part "This Side of Paradise" (Ocasek solo) and one part "Door to Door" (the Cars final release).

In my opinion, this is the most under-rated of Ric's solo efforts since it went out-of-print so fast. Of all his solo efforts, I would say this runs a close second to "This Side of Paradise" as his best apart from the Cars.

Probably the three weakest tracks are "The Big Picture" (sounds like a prelude to Ocasek's joint venture release of "Getchertikitz"), "What's on TV" (repetitive lyrics) and "Help Me Find America".

I don't write many reviews, but this one is a favored underdog of mine that deserves far more affection than it got.

This CD gives you a real sense for what's at stake for an artist: The record has two parts, right and left, better described as "tried and true" and "experimental." It's refreshing to find an artist-- especially a pop artist -- trying new things, not pandering to popular taste. In this release, the first seven tracks display what Cars fans most want -- more of the same. The remaining tracks - with the exception perhaps of "Come Alive" and "Hopped Up" (which I still enjoy on occasion) -- don't really succeed as music, yet give you a more direct sense of Ric's "politics."

Ric does best when he cribs the Cars debut and exercises some restaint, and the first tracks on this album would really be right at home on any Cars CD. "She's On," "Feeling's Got To Stay," and "Don't Let Go," would have been out-and-out hits in the 80s, and they will forever be very fine pop music -- the kind of popular composing that is in TERRIBLY short supply these days. Frankly, I enjoy the mood of everything Ric puts out, but for sheer musical value, this CD has to be rated among the best stuff Ric Ocasek ever wrote as a solo-artist.

"Pop" being what it is, it hasn't been kool to like this kind of material for a long time now. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and good music is just good music. And quite a bit of "Quick Change World" is very good music indeed.

For those of us who enjoy Ocasek's lyric and musical style, then this CD is his best. There isn't a Top Ten hit on this release, but "Don't Let Go," "A Little Closer," and "She's On" may have had a chance for Top 40s during the Car's era. Personally, I like the title cut, "Quick Change World" best. A worthy purchase.

Despite his diminished-come-cultish status by the early 90's, Ric Ocasek was one of the most powerful synth artists since David Bowie. He even went so far as to request Bowie's "Let's Dance" producer Nile Rodgers for 1991's Fireball Zone.

Thematically, Quick Change World is a politically charged album with only a few flaws in that it has a little too much variety. Most of the songs are a lot less new wave sounding than you'd think. While certain songs fall short . . . such as "the big picture" and "what's on tv?", QCW is a very welcome early 90's album that served as a continuation of massive creativity for Ric Ocasek.

My Four Favorities from Quick Change World are :

The atmospheric "Feelings Got To Stay"
The driving "She's On"
The beautifully ambient "I Still Believe"
The politically charged Title Track is a groovy and hypnotic

This could not be a perfect album; two tracks simply beg to be skipped. I understand this was originally intended as a rather different album, and changed according to the label's preferences, but the ups & downs appear in both the original and added portions.

Skipping the tedious opening track, "Don't Let Go" starts like "Shake It Up" (a comparison Hawkes notes with a quick synth line) before quickly veering elsewhere. The bridge from "Hard Times" invites comparison to "Tonight She Comes", and "She's On" invokes several early Cars songs. This is probably Ric's way of elbowing the record company for rejecting his own vision, but the results are pretty enjoyable: similar but not identical to previously-covered territory, and my young son identified these songs as being by The Cars.

That said, the second half shifts into newer territory, with surprising success: "Come Alive" is especially exciting, and none of it sounds quite like anything the Cars' hits could have prepared us for. "Hopped Up" seems like a Simple Minds song, and the title track is actually white-boy funky ... but they still sound like Ric. "I Still Believe" initially seems like another one to skip, but what else would you have before "Come Alive"? "Help Me Find America" is like one of those Bono meditations - probably not what most people want with 80s pop, but not bad in itself. Only "What's On TV" misses, and then only because we are not prepared to spend four minutes on something that sounds like a Suicide song in the middle of a Ric Ocasek album; Ric obviously doesn't feel that way.

If "What's On TV" had been a short sidetrack piece (think "Shoo-Be-Doo"), this might have been just as perfect a side as Ric has given out, while being nothing quite like he'd done before. By combining it with half a dozen tracks that *were* like what he's done before, I think we have a Ric Ocasek album that's hard to beat for Cars fans wishing for more of their favorite band .... and 2011 saw the creation of that as well, so life is good :)

Released in 1993, "Quick Change World" finds Ric Ocasek running on empty, and it's hard to tell if he was even aware of it. On the one hand, he sprinkles in a couple of spoken voiceover pieces which could be seen as a way around having to come up with melodies. On the other hand, Ric originally conceived "Quick Change World" as a double CD that was also to contain a book of poetry, a collection of photographs, and more--in other words, a multi-media thing--and that's kind of incredible considering how weak this single disc distillation is.

The first 7 tracks on the CD are labelled the "Right Side", and apart from the opening spoken voiceover piece, these tracks, which were produced by Mike Shipley, find Ric trying to squeeze every last drop out of the Cars sound, and a majority of the time, he ends up sounding like a sad Cars imitation. Flavorless and annoyingly in-your-face production values weigh the proceedings down even more. "Hard Times" features a dull, overly-repeated, sludgy guitar riff, and his usual attempts at hip wordplay sound forced and annoying. "Don't Let Go" and "She's On" both suffer from painful predictability and a lack of hooks. "Feeling's Got To Stay" is an ultra-bland and pathetically predictable adult contemporary ballad--it sounds like Ric 'wrote' it in his sleep, both melodically and in terms of the chord changes which you can see coming a mile away. A couple of the tunes are a bit better--"A Little Closer" is at least respectably melodic and wistful, even though it's just a lesser rewrite of "Everything You Say" (with a sprinkling of "Steal the Night" and "Keep On Laughin'"); and "Riding Shotgun", though again sounding like he just cut-and-pasted a couple of his older songs together (featuring that damn I-VII-V-VI chord progression on the verses that he'd already used god knows how many times before), does have catchiness and a nicely contemplative feel, plus it rocks a little and has some nice effects.

The "left side", which Ric produced himself, is supposedly where he gets experimental; unfortunately, for the most part, that ends up meaning that Ric tries (and fails) to find various ways to distract you from his weak songwriting. It actually starts off nicely with the brief, dreamy "I Still Believe". But in almost no time Ric starts to fall back downhill, starting with "Come Alive", another fast-paced quasi-metallic blast, but unlike "Door To Door" which at least has an irresistible riff, "Come Alive" is exhausting and thin. The title track has sort of a funky groove, but wanders along aimlessly and features an annoyingly exagerrated Ocasek vocal. "What's On TV" sets a nice moody atmosphere, but again, there's no worthwhile development, and with Ric's artsy, repetitive, deliberately stoned-sounding spoken word vocals, it really becomes annoying. Tucked away at track number 12 lies the one truly excellent song on the album, the wonderfully exciting "Hopped Up"--it's a high-flying rocker with a great bass line, exhiliaringly silly lyrics, a great Ocasek vocal, and great tension created by the unpredictable transitions between just two chords.

With so many inexpensive copies of this CD floating around, Cars/ Ocasek fans will basically get their money's worth if they snap one up. Overall though, unless you're a really really 'easy-to-please' fan of The Cars/ Ric Ocasek, this album is a big-time disappointment. Ric, by and large, was running on empty (no pun intended).

Released in 1993, "Quick Change World" finds Ric Ocasek running on empty, and it's hard to tell if he was even aware of it. On the one hand, he sprinkles in a couple of spoken voiceover pieces which could be seen as a way around having to come up with melodies. On the other hand, Ric originally conceived "Quick Change World" as a double CD that was also to contain a book of poetry, a collection of photographs, and more--in other words, a multi-media thing--and that's kind of incredible considering how weak this single disc distillation is.

The first 7 tracks on the CD are labelled the "Right Side", and apart from the opening spoken voiceover piece, these tracks, which were produced by Mike Shipley, find Ric trying to squeeze every last drop out of the Cars sound, and a majority of the time, he ends up sounding like a sad Cars imitation. Flavorless and annoyingly in-your-face production values weigh the proceedings down even more. "Hard Times" features a dull, overly-repeated, sludgy guitar riff, and his usual attempts at hip wordplay sound forced and annoying. "Don't Let Go" and "She's On" both suffer from painful predictability and a lack of hooks. "Feeling's Got To Stay" is an ultra-bland and pathetically predictable adult contemporary ballad--it sounds like Ric 'wrote' it in his sleep, both melodically and in terms of the chord changes which you can see coming a mile away. A couple of the tunes are a bit better--"A Little Closer" is at least respectably melodic and wistful, even though it's just a lesser rewrite of "Everything You Say" (with a sprinkling of "Steal the Night" and "Keep On Laughin'"); and "Riding Shotgun", although sluggish, and again sounding like he just cut-and-pasted a couple of his older songs together (featuring that damn I-VII-V-VI chord progression on the verses that he'd already used god knows how many times before), does have catchiness and a nicely contemplative feel, plus it rocks a little and has some nice effects.

The "left side", which Ric produced himself, is supposedly where he gets experimental; unfortunately, for the most part, that ends up meaning that Ric tries (and fails) to find various ways to distract you from his weak songwriting. It actually starts off nicely with the brief, dreamy "I Still Believe". But in almost no time Ric starts to fall back downhill, starting with "Come Alive", another fast-paced quasi-metallic blast, but unlike "Door To Door" which at least has an irresistible riff, "Come Alive" is exhausting and thin. The title track has sort of a funky groove, but wanders along aimlessly and features an annoyingly exagerrated Ocasek vocal. "What's On TV" sets a nice moody atmosphere, but again, there's no worthwhile development, and with Ric's repetitive, deliberately stoned-sounding spoken word vocals, it really becomes grating and annoyingly arty. Tucked away at track number 12 lies the one truly excellent song on the album, the wonderfully exciting "Hopped Up"--it's a high-flying rocker with a great bass line, exhiliaringly silly lyrics, a great Ocasek vocal, and great tension created by the unpredictable transitions between just two chords.

Overall, unless you're a really really 'easy-to-please' fan of The Cars/ Ric Ocasek, this album is a big-time disappointment. Ric, by and large, was running on empty (no pun intended).

"Quick Change World" isn't bad at first, the first half of the album really is pretty good with the exception of the first song (total garbage). Then the "left side" of the album comes on, as it is listed on the CD case, and it's total garbage. The whole second half of the cd doesn't have one good song, "What's on TV" is a good example of how bad they are.

If you are a big cars/ocasek fan, you should check this out for the first part of it but you'll soon find this cd in the bottom of your cd collection if you bother with the other half.

The world changed a little to quickly for Ric, that's certain.