The Cars

With a genius for navigating between new wave and hard rock, the Cars forged a matchless sound that — like the chrome found on their namesake — hasn't tarnished after nearly three decades of constant use. Borrowing a Stones-style macho pose, "Just What I Needed" drips with sarcasm as Elliot Easton's power chords cut with a guillotine chunk and Greg Hawkes' keyboards wail like a siren. On "My Best Friend's Girl," vocalist Ric Ocasek cheerfully croons an ode to the seductive charms of "my best friend's girlfriend" before delivering the ironic twist — " . . . and she used to be mine." Love takes a turn for the darker side in the bittersweet, downright gorgeous ballad "Drive," as the crackly guitar crunch is temporarily retired in favor of a wash of synthesizers, giving the band their biggest hit.

In Next Steps, the Cars look for love in all the wrong places, drop a fuzz bomb or two, and more.

Vocalist Ben Orr pleads his love as guitarist Elliot Easton plunders his gig bag for a double fistful of blazing runs and scorching licks on the darkly magnetic title track to the Cars' sophomore disc, Candy-O. "Lock me away where the silly boys go," begs a love-struck Ric Ocasek on "Got a Lot On My Head," a shoulda-been-a-hit roller-coaster ride of swirling synths and fuzz-bomb guitar riffs, also from Candy-O. And Easton's spaghetti Western-style guitar propels vocalist Ocasek out of his emotionally anxious doldrums as it rick-a-tick-ticks through the chorus of "Touch and Go," a not-quite-a-love-story of one devoted man and his indifferent woman from 1980's Panorama.

In Deep Cuts, we hear from the Cars' final disc, and some extra-Carricular solo work.

By 1987, the bloom was well off new wave's rose, and as you can hear in "Double Trouble" from their final album, Door To Door, the Cars tried to change with the times, abandoning the spikier edges of their early hits for a heavier, hard-rock sound. Guitarist Elliot Easton cut only one solo album, 1985's Change No Change, a collaboration with singer-songwriter Jules Shear; "Shayla," taken from that disc, crosses a Hollies-type bubblegum-y love song with an Elvis Costello-inspired vocal delivery for a very un-Cars-like track. Ric Ocasek's cover of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," from the Disney kids' tribute album Simply Mad About the Mouse plucks the song from Song of the South out of '40s-era Uncle Remus-ville and transports it into the space-age with synths and a snare-smackin' beat.

After cheekily launching their career by sending a demo of "Just What I Needed" to Boston's #1 radio station — and landing in heavy rotation, thanks to the one-two punch of DJ support and listener response — the Cars racked up a string of hits that would be the envy of any of their new wave contemporaries. While much has been made of the Svengali-like production of Roy Thomas Baker (who had also sent label mate Queen to chart-topping heights), the Cars' success rests more firmly on the rock-solid songwriting of frontman Ric Ocasek, a rhythm section tighter than a third face lift, and the band's uncanny knack for finding the sweet spot between new wave's swooshiness and rock's harder edge. From the swaggering machismo of their debut track to the aching vulnerability of their biggest hit, the Cars brought a surprising depth to an era better known for the fleeting pleasures of its glistening surfaces.