Day After Day #29: Candy-O

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Candy-O (1979)

How do you follow up an essentially perfect debut album? That was the quandary facing the Cars in 1979. Their 1978 self-titled debut was a masterpiece that came out of nowhere and was jam-packed with great songs. Formed in Boston two years earlier, the band's members had all been playing in bands for years; the best-known was drummer David Robinson, who was in the Modern Lovers previously. The album had three singles ("Just What I Needed," "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Good Times Roll"), but all nine songs have been received radio airplay. The band's synth-heavy sound was futuristic sounding at the time, resulting in the Cars getting the "new wave" tag from critics. 

Flush with accolades and a multiplatinum record, the band went back in the studio with producer Roy Thomas Baker and came up with Candy-O, which was released in June 1979. The first single, "Let's Go," was an immediate hit, getting up to #14 on the Hot 100 chart (11-year-old me bought the 45). There were two other singles: "It's All I Can Do" (which reached #41) and "Double Life" (which didn't chart). The album peaked at #3 on the Billboard album chart but ultimately didn't do as well as its predecessor. 

But FM radio was kinder to the Cars, playing all three singles as well as "Dangerous Type" and the title track early and often. The song "Candy-O" was my favorite. Written by Ric Ocasek and sung by bassist Benjamin Orr, the song highlights the brilliant work of guitarist Elliot Easton. An economical player who had already proven on the first album that he can deliver terrific but concise solos, Easton gets room to stretch out on "Candy-O." The brief chorus ("Candy-O/I need you so") gives more weight to Easton and Robinson, and the solo sees Easton tearing into some speedy runs before it jumps into the next verse. 

The song is heavier and darker sounding than most Cars songs and it's only 2:36, but it packs a punch. Orr uses a more sinister delivery to the song, which Ocasek said was not about a specific person. "Different ways to see you through/All the same in the end/Peculiar star, that's who you are/Do you have to win?"

The Cars continued on an album a year pace for the next few years, releasing the experimental Panorama in 1980 and the more commercial Shake It Up in '81. After a break, they came back with Heartbeat City in 1984, which was a monster hit with six singles released and major MTV airplay for the "You Might Think," "Magic" and "Drive" videos. Ocasek married supermodel Paulina Porizkova and the band was never bigger. But by the time they released Door to Door in 1987, the public wasn't picking up what the band was putting down. The album stiffed and the Cars broke up in early '88. 

The members pursued solo endeavors, with Ocasek becoming an in-demand producer. Orr passed away in 2000 from pancreatic cancer. The surviving members reunited for an album and tour in 2010 and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. Ocasek died of natural causes the following year.

Their success was packed into a short time, but the Cars left behind a ton of great songs.