Talk:This Side of Paradise (album)

The difference between a band album and a solo album

I just drastically altered the sentence that claimed (paraphrase) "If David Robinson had played on 'True To You', that would have made it a Cars song."

As I said in my Edit Summary, even if Ric Ocasek HAD corralled all four of his fellow Cars-mates for this song, it *still* wouldn't have been a Cars song.

A Cars song is built from the ground up by members of the band. Assuming the Roy Thomas Baker model of their first four albums (Heartbeat City was a horse of a different color, and sounds like it was misery to make.) David Robinson and Benjamin Orr would have laid down their rhythm section, Ric Ocasek would add his signature muted-clicking rhythm guitar, Elliot Easton would have recorded some overwhelming power chords a la "Just What I Needed", some decorative lead parts, and then a solo . . . Finally, Ben, Elliot, Greg, Ric (and maybe David), would have gathered to do the backing vocals in the classic Cars manner: Four tracks of each of them singing one part in unison, then four more tracks of the next part in unison, and so on, until you've got 16 to 24 "voices" spread across four tracks (or, 8 to 12 in each stereo speaker). ("Good Times Roll" is a good example of this, a style Ocasek was reluctant to embrace, but eventually did.)

Here's what (most likely) happened on This Side of Paradise, instead: Producer/drummer Chris Thomas laid down the beat (probably using a drum machine first, then replacing it with a real drum track later), along with Greg Hawkes on bass. Then the rhythm guitars were added by Ric (along with any of four other non-Cars guitarists). Then Greg added his synth parts, which are always great, and then Elliot Easton was invited in to do his solo. It was a case of "Here, it's 12-and-a-half bars, it's in C, but you need to end it on the F chord and hold it" Then Benjamin and Greg did many tracks of background vocals. This is not standard Cars procedure: Note that Elliot and Ric did not participate in the background vocals. On Cars albums, four or even all five of them did. (By Door To Door, even drummer David Robinson was joining in on the vocals!) BTW, I've always felt that multiple tracks of Benjamin was what gave any random Cars song its strength, as far as the harmonies are concerned. So using Ben alone or with Greg to do multitracks of vocals is smart.

What we wound up with is more a blatant forgery than a "lost" Cars track. We have Ric in a situation in which he can freely tell the others what to do (I know many people think that's exactly how Cars albums were made, too, but it isn't. If that were the case, why would he do solo albums in the first place, when "The Cars" is a brand that always sells more than a "Ric Ocasek" album?)

--Ben Culture (talk) 22:15, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't entirely understand my comment, much less agree with it, and I certainly don't understand why I was so damned insistent about it. I'm astonished that I wrote it a mere 12 days ago. According to the album credits, the only non-Car on the track is Chris Hughes on drums; there are none of the album's other four guitarists on this particular track, just Ric and Elliot. It really is a near-Cars reunion, but I still agree with the fundamental point that Ric was much more in charge on this track than he would be for a Cars project. Unless, that is, the song was originally recorded FOR a Cars project and was moved to this album instead. I don't really know. --Ben Culture (talk) 21:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Single(s)?

The article currently indicates that only "Emotion in Motion" was released as a single. But I seem to remember hearing the aforementioned "True to You" on radio, and definitely saw the video on MTV. Was MTV still playing non-singles by 1986? I wouldn't think so.

Where would one find out about this?

--Ben Culture (talk) 21:50, 26 September 2013 (UTC)