The Cars - Just What I Needed

Quiz time! Name a popular song from the late 70s/early 80s. Not exactly fate-of-the-universe stuff, granted, but whichever song you picked there’s a solid chance The Cars had something to do with it. The success rate of the Boston, Massachusetts earworm farmers in the musical batter’s box during their reign at the top of the charts was absurd; a quick flick through their back-catalogue would have the average person thinking that writing a hit song was as easy as falling out of bed on a fishing trawler. 

Their first two albums, a 1978 self-titled and 1979’s Candy-O (which we cannot show the cover of here for two large reasons) contained the main bulk of said tracks, a veritable who’s-who of pop-rock goodness. Drive, My Best Friend’s Girl, You Might Think and about thirty other charting songs is a great showing for any career, let alone one that lasted nine years with the original line-up. While the back half of their work only received two or three huge scoops of plaudits (likely due to a shift towards a less radio-friendly sound in third album Panorama), the band continued to hit charts like machine gun fire, cementing the legacy of Hall of Fame legends that inspired endless admirers and copycats while they were active and beyond. 

As an easy, breezy bit of pop-rock that is sure to go down smooth, Just What I Needed could be exactly what the song title suggests for all of you out there on this fine Friday. Be careful, though – once you pop a playlist with any of their tracks on for more than a few minutes, you will be stuck there all day listening to bops. You have been warned and slightly encouraged.