Ric Ocasek

I certainly didn't know.

What I knew as a big part of my job at The Ringer back then was writing obituaries, right? A famous beloved person dies, Aretha Franklin, Tom Petty, Ric Ocasek, Chris Cornell, Dolores O'Riordan, Chuck Berry, George Michael, and I gotta try to sum up that person in the next two to three hours.

And always I try to just think of the first song that pops into my head when I think of that person.

And so I hear that Adam died and boom, I think all kinds of time.

So my number five is Green, the Green album from 2001, third record, 20 minutes long.

Rick Ocasek back with the band for the second time.

He did record with the band three times.

This is the second.

endearing.

It's very endearing.

They tried really hard to make something that wasn't, because this, in a lot of ways, this kind of is Pinkerton, a lot of kind of like sad, slower kind of ballads, but they're made in a more pop way, right? It's almost like Pinkerton with like a Rick Ocasek producer rather than it is anything else.

I don't know.

Diamonds are full of coolness

I think the difference with the previous album, with this one being more dance-oriented, and then Rick Ocasek producing it, which is kind of an odd choice.

Yeah, certainly not my cup of tea, but it's nice to listen to it to just kind of clear the palate.

Tony, it was a little heartbreaking for me, and I think for you as well, that in our last episode, there was no mention of OMD.

About the entire band?

Yeah, but mainly Rick Ocasek.

Yeah.

He would bring in just a bare skeleton of a song, just chord changes.

Oh, my God.

Look at that picture, Rick.

That's hilarious.

Our buddies at Surely You Can't Be Serious made me laugh because they said he looks like an upside down exclamation point.

so yeah exactly right uh all right so what can you tell me about the cars like give me we're finding them here in 1984 what's what's their story what what's going on with them

well ben and benjamin orr and rico casick are the original two members of the cars they met in the late 60s They were in Cleveland, Ohio.

They were, excuse me, Rick saw Ben on a local variety show as like he was a member of the like house band.

The band was called the Grasshoppers.

This was the second single from The Cars' sixth studio album called Door to Door.

It was written and produced by Rick Ocasek.

And it hit number four on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart.

The music video would be the final video that was released by the brand before they broke up.