The Cars “Shake It Up” 1981. I’m spinning The Cars’ fourth LP in honor of Ric Ocasek who died yesterday at age 75 (b. Richard Otcasek 1944, d. September 15th, 2019). Ocasek wrote almost all of the tracks on Shake It Up (he shares writing credits with Cars’ keyboardist Greg Hawkes on “This Could Be Love”) and was the lead vocalist on six of the nine tracks on the album. Those tracks include all of the US-released singles (Benjamin Orr sings lead on the UK-only single “Think It Over”): “Shake It Up” was the first single and became their first US Top 10 hit (#4 on Billboard’s Hot 100, also charting at #2 on the Top Tracks chart and #14 on the Disco Top 80 chart) and its B-side, “Cruiser” (sung by Orr) also charted, going to #37 on the Top Tracks chart. Other singles from Shake It Up included “Since You’re Gone” (#41 US, #37 UK) and “Victim of Love” (#39 on the US Mainstream Rock chart). Those singles are my favorite songs from Shake It Up – it’s a pretty decent album overall: I also like the non-single, Tubeway Army-ish track “A Dream Away” and the swirling, almost Cure-like post-punkish (never thought I’d compare The Cars and The Cure) “Maybe Baby,” but I’m not crazy about the ballad “I’m Not the One,” which is a somewhat sappy simplistic synth light pop track.