The Cars

The Cars crystallised new wave's commercial promise by wedding punk economy to pop sheen, transforming American rock radio between 1978 and 1988. Formed in Boston, the quintet of Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Robinson arrived fully formed with their 1978 self-titled debut, which spawned six charting singles and sold six million copies. Their synthetic textures and detached vocal delivery drew from Roxy Music and Kraftwerk whilst maintaining guitar-driven accessibility, a formula that yielded seventeen Billboard Hot 100 entries.

Producer Mutt Lange polished their 1984 peak Heartbeat City, which generated "Drive", a synth ballad that became inadvertently linked to Ethiopian famine relief through Live Aid footage. The album moved four million units and confirmed their MTV-era dominance. Ocasek's deadpan songwriting documented romantic disconnection through technological metaphor, capturing suburban alienation as Reagan-era prosperity met digital anxiety. Their influence permeates power pop and alternative rock, proving that artifice and authenticity need not oppose one another. The band dissolved in 1988, briefly reuniting in 2011 before Orr's prior death in 2000 and Ocasek's in 2019.