Ric Ocasek

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• Genre: New Wave
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About

If all Ric Ocasek had done was come up with "Since You're Gone" from the Cars' Shake It Up album, he would go down (in our book, anyway) as one of the all-time great pop songwriters. Instead, Ocasek's career in music goes far beyond that. First appearing as the tall skinny weirdo who sang the Cars' best songs and played those perfect rhythm guitar parts, Ocasek went on to become a talented and sought-after producer, cutting records with Weezer, Guided By Voices and others. But in the 1970s and '80s, Ocasek worked with such seminal acts as hardcore reggae masters Bad Brains and pre-punk/pre-No Wave/pre-everything synth dudes Suicide. Along with his producing career, Ocasek released several solo records before and after the Cars went o! n hiatus, beginning with 1982's Beatitude That record yielded the first-rate Cars-like "Something To Grab For," but Ocasek has rarely cracked the charts as a solo artist. His 2005 record followed in the footsteps of his pun-loving past and was titled Nexterday.

- Mike McGuirk