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Hello again! The Cars’ penultimate album and biggest commercial success is coming back in a box set this year.
Rhino will reissue the group’s Heartbeat City as a 4CD/1LP set on October 31, a year-delayed 40th anniversary celebration that’ll include the original album on CD and vinyl alongside a wealth of bonus material (including tracks featured on previous expanded editions of not only this album but 1980’s Panorama). Highlights include the non-album B-side “Breakaway,” remixes of the single “Hello Again,” a number of early versions and demos (including one of standout track “Drive” as well as “Shooting for You,” a Panorama outtake revisited during the Heartbeat sessions) and even an early mix of the whole album. The set is capped off with a live set recorded at The Summit in Houston, TX during the promotional cycle for the album, released in part as a longform video four decades ago and featured here with additional material. Keyboardist Greg Hawkes pens new track-by-track liner notes, and drummer David Robinson (who also designed all the band’s album covers) offers his recollections in a new essay.
While the Boston-bred band (the subject of a new book by author and Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz) were already proven hitmakers since the late ’70s – notching New Wave hits like “Just What I Needed,” “Let’s Go” and the Top 10 “Shake It Up” – 1984’s Heartbeat City found the group going into overdrive. Shifting lanes from longtime producer Roy Thomas Baker to rising pop/rock juggernaut Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the group’s fifth album was their sleekest to date, offering undeniable hooks on “You Might Think” (a Top 10 hit in America), “Magic,” “Hello Again” and the title track, all of which were sung by guitarist Ric Ocasek. The crown jewel of the album – and, at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 the group’s greatest commercial masterstroke – was “Drive,” sung with palpable emotion by bassist Benjamin Orr over a slow-dance-primed cascade of synthesizers, programmed drums and ethereal background vocals. “You Might Think” and “Drive” cemented The Cars as masters of the increasingly dominant MTV: a clip for the former was the first winner of a Video Music Award for Video of the Year, while the latter was immortalized in both a music video featuring Ocasek’s future wife, model Paulina Porizkova, and a heartrending montage that played during the global telecast of the charity concerts Live Aid in 1985. (A well-regarded video for “Hello Again” was co-directed by Andy Warhol, one of the legendary visual artist’s few forays into traditional music video production.)
The box (which reverts its adaptation of Peter Phillips’ visual art piece on the cover, going back to the dark red border instead of the white one Robinson oversaw on recent reissues) will be available on October 31 and can be pre-ordered below. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Heartbeat City (Deluxe Edition) (Elektra/Rhino, 2025) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
* previously unreleased
CD 1/LP: Original album (released as Elektra 60296, 1984)
CD 2: B-Sides, Remixes, Early Versions & Demos
Track 1 released on “Why Can’t I Have You” single – Elektra 7-69657, 1984
Tracks 2-3 released on Elektra 12″ 0-66929, 1984
Tracks 4 and 7-9 released on Heartbeat City (Expanded Edition) – Elektra/Rhino R2 565284, 2018
Track 12 released on Panorama (Expanded Edition) – Elektra/Rhino R2 560030, 2017
CD 3: Early Mixes *
CD 4: Live at The Summit, Houston, TX – 9/11/1984 *
Tracks 1-3, 5-12 and 14-17 released on video as Live 1984-1985 – Vestron Music Video MA 1018, 1985
Categories: News Formats: Box Sets, CD, Digital Download, Digital Streaming, Vinyl Genre: Classic Rock, Pop, Rock
Mike Duquette (Founder) was fascinated with catalog music ever since he was a teenager. A 2009 graduate of Seton Hall University with a B.A. in journalism, Mike paired his profession with his passion through The Second Disc, one of the first sites to focus on all reissue labels great and small. His passion for reissues turned into a career, holding positions at Legacy Recordings and Rhino Records and contributing to Allmusic, Discogs, City Pages, Ultimate Classic Rock and Mondo Records, for whom he penned liner notes for his favorite piece of music: John Williams’ Oscar-winning score to ‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.’ Born and raised in New Jersey, Mike lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife, a cat named Ravioli, twin daughters and a large yet tasteful collection of music.
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