Shake It Up (Expanded Remastered) The Cars

• 1Since You're Gone 03:31
• 2Shake It Up 03:31
• 3I'm Not The One 04:09
• 4Victim Of Love 04:24
• 5Cruiser 04:56
• 6A Dream Away 05:40
• 7This Could Be Love 04:26
• 8Think It Over 04:56
• 9Maybe Baby 05:05
• 10Since You're Gone (Early Version)05:56
• 11Shake It Up (Demo)04:10
• 12I'm Not The One (Remix)04:10
• 13Cruiser (Early Version)04:59
• 14Take It On The Run (Early Version of "A Dream Away")06:18
• 15Coming Up You Again (1981 Version of "Coming Up You")05:21
• 16Little Black Egg 02:54
• 17Midnight Dancer04:22
• Total Runtime01:18:48

Info for Shake It Up (Expanded Remastered)

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct The Cars in April, honoring the legendary band’s incredible musical legacy and enormous commercial success. Rhino will kick off the celebration early with the expanded edition for Shake It Up.

Each release features the original album – remastered in 2016 – expanded with rare and unreleased bonus tracks. Illustrated booklets accompany the music and contain liner notes written by renowned rock journalist David Fricke, who details the history of each album with new interviews by band member David Robinson.

Ric Ocasek, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes, Benjamin Orr and David Robinson recorded Shake It Up in 1981 at Syncro Sound, the group’s new studio in Boston, with producer Roy Thomas Baker. Working in their own space afforded them the time to perfect the sound of the album, which became their third-straight Top 10 hit record and sold more than two million copies. It features the unforgettable singles “Since You’re Gone,” “Think It Over” and The Cars’ first Top 10 hit single, “Shake It Up.” Several unreleased tracks make their debut on SHAKE IT UP: EXPANDED EDITION, including an early version of “Since You’re Gone,” the demo for “Shake It Up” and an unreleased song called “Midnight Dancer.”

"By augmenting their sound with more synthesizers, electronics, and drum machines, the Cars' fourth release, Shake It Up, helped bridge their hard rock-based early work (1978's The Cars) with the futuristic-pop direction of 1984's Heartbeat City. The band's sound may have been evolving with each succeeding album, but Ric Ocasek was still writing compelling new wave compositions despite all the change, many of which would ultimately become rock & roll standards. The up-tempo title track remains a party favorite to this day (reaching number four on the singles charts), while the melancholic "Since You're Gone" remains one of Ocasek's best-ever tales of heartbreak. Intriguing videos were made for both songs, officially introducing the band to the MTV age. Like its predecessor, 1980's Panorama, filler is present ("This Could Be Love," "Maybe Baby"), but many lesser-known album tracks prove to be highlights: the almost entirely synth-oriented tracks "Think It Over" and "A Dream Away," the rocking "Cruiser," plus the more pop-oriented "I'm Not the One" and "Victim of Love." Although Shake It Up was another resounding commercial success, their next album would be the one that made the Cars one of rock's quintessential acts of the '80s." (Greg Prato, AMG)

Ric Ocasek, rhythm guitar, lead vocals (on 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9)
Elliot Easton, lead guitar, backing vocals
Greg Hawkes, keyboards, backing vocals
Benjamin Orr, bass, lead vocals (on 5, 7, 8)
David Robinson, drums, percussion

Produced by Roy Thomas Baker

Digitally remastered

The Cars
In many ways, The Cars were the prototypical American new wave band of the 1980s. Barging into a pop-music scene then overwhelmed by English New Romantic pretty-boy bands, The Cars’ highly polished, chrome-plated four-on-the-floor rock ’n’ roll charged up the charts like a souped-up Camaro racing to the checkered flag—with the band’s Alberto Vargas-designed album art glinting like metal-flake paint on a hot rod.

Cars co-founders Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr had been writing songs and forming bands together since 1972, when they first teamed as two-thirds of the folk trio Milkwood (whose one album also featured Cars’ future keyboardist Greg Hawkes). In 1974, Ocasek and Orr joined with Elliot Easton to form the legendary Boston band, Cap’n Swing, which lasted but a year. Finally, in 1976, the trio called in Hawkes and ex-Modern Lovers drummer David Robinson, and The Cars were ready to roll.

The Cars, released in the spring of ’78, spun off three hit singles (“Just What I Needed,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” and “Good Times Roll”) and graced the charts for more than two and a half years, eventually going platinum six times over. Their debut was so successful, in fact, that Elektra delayed the release of the band’s 1979 follow-up, Candy-O, for several months. Candy-O, 1980’s Panorama, and 1981’s Shake It Up each, in turn, went platinum, and the latter’s title track became the group’s first Top 10 hit. Along the way, Ocasek began establishing a reputation as a producer, working with such bands as Suicide, Bad Brains, and Romeo Void.

After Shake It Up, the band members took a break, with Ocasek, Orr, and Hawkes all recording solo albums. It must have done them good, for their next album, Heartbeat City, became their most successful. Released in 1984, Heartbeat City sprang to #3 on the album charts and produced four Top 40 singles (“You Might Think,” “Magic,” “Drive,” and “Hello Again”). These singles also broke new ground visually with their inventive, computer-animated videos, which each received heavy rotation on the then-nascent MTV.

The next two years found the band on another extended leave (with solo albums from Ocasek, Orr, and Easton), followed by 1987’s only somewhat successful Door To Door. The Cars disbanded in February 1988. Ocasek went on to release seven solo albums and produced some of the biggest names in ’90s rock. Easton took to the road with Creedence Clearwater Revisited. Orr, after a long and painful battle, succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2000.

The Cars legacy continued in to the 21st century with the release of a live concert DVD, a double-disc deluxe edition of their classic self-titled debut album, and the ultimate Cars collection, Complete Greatest Hits.

This album contains no booklet.