The Cars: Orr or Ocasek?

Both are great. Of your list, both have 4 songs that are personal favorites. Since You're Gone would give Ocasek the edge. But I think Orr's 4 songs might be better. Call it a draw.

Liked Orr's voice a little more, but Ocasek was the brains behind that group.

Impossible for me to pick. The Cars are just awesome. Everything pop/rock is supposed to be.

Ocasek's role as the "leader" was critical. He was the band's main songwriter/lyricist. He also had to make executive decisions.

At the final interview (Orr was visibly in very poor health with just a few months to live and said very little during a quite long interview), the interviewer straight up asked Ocasek how he made decisions on who would sing which songs. I'm not sure if this is word-for-word, but it is very close, "If I felt the song needed a stronger voice, I would give it to Ben."

Out of their 4 Top 10 hits, Ocasek sang on 3 of them (Orr singing lead on Drive). However, virtually all of my favorite Cars songs were sung by Orr.

quote:

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It's All I Can Do.

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Excellent guitar solo on that one.

...and Elliot Easton could really tear off a nice solo.

Candy O!

Thanks you for that. I was unaware.

quote:

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For some reason they refused to play "Its all I can do" live because an un named band member took issue with it for one reason or another per Greg and Elliot.

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I'd love to know more about this.

Yeah, that quote is all I've got, and maybe some YT comments and speculation. I think it was mentioned in the Orr biography "Let's Go", which was a decent read.
Could they be any more vague?, dying to know the real reason. Maybe Donna can squeeze it out of Greg or Elliot....Probably reminded Orr of some psycho he banged, I mean, Door to Door had some crappy songs they played live in '87, like "strap me in"....