- With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, this vintage copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Shake It Up you’ve heard – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- It wouldn’t be a Cars Hot Stamper pressing without big, bold sound flying out of the speakers and friends, let me tell you, this baby’s got that in spades
- Outstanding sound for some of their most memorable songs – “Since You’re Gone,” “Shake It Up,” “I’m Not the One,” “A Dream Away” and more
- “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 and roll standards.”
If you have big dynamic speakers and like to rock, you can’t go wrong with a Hot Stamper copy of Shake It Up. For a band with thin ties, leather jackets, jangly guitars, synths and monstrously huge floor toms that fly back and forth across the soundstage, Shake It Up is going to be the record for you, no doubt about it.
The first two Cars albums were both in our Top 100 at one time, with good reason: they’re superb recordings. The Cars have been in “heavy rotation” on my system since the albums came out in the late 70s. We started doing shootouts for both albums right around 2006 or 2007 and they continue to be a regular feature of our rock and pop section, not to mention some of the most fun shootouts we do in any given week.
Before then had you ever read a word in any audiophile or record collecting publication about how amazing the originals can sound? Of course not. These people wouldn’t know a good record from a hole in the ground. If anything the typical audiophile probably has one or both of the disastrous Nautilus half-speed mastered versions, and, having played them, would not be inclined to think highly of the sound.
We knew better than to waste our time with that muck. Recently Mobile Fidelity has taken upon itself to remaster a selection of the band’s titles with the same flawed half-speed mastering approach. We haven’t played any of them and don’t intend to. We know that sound and we don’t like it.
Our point, other than to bash a record we have never played, is simply this: if you have any of those MoFi versions, we would love to send you a Hot Stamper copy of the album so that you can hear for yourself what it’s really supposed to sound like.
The End of the Cars Production Line
I consider this to be one of the last good records the Cars made. Side one is fairly consistent, with the first three tracks all being excellent. Side two starts out with one of their best songs, “A Dream Away,” which is a personal favorite of mine.
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