Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Bloomsbury Academic, and author Peter Aaron for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

The Cars were a staple of my teen years. Music in general meant so much to me, and I had all of their albums in my collection. With the inception of MTV and their well-made videos, it meant that they were in my orbit. Even now, when I listen to the radio in the car, I always get a smile when a song of theirs comes on. I approached Moving in Stereo: Ric Ocasek, the Driving Force of The Cars, hoping for the best. For the most part, it is. It can be hard to craft a biography when the subject of that biography is deceased and wasn’t known to talk a lot publicly. Complicating matters even further, the other musician central to the creation of The Cars, Benjamin Orr, also passed away more than twenty years ago now. The source of the narrative comes from other members of the band as well as those involved with Ric, particularly during his very successful post-Cars career, producing other artists.

When people talk about The Cars, it’s usually said that they are from Boston. Realistically, it was one of many cities that influenced the group. Ric Ocasek, born as Richard Theodore Otcasek, was originally from the Baltimore area. His family moved to Ohio when he was young. It was in Cleveland that he would meet Benjamin Orzechowski, with whom he would partner for many years. They started out more as a folk-rock group, which faltered during the 1970s as music tastes were changing. With the punk influence strong in Boston, Ric looked to give his songwriting a harder edge, and The Cars were formed.

Initially, Ric was the main songwriter, and he left it to Ben Orr to handle the vocals. As The Cars came to be, Ric decided to try handling more of the vocals himself. It was funny to hear him admit that when a song seemed to need a strong vocalist, he had Ben take lead vocals. As talented as Ric was, he knew his limits. Nowhere is this more apparent than in my favorite Cars song, Drive.

The majority of the book takes place pre-Cars. Ric was already 32 when their first album was released. He’d paid a lot of dues over the years, and Aaron covers it very well. However, the personal life is pretty much glossed over. Ric had three marriages, each of which produced two sons. When he and Ben decided to move to Boston, his second wife went with him, but his ex-wife and two sons were left behind. There’s nothing really about his relationship with his children from his first or second marriage. There’s a brief mention at one point of his sons visiting him while on tour. The other members of the band, aside from Ben, were shocked because they never knew Ric had these children. His third wife, Paulina Porizkova, has cooperated with the author, but they were in the process of divorcing when he passed away.

I was really interested in Ric’s career as a producer. Before reading this, I wasn’t aware of how many acts he was involved with in that regard. It’s an impressive list of acts stretching from the 1980s through to his death in 2019. Acts like Romeo Void, Bad Brains, Weezer, and Suicide owe him a debt. There’s no doubt he was a very talented artist.

Far from complete, I did enjoy Moving in Stereo: Ric Ocasek, the Driving Force of The Cars. I don’t know that much more is out there about him to be learned. He seems like he kept a lot of his personal life close to the vest and loved having an air of mystery surrounding him. I did come away from this with a much better appreciation of his talent as a songwriter and producer in addition to his work as a singer and guitarist. Since he’s gone (see what I did there?), this is probably as good a biography of him that we’re ever going to get.