The Estate of Ric Ocasek and Primary Wave Music, the leading independent publisher of iconic and legendary music in the world, have announced today their exciting new partnership. Terms of the deal will see the publishing giant partner with Ocasek’s estate on the iconic artist’s publishing catalog which includes all songs from his time with the Cars—as a cultural innovator and driving force of the band, he created and became synonymous with its enduring sound and style—in addition to all songs Ocasek released as a solo artist.
In this new partnership, Primary Wave will now share in name, image and likeness rights with the estate and will provide access to the company’s marketing team and publishing infrastructure, working closely on new marketing, branding, digital, and synch opportunities, as well as film & television projects.
Over the course of his 5+ decade career, Ocasek sold more than 20 million records with the Cars and had over ten Top 40 hits. The band was nominated for six Grammys including for “Best New Artist” in 1979 and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. Ocasek was the primary vocalist and songwriter for the Cars, writing some of their biggest songs including the critically acclaimed singles “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “Let The Good Times Roll,” and “Let’s Go.” Each of those songs are included in the multi-million-dollar deal, as well as their song “Drive.”
Released in 1984, “Drive” was the band’s highest charting single, soaring to number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 upon release. The song topped the Adult Contemporary chart and went on to be nominated for a Grammy in the category “Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.”
Two other gems from the catalog that are included in this thrilling new partnership are the number one radio hit “You Might Think” and the iconic “Just What I Needed.” “You Might Think” was the first single off the band’s fifth album Heartbeat City. It shot to the Top 10 on the Billboard 100. The accompanying video for the single was a huge hit and was of the first music videos to use computer graphics. It went on to be nominated for five MTV Video Music Awards, ultimately winning the first ever “Video of the Year” award.
Released in 1978, “Just What I Needed” was the first single off the Cars debut album and was the most successful single from the self-titled release. The track has gone on to be praised by fans and critics alike with Rolling Stone naming the song one of Ocasek’s “essential songs” and including it on their “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.
In a Stereogum feature about Ric from 2019, writer Tom Breihan said of the song, “You could write a senior thesis about the way ‘Just What I Needed’ builds, methodically and masterfully, to its monster-bleat chorus — all the tiny, nasty, meticulous hooks embedded in the climb to its big singalong. And then you could write another thesis about the song’s lyrical construction.”
“Just What I Needed” influenced Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo to select Ocasek to be the producer for their debut. Ric produced a number of albums during his time with the Cars and while recording his own solo material. His reputation as a producer developed and he found himself working with everyone from Weezer to Bad Brains to Bad Religion to No Doubt to Nada Surf.
Ocasek’s first solo album was released in 1982 titled Beatitude. He would go on to release six more solo albums, his last being released in 2005.
Of the partnership Adam Lowenberg, Primary Wave Music’s Chief Marketing Officer, said “It is an absolute honor to partner with the Estate of Ric Ocasek. His words, music and overall vision left such an indelible mark on the historical musical landscape. I cannot imagine my own youth without the songs of Ric Ocasek. We are so eager to begin creating new opportunities to introduce Ric’s world to a whole new audience."
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ric Ocasek was an artist, writer and musician, perhaps best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter and rhythm guitarist of iconic post-punk and power-pop band The Cars. Born Richard Otcasek in Baltimore on March 23, 1949, Ocasek was a gifted songwriter and musician throughout his career—both as a solo artist and as a member of various groups. In addition, he developed his career as an influential record producer, working with an array of prominent acts and producing seminal releases by such pioneering bands as Suicide and Bad Brains, and pop sensations Weezer and No Doubt.
During his time as a member of The Cars, Ocasek penned enduring hits such as “Drive,” “Shake It Up,” “Good Times Roll,” “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Just What I Needed”. The Cars’ 1978 eponymous debut certified 6x Platinum, and from there, the band racked up 13 Billboard Top 40 singles (four of them Top Ten hits), across a string of six studio albums that sold more than 17 million records in the U.S. alone.
Ric Ocasek’s music still captures audiences today as his iconic songs are continuously used in popular films and television shows such as “Dead to Me,” “Stranger Things,” “Arrested Development” and many more. The use of The Cars’ “Moving In Stereo” (co-written by Ocasek and Greg Hawkes) in the classic film Fast Times At Ridgemont High has become a popular culture reference in its own right.
Ocasek has influenced bands over the decades from Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins, who covered “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight” as a b-side to their hit “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” to The Killers. Longtime fan Brandon Flowers of The Killers inducted The Cars into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, saying, “They achieved greatness and left a comet trail behind them, writing and recording songs that have transcended into classics…Forty years later they still sound like a new band to me.”
Ocasek continued to harness his unending talent for compelling and poetic songwriting with several successful solo albums, including Beatitude (1982), Fireball Zone (1990), Troublizing (1997) and Nexterday (2005).
In 2010, Ocasek reunited with the surviving original members of The Cars, and in 2011 the band issued Move Like This, a studio album that proved to be a success for the epic group’s multi-generational fan base.
Ric Ocasek’s artistic works include 2012’s Lyrics & Prose, a book of poetry, lyrics and drawings, and, in 2017, a series of fine art gallery shows of his paintings and prints.
