popped into Au Bon Pain this AM and the MUZAK played "Bye Bye Love" by the Cars. Ben Orr singing.
Was a time I thought a bunch of bands would break out of Boston. "The Next Cars / Geils / Aerosmith." The Neighborhoods were a pretty good punk band that I don't think ever were signed. The Atlantics and the Lyres had a bunch of great songs but, when they were signed, their albums just did not get promoted. "Lonely Hearts" and "The Pop Shivers" by the Atlantics really stack up well, and "I Want to Help You Ann" by the Lyres is terrific (emvbedded below). there were others that were not really punk or new wave but made great music, like the Stompers (a more basic rock and roll sound pretty close to what you'd hear out of New Jersey bands), but that type of act was not signable at the time. The gimmick acts like the Fools (Psycho Chicken, Life Sucks and then you Die) and Human Sexual Response (I want to be Jackie Onassis) got gimmick airplay, Dale Bozzio had Missing Persons, and a little later Til Tuesday (Aimee Mann) and the Del Fuegos had some success.