The astute among you will notice that I’m posting the back cover of this album as opposed to the legendary, lusty front (if you want to see it that much, you know how to use Google). As a man who has tried to follow the teachings of the man who said “whoever looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery with her in his heart,” it’s always been difficult for me trying to divorce this record from its cover. But that difficulty isn’t unwarranted: the record went platinum in record time, largely because of the pinup sprawled on its cover.

But that success reinforces the question: is the music any good?

The opening tracks are strangely midtempo, rarely breaking the 100 bpm threshold, relying mostly on closed high hats and palm-muted guitars. They seem rather forgettable in comparison with the monster first side of their debut. But then, at the end of Double Life, a discordant keyboard run fades into the mix, and the Cars shed their pop-group image and dive into Shoo Be Doo, the most rambunctious song on either of album. The rough edges created by Shoo Be Doo remain for the rest of the album, which is often more ambitious than conventional, more rock than pop. And while it maintains a balance between these poles, it does so with less sure-footedness and easiness than their debut, deciding rather to mix them into the same album rather than in the same song. But when compared its predecessor, the fact that it stands up to scrutiny at all is an achievement in itself.