Hello Again (The Cars song)
single by The Cars
"Hello Again" is a song by American rock band the Cars from their fifth studio album Heartbeat City (1984). It was released on October 15, 1984 as the album's fourth single. The song was the fourth top-20 entry from the album, reaching number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also reached number eight on the Hot Dance/Disco chart and number 22 on the Top Rock Tracks chart. Ric Ocasek sings lead vocals on the track.
Critical reception
Billboard wrote that "Hello Again" goes "back to the staccato synth beat and wry mannered style that typified the group's singles before 'Drive' changed all that."
"Hello Again" was retrospectively described as "eccentric" by AllMusic critic Greg Prato, who also cited the track as a highlight from the Heartbeat City album. Donald Guarisco, also of AllMusic, wrote "One of their strongest tracks [on Heartbeat City with experimental roots] was 'Hello Again,' a stylish new wave rocker with plenty of experimental touches." Guarisco added that it "represents the Cars striking a unique balance between their gift for pop hooks and their love of experimental sounds."
In his review of the compilation album Greatest Hits (1985), Prato felt that "Hello Again" should have been included on the album, stating "why was the title track from Heartbeat City (an unsuccessful single) included instead of the 1984 Top 20 hit 'Hello Again'?"
Music video
The music video for the song was directed by Andy Warhol and Don Munroe. Warhol appeared in the video as a bartender, which was filmed at the Be-Bop Cafe in Manhattan on March 29, 1984. Dianne Brill and John Sex of the downtown New York scene made cameos. A then-unknown Gina Gershon also appeared in the video. Keyboardist Greg Hawkes said "I think [Warhol] mainly did some of the conceptualizing and showed up to be an extra.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hello Again (The Cars song)” is single by The Cars. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hello, Again and Cars, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “single by The Cars” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5708605. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984 and 1985.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hello Again (The Cars song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.