Cake

Once upon a time, Cake were one of the big players in the alt-rock scene that included bands like Pavement, Soul Coughing, and They Might be Giants. The best way to describe Cake is that they blend a lot of rootsy types of music together but add a few modern touches to keep current. There is a ton of 60's-style rock n' roll riffs to go with funky bass lines and snappy percussion (usually things you shake). They mostly stick to rock n' roll but sometimes foray into odd genres like samba or ballroom. Also, each album usually has one country or folk song on it, usually done completely straight. The signatures of the group are Vince DiFiore's trumpet playing, shouted background vocals, and of course, singer John McCrea's half-sung vocals. It is McCrea who inspires such odd reactions to the band - at best, you may find his sarcastic half-effort vocals endearing or amusing; at worst, he comes across as smug, detached and unbearable. Unsurprisingly, the critics usually saw the worst in them which has given them a bad reputation; but if nothing else, McCrea was a good, often great songwriter, and the band's shtick was so inoffensively catchy that it's hard to imagine someone having a problem with it. It's also worth mentioning that for some reason, women seem to this band.

One thing you'll notice quickly is that McCrea has sort of a radical libertarian persona that tends to creep up in the lyrics, and if you view the band's website the first thing you'll notice is the links to dozens of dubious articles predicting the end of the world. This is really the obnoxious part of the group; their political views are so broad and bandwagony that songs like "Carbon Monoxide" and "Federal Funding" can't help but be eye-rollers no matter how good the actual music is. They're generally best when sticking to offbeat lyrical subjects like "Sheep Go To Heaven".

The major sidelight to the Cake story is that of their breakthrough hit, "The Distance", which was sort of a novelty tune that somehow exploded and made them seem destined to become one-hit wonders. While McCrea is the primary songwriter in the group, it turns out that guitarist Greg Brown actually wrote the song, which caused a rift in the band as McCrea was receiving almost all of the credit and spotlight. The resulting fallout led to Brown and bassist Victor Damiani leaving to help form the short lived Deathray, which eventually picked up drummer Todd Roper (which meant they had more original Cake members than Cake itself). The band went on without missing a beat, though they did start to add a few non-rock instruments like synthesizers and the drum machine.

One thing you'll notice is that Cake really does not go outside of their comfort zone often, which means that their albums pretty much all sound alike to some degree. You can either view them as a band that know their limits and stick to what they do well, or a one-trick pony. If you really like the band's sound, you will probably enjoy all their releases to some degree, and likewise, if you don't find a particular album appealing, getting a different one isn't going to help.

Motorcade of Generosity (1994)
Although it doesn't have the reputation of their more mainstream works, all the pieces were firmly in place on their debut album, right down to the non-sequitur title and screen-printed cover art. They can write snappy, good-time rock songs ("Ruby Sees All", "Jolene", "Is This Love?") as well as anyone, but they thrive on exploring the more bizarre sides of kitsch, delving into rockabilly ("Pentagram", "Jesus Wrote a Blank Check"), rumba ("Up So Close"), country ("I Bombed Korea"), and tango ("Comanche"). So there's a good dose of whimsy, but the songwriting is there. The core of the sound is made up mostly of gritty country-rock guitar lines and well-placed trumpet parts that amp up the catchiness factor considerably ("Ain't No Good"). As far as the vocals go, McCrea (and his background shouters) are mostly in good form; though McCrea's vocal range is probably not even an entire octave, the benefit is that it's awfully easy to sing along to, which is the point of most of these songs. The one time he really lets loose is on "Jolene", which concludes with him screaming over a funk-rock background, and may be the best moment on the disc. Otherwise, the better songs are the ones that pack the most ideas - for example, "You Part the Waters", a funky tune with a bunch of hooks and some unexpected dramatic piano and string sections. One of the compositions is absolutely baffling - "Mr. Mastodon Farm" is a long guitar jam based on a strange spoken-word section, and though it shouldn't work, they somehow pull it together. The one and only single from this album was equally confusing - "Rock n' Roll Lifestyle" is McCrea's condemnation of rock n' roll culture over blatant 60's riffing, which could classify as a good ironic satire if the lyrics made any sense. Maybe that was the point. The album's main flaw is the mastering; it's muffled and seems to have been done mostly in one take. The levels fluctuate pretty wildly from song to song (the bass on "Is This Love?" is turned up to the point of ridiculousness), and the drums were very poorly recorded, sounding more like a guy banging on his desk rather than an actual drummer. While the album was recently remastered, I am not sure if even that would help; it sounds like a lot of this needs radical remixing or even re-recording in order to get this to sound like their later albums. That's frustrating, since in some ways, this is as fun and clever as they ever got.

Fashion Nugget (1996)
This was Cake's big contribution to the canon of hip, self-aware alt-rock, and it's mostly a success, even if it’s kind of uneven. This time they focus more on Greg Brown's hard riffing style to give them an edge, which resulted in their one big hit ("The Distance"), which is something of a rap/dad-rock novelty. It's a good song with a big sound, but it's a good thing that the rest of the album doesn't sound like that. Most of this is a homage to the styles of the 50's, 60’s, and 70's, with three (!) cover songs and a few originals that sound like they could have been old standards ("It's Coming Down", "Stickshifts and Safetybelts"). Of the covers, the most shocking is the straightforward rock cover of "I Will Survive", which surprisingly transcends its built-in novelty value. Also shocking is their take on the old Spanish classic "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps", which sounds exactly like the type of Latin-tinged tune you'd hear on Motorcade of Generosity. The third cover, Willie Nelson's "Sad Songs and Waltzes", is not really shocking at all. Most of the standouts are the originals, some of which are structured rather oddly - on "Frank Sinatra", they're able to pull together what sounds at first like a dubbed out dirge into a brilliant offbeat pop song. "Daria" doesn't do as well, but it's certainly memorable for its sudden shifts and dramatic phrasing. "Nugget" is even stranger, a half-song that combines heavy riffs with nonsensical lyrics and a ridiculous chorus, making it this album's "Mr. Mastodon Farm" (though not as good). The problem with the album is that it feels like more flash than substance; most of the lyrics seem primed to gather some kind of reaction (like "bowel-shaking earthquakes", or "she's got a silk dress and/healthy breasts"), and a lot of the more "interesting" movements do not quite work. Some of the songs are very good - "Italian Leather Sofa" runs through a bunch of great moments in 6 minutes (including a neat but ridiculous trumpet solo), and "It's Coming Down" is as catchy as anything on the debut. Even the good but unremarkable country ballad "She'll Come Back to Me" helps things out. But only a few of these songs fully work from start to finish. It gets less interesting every time you hear it, which winds up making it sound fairly dated, especially if you first heard it in the 90's. They do score points for musicianship; the rhythm section plays loose and funky which fits the songs well, and the guitar playing is solid. It's a good place to start with the band and get used to their quirks; although I have rated some of their other albums higher, the difference is not really that much.

Prolonging the Magic (1998)
Losing guitarist Greg Brown and bassist Victor Diamani didn’t seem to hamper the band’s sound at all; new guitarist Xan McCurdy plays the same gritty style, but he doesn’t rock out as much as Brown did. But only the opener ("Satan is My Motor") really calls for it, as the band shifts more towards funk and pop. This time, they give the bass a few leads (“You Turn the Screws”, “Never There”, among others) which allows the band to focus more on the groove. The side effect of this is that the catchiness factor goes way up; this one delivers on the promise of Motorcade, with a wealth of great hooks and memorable songs. The more upbeat stuff is almost all a success - "Hem of Your Garment" and "Let Me Go" are both seriously excellent and should stick with you for a while, not to mention the amusing single "Sheep Go To Heaven", based off a famous Bible verse. Most of this is more thoughtful singer-songwriter type stuff, which can either resonate really well in some spots ("When You Sleep", "Alpha Beta Parking Lot"), or be kind of forgettable ("Walk On By", which is just a straight country-rock tune, "Where Would I Be?", which is underwritten). The downside to this is that they've lost their edge a bit and don't do anything that weird - the only real experiment is the processed vocals and keening synths on the otherwise insignificant "Cool Blue Reason". Still, they have their moments - the jam during the bridge of "Sheep" makes the whole song worthwhile (not to mention the singalong bit at the end). That said, the quality of songwriting is higher than it's ever been, which more than makes up for the lack of neat cover tunes or stuff like "Race Car Ya-Yas". McCrea seems to have the band's shtick worked out to a science - all the background vocals and trumpet parts are in the right place, which is a good thing (if a little boring). In fact, he's so on his game this time that "Mexico" could have became a country standard if it was done by an actual country band. Once again, the single on this one was pretty atypical of the band's sound - "Never There" has a great spy-groove but still feels a bit gimmicky the same way "The Distance" did. Overall this isn't as notable as the last one but it's a better album overall - listen to it twice and you should automatically know all the lyrics by heart. This one comes with a "Parental Advisory" sticker on it, which is strange because there is almost no profanity at all on it; the worst is "go to hell". Seems like a make-up call for the last album (which, maybe "Nugget" aside, really wasn't that offensive either).

Comfort Eagle (2001)
I remember being a Cake fan in 2001, not knowing another album was in the works (after all, Prolonging the Magic was still kinda new to me, and this was before I had internet access), flipping channels and hitting upon the MTV premiere of the new Cake video, “Short Skirt/Long Jacket”. It was very low-budget - just people listening to the song and telling the camera what they thought, but it was clear that Cake had really crystallized their strengths and delivered a song that was so Cake-by-the-numbers that you almost wonder if it was done tongue-in-cheek. It's really the ultimate Cake song in more than a few ways, and predictably most of the buying public hated it. You have a pretty generic and agreeable riff, obnoxious lyrics (it's a love song to a boring but practical woman), and a chorus that features both trumpet and wordless backup vocals. A few small changes for the new millennium - there’s a drum machine in a few tracks, some more guitar processing effects, and more funky bass parts (which almost sound synthesized at times), with the compositions sounding something like “modern classic rock”. This is probably the most well-thought out of their albums, as the songs have more depth and don’t venture often into “goofy sing-along” the way their older songs did. There are a few should’a-been radio staples (“Love You Madly”, easily one of Cake’s best riff tunes, “Shadow Stabbing”, which features about the catchiest bridge ever), and a few forays into other genres such as disco (“Opera Singer”) or hard rock (the title track), both of which are incredible and rank among their best work. It doesn’t quite have the fun factor of the previous albums, as the attempts to be lighthearted don’t work out as well as they have in the past (“Pretty Pink Ribbon”). But it’s one of their most consistent and impressive from a songwriting stance, and it does actually leave you wanting more; leaving only 10 songs (and a short instrumental) was a good move, since that way there's nothing on here that drags. Plus, I'm still kind of amused at McCrea writing himself a song where he plays the part of an opera singer, so that's worth something. Even if you're not sold on the idea of a more "mature" Cake, the songs are good enough to make up for it.

Pressure Chief (2004)
This was one of my most anticipated albums of ’04, so when I say it’s mediocre, keep in mind that I tried really hard to convince myself it was as good as the other Cake albums I liked so much. The good news is that Cake is not a band that is going to just churn out a bad album, and you can always be assured of at least a couple of good rock songs on each one. McCrea is simply too skilled of a songwriter, and the band’s formula was a proven winner over a decade now, but this just isn’t Cake at their best. It’s Cake making a Cake album for no reason other than they hadn’t made one in a while. I always liked how even their lesser songs were inherently catchy and singable in the past, but some of the stuff here never quite registers (“Waiting”, “Take It All Away”, “Palm Of Your Hand”), and the excess of synthesizer cheapens some of the tunes that could have been great (“Dime”). Furthermore, the lead single here (“No Phone”) is their worst one yet, as it's basically a retread of “Never There” (with phone sound effects and all!) That said, there are some good things here. The group seems to be heading towards a funkier, synth-heavy version of their sound, with the drums sounding an awful lot like a drum machine in parts (and who knows, they probably are), with bizarre handclap sound effects sprinkled over some of the tracks. For the first time, they led the synths lead in a song ("Take It All Away"), which isn't really a great idea, but it's something new. McCrea seems to be singing more and talking less, which is good, but there’s not much room for DiFiore here, with some of the horn parts sounding like an afterthought (for once). It works in spots – “Carbon Monoxide” is actually a boogie tune (!), and it’s one of their catchiest yet, and while the closer once again uses a bass-led approach, it’s their best along these lines (“Tougher Than It Is”). There are a few more rootsy songs, and they generally work – “Wheels” is a fine (if simple) opener, “She Hangs The Baskets” is one of their better country-influenced tunes, and they do a straightforward but still fine update of Bread’s “Guitar Man”. Not a bad purchase if you were a big fan already (as I was), but get the earlier albums first.

B-Sides and Rarities (2007)
After three more years, Cake needed to drop a good single quick or slide into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, they didn’t and now they are, but we at least got this compilation of tracks from hard-to-find singles. It’s a 12-track release with 7 covers, 2 original instrumentals (or near-instrumentals), and 3 live tracks (which make the band seem sloppier than they really are). So it’s basically an album of covers with a few extras tacked on. This is exciting because Cake’s cover tunes are more hit than miss, but those who loved their take on “I Will Survive” will probably be disappointed to find they only really did one more cover that didn’t really suit their style already – and it’s Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”, which they try to tackle as straight-faced as possible. It’s entertaining, but not exactly something for repeat plays, and most of the rest of the covers are fairly straightforward – the closest to getting the “I Will Survive” treatment is Barry White’s “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up”, which fits their style well and could nearly pass as an original (the same way “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” did). But the covers of Buck Owens, Kenny Rogers, George Jones, and Sinatra are fairly straightforward, and while doing The Muppets’ “Mahna Mahna” is an interesting choice, it’s still a joke tune. At the core this is a lot of fun, and the covers are all at least decent (the take on “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” is easily one of my favorite, especially with the off-color fade out), and it’s a pretty good listen for a release of its nature, though it can wear thin, especially as there’s only nine songs here if you don’t count the live tracks (one of which is “War Pigs”, again). As an album it's a little light, but these songs sound pretty good on random playlists. In fact, I can see people who don't really like the band's original work enjoying this, as it is quirky and a lot of fun.

Showroom of Compassion (2011)
"It's 2011, and Cake have just released a new album". There's something oddly endearing about that - I remember discussing the finer points of Cake songs with my classmates way back when Comfort Eagle was brand new, and even though we resigned ourselves to the fact that this band would never change, that was always part of their appeal. You always know what you're going to get with a Cake album - a short, nonsensical title, a bunch of horns and shouty background vocals, and some genuine un-emoting from the stonefaced McCrea. Here we are, seven years (!) after their last album, and still everything's the same, although we're reaching the point where it's a valid question whether or not "Weird Al" Yankovic could write a better Cake album than Cake themselves could. You get the same things you get with every Cake album - gritty rock riffs and obnoxious lyrics about political issues ("Federal Funding"), blatant copping of 60's standards ("Got to Move", a dead ringer for "Groovy Kind of Love"), a decent country tune ("Bound Away"), a half-baked, left-field idea (lifeless closer "Italian Guy", with strings in lieu of any rock instrumentation whatsoever), and the catchy single. This time it's "Sick of You", and though the opening chords are an attention grabber, it soon becomes clear that this is going to be the THIRD leadoff single in a row that draws entirely off their prior work. It's not as focused as "Short Skirt" nor does it have a single reference point the way "No Phone" does, but every element of it can be traced directly to a prior Cake single, going all the way back to the spoken bridge of "Rock n' Roll Lifestyle". This time, the lyrics are almost worse - "Every shiny toy/that at first brings you joy/will always start to cloy/and annoy/Every camera/every phone/all the music that you own/won't change the fact you're all alone (all alone!)" It goes without saying that there are a couple of people shouting "hey!" in the background on every beat. That on its own wouldn't be so bad, but it's only one of a few songs that make an impression on the first listen, and for a Cake album, that's bad news. Not to say this album is without its charms - the Sinatra cover "What's Now is Now" is a great song (with mellotron!) that would have fit in with their better albums, and "Long Time" is a good upbeat jam (despite the unsettling keyboard parts). As far as the overall sound of the album, all I can say is that the production is roughly on par with Motorcade, which means they've inexplicably gone several steps backwards. There's a big range of synth noises, though at times they're baffling - the synths in "Winter" sound like the background music for Commander Keen, and “Easy to Crash” is underscored by a bunch of blippy noises. Both of these songs could have been a lot better than they turned out. Most of these songs are decent by themselves, but almost everything is undercut by prior Cake material – “Moustache Man (Wasted)” is an unnecessary second-rate rewrite of the first-rate “Comfort Eagle”, and the opener “Federal Funding” recalls almost all of their prior openers (particularly “Wheels”, which was just one album ago). I’ve never really been bothered by all this cannibalism in the past, but unlike the album they released ten years ago, it all seems so creatively exhausted, made decent only by a dwindling pile of riffs and hooks. I don’t like to encourage the bands I like to hang it up, but what can they possibly have to give at this point? Do we wait until 2018 for the next one, when the entire band is in their 50’s?