Cake - Prolonging the Magic - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Billy Bremner - Bash [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/12/2001

Alternative Rock-Sounding like a suburban, melodic white-funk-injected version of King Missile's performance art/standup comedy, InchThe DistanceInch became a novelty hit in the fall of 1996, sending Cake's second album, Fashion Nugget, to platinum status. Certainly, InchThe DistanceInch was the only reason Fashion Nugget went platinum, because the remainder of the album is too collegiate and arcane for mainstream music tastes. It isn't because it's obscure or intellectual - it's because the band is smirking. An InchironicInch cover of Gloria Gaynor's InchI Will SurviveInch is the key to the album, sending the signal that Cake consider themselves above everyone else, and nothing is too insignificant to make fun of. And that wouldn't necessarily have been a problem if they had the wit or musical skills that would make their music either funny or listenable. Instead, they wallow in sophomoric jokes that rely on self-consciously elaborate wordplay. Occasionally, their blend of collegiate musical styles - funk, hip-hop, alternative rock - makes the music easy to digest in small doses, such as InchThe Distance,Inch but it isn't varied enough to prevent the album from becoming tedious when played straight through.

Cake have been delivering irreverent pop music defined by a wry humor and notoriously eclectic musical compositions.