Cage The Elephant - Thank You, Happy Birthday

Fans of the show will undoubtedly know that i have a deep love of serendipitously coincidental happenstance. It just so happens that today is my birthday, and tonight's album is Cage the Elephant's sophomore effort, Thank You, Happy Birthday. I just picked it up because the cover art is pretty awesome, i'd never really heard much of their earlier stuff, and didn't give it any actual thought (didn't even notice the title).

I've written about a bunch of bands that left England to live here, but these guys went the other direction, leaving Bowling Green, KY for the outskirts of London. Strange.

The story i guess is that they did like a Beatles or Prince style thousand song recording session, decided they didn't like any of them, dug deep into their personal side project material and struggled to mash 12 of them together like an imaginary compilation album. I don't NOT believe them, but they hint at feeling a bit embarrassed by their own eagerness to be inauthentic pop punks. The good news is that regretting not putting your real self into your early albums is the most authentic fake persona a pop star can have. Sounding like the Black Keys for your 3rd album and beyond isn't exactly an "authentic" search for your own unique voice (especially when Dan Auerbach IS the producer) either, if you ask me. I don't know, the early 2010s were pretty abysmal in general so the noisy spastic 3G punk revival sound splattered across this album is actually compellingly refreshing, to me at least. I assume that accounts for a lot of the overly positive critical praise of the time as well.

Is it game changing, culturally significant teenage philosophy? No, but it is highly energetic, and remarkably free of the more contrived emo cliches of their peers. Oh, everything's still miserable, but that's no reason to not be loud and mildly obnoxious about it. They aren't real guttersnipes, but they aren't exactly posers either. I definitely remember hearing Aberdeen, and their earlier breakthrough Ain't No Rest for the Wicked the better part of a decade ago, but i have no idea where or in what context.

If i sound wishy washy it's probably just because they didn't actually build on the potential of this album. They got much less caustically annoying; sad because that's the best part of this album. Instead of refining their jackassery, they just ended up being a generic millenial rock band. I really like Thank You, Happy Birthday, but i can't shake that feeling that this is all they've got for me. It's definitely a "talking out of your ass" album, and that's actually what makes it enjoyable. I don't want them to focus or be consistent, i want them to be spastic and unpredictable. Maybe that's just my personal taste, saying "fuck it" and letting things fall out whichever way they do is my thing after all.

Happy birthday, bottle. I accidentally bought you a surprisingly complicated album from some ex-pat teenagers, 'cause i saw it and thought "this is so up your alley."

Thanks, me!

And thank you, everyone who wished me a happy birthday today. And thank you for reading this. Thank You, and Happy Birthday.

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