Cake - Motorcade of Generosity


Let's talk about Cake. No, i take that back, let's talk about Robert Christgau. He is one of Bottle's mentors, after all. There's great albums, A. They are rare. There are good albums, B. They are less rare. There are also various levels of hilariously bad albums. In between lie the honorable mentions 1, 2, and 3 star. Why? Because these are albums that people predisposed to like them probably will. I like the idea that most albums fall into the 3 star system between good and bad albums. I also like that he will listen to anything and make an honest assessment of it within his established likes and biases. I'm the Todd in the Shadows version of that.

I honestly don't know what to say about Cake's first album, Motorcade of Generosity. It's unique. I mean, yes there's irony, but it's not IRONIC. There are some sarcastic lyrics, but it's not SARCASTIC. Christgau calls it "unambiguity from the near side of cool." 

Oh, i got it. The banality of hyperbolically ironic modernity. A Bob Newhartian chronicle of hipster ennui. Seinfeld on Xanax. 

I always get the sense that John McCrea thinks the whole thing is dumb. Yes we're a band, yes i'm a songwriter, yes music is important, BUT STOP DEMANDING TO LIKE EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME! 

How dare you enjoy this, we're wasting a lot of money and making the world more horrible in a desperately ironic attemp to convince you stop wasting money and make the world a little better. I get that. I'm like that. I think i'm an idiot illustrating how to try to not be such an idiot.

Cake is like Spoon, there ain't no surprise evolution taking place. I like Motorcade and Fashion Nugget, the rest is someone else's problem. My Grandma Mildred really liked their version of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps. 

Oh yeah, Cake, don't they like want you to stop building nuclear warheads and plant trees and stuff? 

No, they want you to stop fixating on the pointless conundrums of artificial ceremony. The more you do it, the dumber you get, and the harder to we have to try to snap you out of it. Then that becomes work, and now we're dumb too. Look at us, we're a band being pointless to try to get you to go do something. That's retarded.

Now i kind of feel guilty for enjoying it. Help, i'm a sheeple.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho
Read more

Pat Benatar - Seven The Hard Way

Image
I don't know about you, but i love Pat Benatar. Yes, that's also her debut album with the single most underrated song in the universe (My Clone Sleeps Alone) in the background, but that's just a generic non-self-titled debut album. We're jumping ahead to her 6th album, Seven The Hard Way, because that, ladies and gentle germs, is how you kalaidescope a concept. Not one, not two, not three, but 4 protien-packed layers to this metaphor. You don't really need to know the overly complicated rules of Craps to know that A) it's gambling, B) "the hard way" refers to rolling doubles, so good luck rolling two 3.5s, and C) you're going to lose, one way or another. It's a joke, but more importantly, it's Pat Benatar and the roll out is Sex As A Weapon, so the innuendo is not intended to be subtle. Wait wait wait, that's only 3, Bottle, where's 4? You're right, last but not least, side B opens with Seven Rooms of Gloom, a Holland-Dozier-Hol
Read more