Wednesday, January 31, 2018

CD Odyssey Disc 1099: Cake

It’s always bittersweet when I review the last album in my collect from a particular band, because it means I won’t be reviewing them again until they release something new. This next band hasn’t released anything since 2011 so I might be waiting a while.

Disc 1099 is… Motorcade of Generosity
Artist: Cake

Year of Release: 1994

What’s up with the Cover? Cake love their one colour covers, and here’s the one that started them all. It looks like a collection of people you’d see at a wedding. Assuming there was a live band, that is. Is it just me or is the trumpet player overdoing it a bit? Just calm down and play hits from the eighties, buddy.

How I Came To Know It: Sheila introduced me to Cake originally around 1999/2000, and this was just us digging into their back catalogue. We’ve had this record for a long time – at least since the early oughts.

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven Cake albums which is all of them. I had saved spot #3 for “Motorcade of Generosity” but it didn’t live up to the hype so I’m dropping it down to fourth, behind “Prolonging the Magic”. Since this is my last Cake review, here is a full recap:

  1. Comfort Eagle: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1044)
  2. Fashion Nugget: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 781)
  3. Prolonging the Magic: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 101)
  4. Motorcade of Generosity: 3 stars (reviewed right here)
  5. Pressure Chief: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 431)
  6. Showroom of Compassion: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 666)
  7. B-Sides and Rarities: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 865)
Ratings: 3 stars

Nowadays Cake would just be another indie rock band but coming out in 1994, “Motorcade of Generosity” seems innovative and ahead of its time.

The signature sound of Cake is already being formed: a combination of quirky but emotionally honest lyrics, garage rock edge and funky guitar and trumpet riffs. It is a combination that I don’t recall anyone else doing back in the mid-nineties, an era where most bands trying to make it big were trying to invent some bastardized child of grunge. What’s a good verb for that? Temple piloting? Creeding?

Anyway, against this backdrop came a slick bunch of musicians with immaculate timing to drop some grooves that were equally good for dancing or sinking into the couch with your friends and complaining about the sad state of music (it is never that sad, by the way – just look harder).

I find this album uneven, with songs like “Comanche” and “Up So Close” and a few others emotionally detached and obsessed with their own cleverness, but others like “Jolene” and “Haze of Love” visceral, with just the right amount of sad. Fortunately the good outweighs the bad.

Unlike most records the true gold on “Motorcade of Generosity” comes near the end of the record. My favourite song is “Rock ‘N’ Roll Lifestyle” even though it is basically sending up people like me, who are obsessed with music and concerts. Some of these aging rockers go to such lengths as to blog about it. How very self-absorbed such people must be. Best stanza from the song:

“Now tickets to concerts and drinking at clubs,
Sometimes for music that you haven't even heard of.
And how much did you pay for your rock 'n' roll t-shirt
That proves you were there,
That you heard of them first?”

Guilty as charged – mostly. I don’t randomly go to any show, and I only get a t-shirt if I like the design but the point is made. Later the song admonishes that “excess ain’t rebellion” which with all these damn CDs in my collection rings harsh, but fair. If you didn’t want me to buy all your stuff, Cake, then you shouldn’t have made such catchy music.

I Bombed Korea” is a song about PTSD that creates a juxtaposition between a funky guitar riff and troubling lyrics like:

“Red flowers bursting down below us.
Those people didn't even know us.”

And then from a worn out soldier recalling wartime horrors, Cake switches to “Mr. Mastodon Farm” a song about our need for closure and connection. In it, a man sits watching birds falls past his window, filled with the irresistible urge to get up and look, just to make sure they are safely flying away before they hit the ground. The song is equally funky, even as it instills a lurking sense of anxiety.

These two songs are when “Motorcade of Generosity” is at its best; mixing reassuring grooves laced with discomfort and uncertainty. You can just dance around, or you can be brave and pay attention to the underlying themes.

The album mixes very sparse (dare I say cheap?) production with slick arrangements, and the bright sharp sound on later records still seems far away. This lends a rawness to the songs, but it also annoyed me because it was recorded too low, and the lack of crispness made my ear have to strain to hear individual instruments.

And while the record can feel unfinished and haphazard in places, the high points more than make up for it. In 1994 Cake’s sound was still forming, but they were already pushing boundaries, and already plenty good.


Best tracks: Jolene, Haze of Love, Rock ‘N’ Roll Lifestyle, I Bombed Korea, Mr. Mastodon Farm

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