21. "Fashion Nugget" by Cake (1996)

If I had to come up with a term to describe this band it would be "post-modern." The reason is because, by and large, their songs tend to be sparse and scripted -- that is, there are not a lot of "jamming" and "improv" in Cake music. John McCrea's flat baritone, which he mixes in with occasional spoken word, are in stark contrast to the grunge scene which they came out of. It's like they are conveying more or less the same message and emotion as grunge, but in a totally opposite style.

McCrea has an ironic wit that is acerbic and biting (from "Frank Sinatra"):

We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations,
A faintly glimmering radio station.
While Frank Sinatra sings Stormy Weather,
The flies and spiders get along together,
Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record.

Your music may be great but sooner or later it will be old and forgotten.

I've listened to and more or less absorbed all of Cake's albums and I have to say that by far this one is the darkest. Maybe it's because it's the most direct:

To me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
End is the only part of the word
That I heard.
Call me morbid or absurd.
But to me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
To me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.

I know I just said that most of their songs feel "scripted", and they do, but "Fashion Nugget", compared to the other albums, has the most "improv" on it. Like I said, it's the most direct and emotional, so you get a couple of honest guitar solos (like the one on "Nugget") and even a jazzy trumpet solo on "Italian Leather Sofa". Cake's biggest radio hit, "The Distance", appears here, but the marquee song on this album is their cover of the 70s disco hit "I Will Survive". Something in McCrea's deadpan delivery just smacks of irony: in the same way that Gloria Gaynor was sort of heroically inspiring, McCrea takes you to that place of resolution where you know that that the sun is going to come up tomorrow no matter what kind of crap happens today. (From "Nugget":)

Now Heads of State who ride and wrangle,
Who look at your face from more than one angle,
Can cut you from their bloated budgets
Like sharpened knives through Chicken McNuggets.
...
Now nimble fingers that dance on numbers
Will eat your children and steal your thunder,
While heavy torsos that heave and hurl
Who crunch like nuts in the mouths of squirrels.

Shut the f**k.
Shut the f**k up.
Learn to buck up.
Shut the f**k.
Learn to buck up.

What you have to like about Cake is that they fuse together a lot of different styles in their music to create a common ironic message: life is tough, pardner. You can't even make a dime off of the song you wrote about it:

I'll tell all about how you cheated.
I'd like for the whole world to hear.
I'd like to get even
With you cause you're leavin'.
But sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year.

I once heard an interview on NPR with John McCrea and the interviewer got hung up on the cutesy little things in the lyrics, like it was all a joke, instead of the underlying irony in their intrinsic message. In other words, it's easy to dismiss Cake as complaining all the time. But sometimes you need that extra voice, that biting wit, delivered completely out of context, that gives you another perspective and makes you realize that all is not as it seems. This is what Cake brings to the table.

Daria, I won't be soothed over like,
Smoothed over like milk,
Silk, a bedspread, or a quilt,
Icing on a cake,
Or a serene translucent lake.
Daria, Daria, Daria,
Daria, Daria, Daria,
Daria, I won't be soothed.
I won't be soothed.

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