Album A Day: Cake – Fashion Nugget

Artist: Cake
Album: Fashion Nugget
Release Date: September 17, 1996

This one comes as a request from good friend Ray.

In the nicest possible way, Cake are freakin’ weird. I mean, for the most part the singtalky vocals are a bit unnatural at first, but they cruise their way into acceptance after a little bit. But the mixture of that, the unconventional arrangements the hover somewhere in the grey area between alternative rock and ska and rap, and the songs about the most unusual subjects and the musings on said subjects are goofy and just a little difficuly to grasp. Not that Cake are a bad band, they’re just…different. Seriously, not supposed to be a bad thing. I’d probably have an easier time with Fashion Nugget if it fell clearly on the side of either being a full-blown just for fun novelty album or a serious alternative rock record. That distinction never really hasn’t, and from my observations, has never really happened at any point in their career. So as a brief foray into something out of the ordinary, Fashion Nugget is just fine, but for any substantial enjoyment, it’s little more than a shrug.

Cake – The Distance [iTunes] (YSI)

==TJ==