Porocrom’s Crappaper

For my maiden voyage of this new feature, I’m going to fulfil a promise I made almost 2 years ago and review this album:

Cake: Pressure Chief

This is Cake’s 5th album, released in 2004, and their second on the Columbia label.

Track Listing

1. Wheels

• Relative rating: 4/11
• Star rating:

“In a wooden boat in the shipping lanes with the freighters towering over me, I can hear the jets flying overhead making lines across the darkening sky.”

This song is fun. On an album that is fun to begin with, this song stands out as particularly fun. Staying out of the tradition of deep longing breakup songs, this is a song about post-relationship freedom. Definitely a good song to start a mix-tape with (or an album, I suppose).

2. No Phone (released as a single)

• Relative rating: 1/11
• Star rating:

“No phone, no phone, I just want to be alone today”
I’m not sure why the band selected this one as a single. It’s not one of the stronger tracks on the album, and there are more memorable and Cake-like songs to choose from. At any rate, this is a quirky song relating the pressures of trying to achieve some peace in a world full of home, office and cellular phones.

3. Take It All Away

• Relative rating: 6/11
• Star rating:

“You keep pushing me away, in spite of what you say, I found out yesterday…”
Musically, this song is one of the better ones on the album. It’s much more brooding and deep than some of the other songs on the album. Definitely in contention for the least fun, but it’s got a very good beat. Listen for the comparison between the end of a relationship and a car accident… I think it’s pretty effective.

4. Dime

• Relative rating: 8/11
• Star rating:

“In the brown shag carpet of a cheap motel, in the dark and dusty corner by the TV shelf is a small reminder of a simpler time when a crumpled up pair of trousers lost a brand new dime.”

I really think this should have been the single from this album. It’s up-beat, peppy, and really indicative of the band. The song runs on a great metaphor, from the point of view of a dime “I am determined not to be dented by a car by a plane or anything not yet invented.”. This song is definitely worth a listen.

5. Carbon Monoxide

• Relative rating: 3/11
• Star rating

“Too much carbon monoxide for me to bear. Where’s the air?”

Al Gore definitely should have gotten this song for the soundtrack to An Inconvenient Truth. Again, this song is fun, upbeat, but with a sort of heavier message. It is a bit on the thin side when it comes to depth of lyrics, or musical expression, making it one of the weaker songs on the album.

6. The Guitar Man (cover of song by Bread)

• Relative rating: 11/11
• Star rating:

“Who draws the crowd, who plays so loud? Baby it’s the guitar man.”

I can’t get enough of this song. I didn’t know it was a cover the first few times I heard it. It’s a very Cake-like tune, with some changes to the beat and effects that are very distinctively Cake. A great chillin’ tune, very musically strong. If there’s any track on this album to check out, this is the one.

7. Waiting

• Relative rating: 10/11
• Star rating:

“So we think that we’re important, and we think that we make sense, and we think there’s something better on the other side of this fence.”

GREAT song. Despite the simplistic sound of the opening line, this is actually one of the most lyrically interesting and engaging tracks on the album. A good driving song; pretty cheerful.

8. She’ll Hang the Baskets

• Relative rating: 2/11
• Star rating:

“She’ll hang the baskets on the walls. Don’t you know I’ve seen it all before?”

A pretty good song, sort of a commentary on domestic life… I think… I’m not sure what’s in these baskets, or what they are supposed to represent.

9. End of the Movie

• Relative Rating: 5/11
• Star rating:

“People you love will turn their backs on you. You’ll lose your hair, your teeth, your knife will fall out of its sheath, but you still don’t like to leave before the end of the movie…”

This song is one of the most easily skipped on the album, but it might be one of the most poignant. The song is an observation about how our priorities as a society might not be as straight as we think they are. It’s REALLY simple, just banjo and some synthesizer in the background, but I like it, and I think you will too.

10. Palm of Your Hand

• Relative Rating: 7/11
• Star Rating:

“When the house was standing, you’d never have believed it…”

Some people bash me for being anti-USA. I don’t hate the US, I just bemoan what it has let itself become. This song (at least in my mind) reflects that quite well. Almost a lamenting look at what was once a proud structure, this song is quite fun, but with a message.

11. Tougher than it is

• Relative Rating: 9/11
• Star Rating:

“Well there is no such thing as you, it doesn’t matter what you do. The more you try to qualify, the more it all will pass you by…”

Once again, this is a good up-beat song, with a great beat and a fairly strong tune. The chorus of this song says it all nicely: “Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is.” A good message to all of us to keep things simple.

Overall impression

All things considered, this is not one of Cake’s better albums. In fact, in my opinion it’s the worst they’ve produced. Pretty one-dimensional, with some pretty good songs, good changes, but nothing to make it stand out. Each track (with one exception) is nice to listen to, but only two of them stand out as particularly good. I give this album 2 stars.

To buy or not to buy?

If you’re a Cake fan, then you’ll want to pick up this album. If you’re new to the band, do yourself a favour and take a pass on this one for now. Neophytes should look into either Fashion Nugget or Prolonging the Magic, my two personal favourites.

A wise man once said “Treat her rough, get some muff”. When I heard this I immediately dismissed it as codswallop, but last night my skepticism was shattered by the events that transpired.

There is a bar near where I live called ‘Phil’s’. It is dark, dingy, and smells of feet and hockey equipment at the end of a day-long tournament. However, it has $1.75 drinks, so we go. I went with my buddy Nathan; my roommate and wingman extrodinaire Kevin; Virginia, my former lab partner, and her friends. It was partway into the night when I found myself beset by Kevin and Nathan shouting at me to go hit on this random girl in a pink shirt. I protested that I am not ‘that guy’, which they did their best to refute using the logical tools available to them (‘Yes you are!’).

While I was being verbally pummeled for my lack of will to bother random girls in bars, a group of ladies came up to talk to Nathan, having apparently met him some time before. To get my two harping buddies to leave me alone, I decided to undecoriously perform a suicide mission on one of the girls there so they would leave me alone. To compound the inevitable failure, I decided to be the biggest jerk I could possibly imitate. I made nothing but disparaging comments about her every statement, ridiculed her in front of her friends… I was theatrically rude.

Nothing in my many years of bar-going could prepare me for what happened next.

Far from being offended or discouraged from further conversation, this girl (who we shall call Cyndi) was intrigued by my ruthless and irreverent banter. The more I berated and disparaged her, the more interested she seemed. I’m pretty sure that if I had punched her she would have gone down on me.

I ask you people, what kind of sense does it make that being nice, courteous, complimentary and generally decent is a turn off? If I met a girl who upon meeting me immediately began talking shit, it would be SO OVER. Why should I have to pretend to be an asshole just to get the time of day and a dance?

The story doesn’t end as well as you might think: we spent a good portion of the evening grinding each other into oblivion on the dance floor, then her roomies (who were giving me some serious stink-eye) had to go home, so she left. I did get her number though… worship me for I am your god.

You may (or may not) have notived that I haven’t posted anything new in quite a while. My excuse is that I have been working two jobs and trying to have a social life somewhere in between. A great many things have fallen by the wayside. However, I am going to try to pst SOME stuff over the summer, and so it is that I proudly announce the advent of a new feature of Porocrom:

Crom-prehensive Review(e)

In these review(e)s, I am going to examine in great depth a music album of my choice. I have a fair number of CDs that are worth reviewing, at least in my opinion, which is the only one that counts to you mindless peons. This is intended to be something of a companion piece to my serial “Bands I Like”, reserved somewhat for bands that may not have a lot of stuff out there but who have a great album, or a band that has an outstanding album.

Features:

Track-by-track breakdown: I will review each song on the album with a brief blurb

Song ranking: each song will be ranked both relative to the others on the album and on an ‘absolute’ scale (star system)

Album review: a look at the album as a whole, its strengths and weaknesses

To buy or not to buy?: is it worth the sticker price?

As always, if there is an album that you’d like me to review, send me e-mail and I will see if I can give a listen. Please note that if the band is super-obscure I may not be able to get my hands on all of the tracks. Also, if the band CLEARLY sucks, I’m not even going to bother.

Anyway, expect some stuff to drop soon. Also, expect some regular Crommunist-type posting within the next couple of months.