(Column) Rice: Just Another Girl from Casper – ‘Cake’ - Oil City News

So, some friends and I have created a group playlist on Spotify. Recently, the theme had us searching for a song from the year we were born.

Nope, not gonna give that nugget of info away, but one of the members of our group chose a song by Cake. It’s a group I really love, but I listen to so much music that they fall out of my song rotation, and I’m always really happy when they fall back into it!

Their first album, Motorcade of Generosity hit in 1994.

Lots of great guitar licks and trumpet – yeah, I said trumpet. I know, right? If someone had told me how much I’d dig trumpet in rock music I would’ve made a face like the one some of you gentle readers are probably making right now.

But here’s the thing – their music, while “rock,” also has notes (ha! See what I did there?) of hip-hop, funk, country, mariachi and more. And the clever lyrics, delivered with such sarcasm, are a delight. A couple of my fave Motorcade tunes are “Is This Love” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle.”

The year 1996 gifted us with Fashion Nugget. Same great sounds, and as good, if not even better tunes.

I mean, I’ll listen to every Cake album all the way through without skipping a track. That’s kind of a rarity for me. “The Distance,” a unique take on the disco favorite “I Will Survive” (includes the “F” word, so parents be warned; but the guitar licks and fabulous trumpet outweigh the expletive) and the old standard “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” rank among this album’s highlights.

1998’s Prolonging the Magic contains the classic “Sheep Go To Heaven,” (ok, classic to me, alright?) and in 2001, Cake’s Comfort Eagle delivered “Short Skirt, Long Jacket” – also known as the theme song to the super-fun spy show Chuck (a subject for another column, for sure).

There are currently three other Cake albums floating around this world, all with a strong mix of cool originals and surprising covers, available on Spotify.

Or, if you wanna support a GREAT downtown Casper business, stroll into Sonic Rainbow on Center Street and ask ‘em to hook you up with a good, old-fashioned CD (CDs are still a thing, as is vinyl). Plus, Sonic Rainbow’s staffed by amazing people who 100% understand and fulfill the concept of true customer service.

So can you listen to Cake and eat it too? Heck, yeah!