Cake is not my favorite band. I don't consider them to be the most talented group of musicians I enjoy (though, they are very talented), they don't always write the best songs, and while their live show is good-to-great, they are not transcendent. Despite all of this, Cake might be the greatest band currently making music. You probably disagree with this statement, but let me try and explain.
When you, as a random individual, think about what band you consider to be the greatest, you apply your own, personal set of standards and see how everything stacks up. These guidelines probably include some combination of the previously mentioned aspects of a band, and maybe a few others. And while I stand by my assessment of how Cake fits into those criteria, there is another way to look at it.
When a band achieves some level of fame, expectations are put on them. Some groups handle it and go on doing what they were doing, some crack under those expectations, and others deal with it by going in a completely different direction. Whatever they do, and no matter how good it is and how many new fans it gets them, these bands will lose some of the older fans, and those fans will say one of two things; "They sound exactly the same", which is another way of saying that they are now bored by this band, or "They changed their sound", which is another way of saying that they themselves are boring.
Cake has somehow avoided this almost entirely.
With Showroom of Compassion, Cake has made yet another album (this is their sixth full-album of new material) that is clearly the alt-country, funk, spoken-word form that only they can achieve, while still managing to sound like it's own unique album. It's not my favorite Cake album (I still have to give the nod Motorcade of Generosity), and I worry that some of the more "occupy"-themed songs will age in a less than flattering way. That being said, even without the time-stamp of the topic, Showroom, like all of Cake's albums, is full of songs that wouldn't fit on another Cake album.
Federal Funding and Easy to Crash are two of the more aggressively-sleazy toned songs I've ever heard from the McCrea and Co. (and are also the songs I'm worried about becoming dated, which would be a shame). The circular riff and vocal melody on Got to Move are enjoyable enough that they could go on for hours. I don't listen to much straight-forward country, but I would if more bands wrote songs like Bound Away. The album is filled with solid songs and few weak spots, but The Winter might be the best track on the whole album. An electronic-filled cold walk through the memory of a lost relationship, the song would be just as good stripped down to a simple acoustic-driven ballad.
I'm sure there are Cake fans who are disappointed with the album (and some who think it is their best), and time will tell how much I'll listen to it compared to their other albums. Regardless, it's a great record on it's own, and it comes after two decades of never letting us down. What's greater than that?
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