Why is Cake’s Comfort Eagle on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Equal parts fun, good, and ironic.
What does Cake’s Comfort Eagle mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
I had a conversation with friends recently where I relayed that I am partial to bands that are able to produce funny songs while at the same time the music completely works on its own at the same time.
Comedy, whether in television, movies, books, or music, tends to get discounted in some ways in popular culture versus more “serious” entertainment content. Which is a shame. Tenacious D’s “City Hall” and Flight of the Conchord’s “Robots” should get talked about as great song songs, and not just funny songs, right?
Cake is an interesting case because many of their songs tend to be kind of ironic versus funny funny, but I still think the band gets a little bit of that “they’re not completely serious so we’re giving them a critical discount” thing, which is both unfair and uncool, says I!
Which is to say that Cake is a really good rock band with highly quirky and eclectic leanings, a band that leans into irony and wit. Huzzah! And Comfort Eagle is a good example of what they can do when operating at a high level.
The equal parts fun, good, and ironic “Short Skirt / Long Jacket” is the best song on the album. Also, horns! Not a lot of rock bands make effective use of horns these days, whether they be ironic, funny, or neither.
In terms of lyrical content, I appreciate what a hyper-specific picture that someone wearing a short skirt and a long jacket conjures. That’s good writing, my friends.
Here’s the “official video” version, which features people “on the street” reacting to hearing the song for the first time. I guess this is YouTube reaction videos before there were YouTube reaction videos. It’s kind of fun, but the song works much better on its own in my view.
I dig the driving beat, relatively modest ambitions, and fun keyboard line on “Commissioning a Symphony In C,” and can kind of weirdly be thought of as a mashup of The Cars and They Might Be Giants. Though I’m open to pushback on that point. Maybe.
“Love You Madly” is not a cover of The Doors’ classic, but rather a really strong rock-pop song with quirky flourishes and pretty self-evident lyrics.
The video, seemingly featuring members of the band competing in some kind of reality TV show cooking show competition, an Iron Chef-like thing perhaps where they are challenged to use pumpkins to cook… something. I’m not sure what that has to do with the song, but I kept thinking that the guys who would go onto form OK Go must have paid close attention to this at some point.
Some stats & info about Cake – Comfort Eagle
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock, Rock Music, Alternative Rock, Geek Rock, Pop Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 3 out of 5 stars
- When was Comfort Eagle released? 2001
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #907 out of 1,000
Cake’s Comfort Eagle on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.