Not Only Prog: Cake’s Fashion Nugget, a 1996 album.
Fashion Nugget, the second album by Cake, was a real success, thrusting the Sacramento alternative rock band, led by singer John McCrea, into the spotlight.
Unlike the grunge and post-grunge that were all the rage in the late ’90s, Cake delivered a unique, original sound: minimal, ironic and danceable, with a big jazz trumpet played by Vince DiFiore and verses sung in an almost spoken, monotone style.
The success was huge: Fashion Nugget went platinum in the United States in 1997, selling over a million copies. This took the band on a long international tour, which even brought them to Europe and Japan. However, all that success also brought stress, creating tensions within the group. Shortly after the end of the tour, the original lineup lost key members such as bassist Victor Damiani and guitarist Greg Brown.
Fashion Nugget is an album that stands out for its unique, unmistakable sound, a mix of alternative rock, funk, ska, and indie pop. Everything is marked by a minimalist approach and a sharp irony you can hear in every track. Unlike ’90s grunge, with its distorted guitars, the band opts for a clean, rhythmic, dry sound that highlights their originality.
One of the most recognizable elements is John McCrea’s “spoken” voice. The frontman doesn’t sing in the classic sense, but uses a monotone, detached, sarcastic tone. This way of singing helps create an ironic, disenchanted atmosphere that runs through the whole album.
Another key element is the use of the jazz trumpet, played by Vince DiFiore. Unusual for alternative rock, the trumpet adds color and originality, with bright riffs that recall a mariachi or jazz flavor.
And you can’t not mention the vibraslap, a small percussion instrument that produces a whipping noise, a “frrr-vibrato” that has become the band’s true sonic trademark.
The album unfolds by alternating brilliant covers with cynical, sparkling originals. Among the highest points stand out:
The hypnotic, melancholy ballad Frank Sinatra, which opens the record with a pulsing bass and lyrics that reflect on isolation and modernity through the image of air travel.
Italian Leather Sofa, a funky, driving track that pokes fun at the materialism of the American bourgeoisie, embellished by an irresistible trumpet solo.
The minimalist rock-pop cover of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, the famous Cuban bolero Quizás, Quizás, Quizás, made even more well-known thanks to its inclusion in the soundtrack of the TV series Cougar Town.
The Distance, written by then-guitarist Greg Brown, a perfect clockwork musical machine, with powerful lyrics describing a race-car driver who keeps racing alone into the night, long after the end of the race and after the crowd has already gone home—a metaphor for the obsessive pursuit of success, for loneliness, and for the inability to stop even when you’ve already lost (or won) everything. A track that combines a super-heavy, hypnotic funk bassline with an almost hip-hop vocal. The verse builds in intensity until it bursts into a driving rock chorus, punctuated by the trumpet’s interjections—the perfect manifesto of what Cake were: minimal, rhythmic, ironic, and damn catchy.
But Cake’s version of “I Will Survive” is, in my opinion, the true masterpiece of the record, a reinterpretation that goes far beyond a simple cover. It’s not just a reworking of Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 disco track, but a full deconstruction and stylistic rewrite—one of the most transformative, irreverent, and successful covers of the ’90s.
Cake completely strip away the four-on-the-floor kick, the majestic strings, and the orchestral epicness typical of disco music. In their place, they build a rough, minimalist alternative-funk arrangement, driven by a visceral bassline and almost dirty electric guitars, with a post-grunge edge.
While the original opens with a dramatic piano glissando, Cake’s version starts with a deliberately bare, subdued electric-guitar arpeggio, as if to defuse the mood right away.
In the middle section, the emotional tension doesn’t explode into vocal high notes, but is entrusted to a gritty electric-guitar solo, played by Greg Brown, followed by the trademark stabs of Vince DiFiore’s trumpet and the inevitable use of the vibraslap, which adds a touch of originality and madness.
John McCrea sings the entire piece in his monotone, detached, almost spoken style, which removes Gaynor’s initial vulnerability and turns the song into a manifesto of cold, cynical resentment. McCrea told Billboard that his performance wasn’t meant to be ironic or mocking, but that it reflected a sincere hardness and disillusionment—an interpretation that certainly left its mark.
The track shifts from an anthem of female empowerment to a male perspective. McCrea sings the same words, but the meaning changes radically: men go through breakups too, and women can be just as ruthless in relationships.
The most famous detail of the track is the change of a single word in the lyrics: Cake alter the original line “I should have changed that stupid lock” into the much more explicit “I should have changed my fucking lock”. This addition not only earned the album a Parental Advisory sticker in the United States, but above all deeply irritated Gloria Gaynor. The queen of disco publicly stated on more than one occasion that Cake’s was, by far, her least favorite cover of the song, precisely because of the gratuitous swearing. A detail that shows just how much this cover managed to stir things up and leave an indelible mark in music history.
In hard moments, I listen to this track and it hits me like a powerful anthem of rebirth, giving me chills every time. And every time it works.
My Version
Label: Upbeat Records (2) – 19439966461, Sony Music – 19439966461
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo, 180g
Country: Europe
Released: 8 Jul 2022
Tracklist
1. Frank Sinatra – 4:01
2. The Distance – 3:00 (The most successful single)
3. Friend Is a Four Letter Word – 3:22
4. Open Book – 3:44
5. Daria – 3:44
6. Race Car Ya-Yas – 1:21
7. I Will Survive – 5:10 (Gloria Gaynor cover)
8. Stickshifts and Safetybelts – 2:09
9. Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps – 2:24 (Osvaldo Farrés cover)
10. It's Coming Down – 3:44
11. Nugget – 3:58
12. She'll Come Back to Me – 2:24
13. Italian Leather Sofa – 5:52
14. Sad Songs and Waltzes – 3:15 (Willie Nelson cover)
Lineup
John McCrea – Vocals and acoustic guitar
Greg Brown – Electric guitar
Vince DiFiore – Trumpet
Victor Damiani – Bass
Todd Roper – Drums
