Cake – B-Sides and Rarities Review

Full disclosure: similar to some other reviews I’ve written, I recently received a copy of Cake’s B-Sides and Rarities from Special Ops Media in return for writing a review.

Here is the press release:

This limited edition configuration features special “Scratch and Sniff” album art, plus an exclusive War Pigs live bonus track with special guest Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips. You will not find these songs on any other CAKE studio album.

Full track list:

    Cake B-Sides and Rarities

  1. War Pigs
  2. Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town
  3. Mahna Mahna
  4. Excuse Me, I Think I’ve Got A Heartache
  5. Conroy
  6. Strangers in the Night
  7. Subtract One Love (Multiply the Heartaches)
  8. Never, Never Gonna Give You Up
  9. Thrills
  10. Short Skirt, Long Jacket
  11. It’s Coming Down

If you visit the official page, you can listen to samples of all of the tracks as well as download the full MP3 of War Pigs.

I really enjoyed the compilation. In particular, Cake’s cover of Mahna, Mahna was a lot of fun and their cover of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs was surprisingly good. One small gripe, though: did they really need to include Short Skirt, Long Jacket? I know that it’s one of their most recognizable tunes, but I think that Cake fans, their main audience for such a compilation, would prefer an unreleased track or at least a different mix of a released track instead of an album cut. That aside, the rest of the compilation will definitely satisfy Cake fans as well as act as a nice sampler for people unfamiliar with their work.

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