Influences and Musical Style
Cake incorporates a wide range of genres into its music, including country music, Mariachi, rock, funk, Iranian folk music and hip-hop. McCrea himself cites Hank Williams, Tom Zé, the Golden Gate Quartet and Sly and the Family Stone as particular influences. The band is most often noted for three things: the prominence of DiFiore's trumpet lines, McCrea's ironic, sarcastic lyrics, and his "droll, deadpan ... monotone" vocals. DiFiore's trumpet work originated with McCrea's desire for a second melodic instrument to go with a song he had written; "A lead guitar playing those lines would have been really hokey. I like it when it's a contrapuntal thing, where the guitar is doing one melody, the vocal is doing another melody, and the trumpet plays this third melody. If the music can be transparent enough, you can hear all three at the same time".
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“Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the calibre of a bullet, teething beads.... One’s style holds one, thankfully, at bay from the enemies of it but not from the stupid crucifixions by those who must willfully misunderstand it.”
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