Songoftheday 7/21/20 - Reluctantly crouched at the starting line, engines pumping and thumping in time...
from the album Fashion Nugget (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #35 (one week)
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 3
Today's song of the day comes from the alternative rock band Cake, who got their start in Los Angeles in the early 1990s led by singer/multi-instrumentalist John McCrea, Recruiting guitarist Greg Brown, drummer Frank French, bass player Gabe Nelson, and trumpeter Vince DiFiore, the band released their debut album, Motorcade Of Generosity, independently in 1994. The record did very well locally, and allowed them to be signed to the slightly bigger and southern rock intensive Capricorn Records (once home to the Allman Brothers), which led to the departure of Nelson and French on the re-release of the debut, even though they landed their first radio hit in 1995 with "Rock N' Roll Lifestyle", which peaked at #31 at the Alternative format (apparently, the "lifestyle" is what drove the pair away). Replaced by Victor Damiani and Todd Roper, Cake released their sophomore effort, Fashion Nugget, in 1996. The lead single from the set would be "The Distance", another deadpan slacker-funk rock anthem written by Brown. This time out, rock radio would be all in, with mainstream stations following suit...
Since "The Distance" wasn't released as a physical single, it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the song got enough mainstream radio love to make it to the top-40 on the airplay component of that list. Without that burden, "The Distance" went all the way to #4 on Billboard's Alternative Rock radio chart, and crossed over to their Mainstream Rock format list at #38. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in Australia (#21) and the UK (#22). For the follow-up single, the band released an angsty rock cover of Gloria Gaynor's disco classic "I Will Survive". Their take went to #28 at Alternative Rock in the States, while becoming a second top-40 hit in Australia at #27 and in the UK at #29, while also reaching the level in New Zealand (#27) and France (#37). The Fashion Nugget album reached the top-40 on the Billboard 200 sales chart at #36, while climbing to #9 in Australia.
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Here's the band performing the song on Conan O'Brien in 1996...
next up, in concert in California in 1999...
and lastly, a show from 2004...
Up tomorrow: This female rapper doesn't have it for you.
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