Prolonging the Magic by Cake

Prolonging the Magic, Cake's third album, came out on Capricorn Records, and it's the first one they made without guitarist Greg Brown. The band ran a revolving door of guitar players through the sessions, and one of them, Xan McCurdy, stuck around to take the job for good. Around him, the deadpan core held steady: John McCrea on lead vocals, guitar and organ, Vincent DiFiore's trumpet and keyboards, Gabriel Nelson on bass and Todd Roper on drums.

The formula stays gloriously dry. McCrea half-talks his way through the songs while the band chugs and the trumpet pokes fun at everything. "Never There", the one single that really caught fire, rides a hook that won't quit. "Sheep Go To Heaven" is a gleeful singalong, and "You Turn the Screws" sounds pointed enough that people asked whether it was aimed at departed members Brown and Victor Damiani; the band said no, it was about power dynamics. "Satan is My Motor" earned the album a parental advisory sticker, not for cursing but for its Satanic theme, and on some unstickered copies it simply turned into "Motor". "Hem of Your Garment" later landed in the 2000 film Me, Myself & Irene.

It sold about 44,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 33 on the Billboard 200, and went platinum on 28 September 1999.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.