Lisa Loeb - Cake and Pie

And you say... She was just a one-hit wonder. She whined so all the time... So? She's still singing, that canary that is Lisa Loeb; Her newest release, Cake and Pie, is a cheerfully inoffensive miasma of heartache, sing-a-long, and finger-picked tuneage that is sincere and bittersweet. Well put-together like a teenager going out on her first date, it's a very pink-toned album, with swirly and warm guitars, wispy background voices, and Lisa's delicate yet one-octave voice. The album reeks of familiarity, yet it's more like a comforting familiarity than anything else. The lyrics are easy to understand, and the emotions behind them are equally easy to get, underscored by a rasp here or a nice bass line there. Every song could potentially be a hit, could potentially be a soundtrack staple, as they're all likeable and effortless to listen to. So what's wrong with our cat-eyed heroine of "Reality Bites"? Not a thing has changed, really, since her last efforts. It's all too easy, like a paint-by-numbers kit, where your mind doesn't get any room to explore the songs, because she makes sure that her neurosis is just that, hers. It's too sweet to properly trash, as "Drops Me Down" is too quickly catchy, "Everyday" is too easily singable, and "Kick Start" is too nicely put; good at the hook, she is. "Payback" has a surprising malice that someone who names their album after sugary confections might just have the irony to spare, and "You Don't Know Me" is Bob Seager's quiet, book-smart daughter's story. In essence, the album is something you'd actually hold onto, because you might be in the mood to be told what to think about things someday... Things that you'd already overhashed anyway, so it's so much easier to have someone with Lisa's lip-gloss voice sing about them. Or maybe not. "She's Falling Apart" is the only ominious song, the only song that might have taken some courage to write, as it's a chronicle of anorexia, and it's steady pace hints at more autobiography than Miss L might want to reference. So if you get in the mood for a chorus that goes "Lalalalala...Lalalalala..." then this album is, with all its ABAB, CDCD rhyme scheme, for you. [www.lisaloeb.com]