Baby That’s Me. Cake. 1967. Decca.

The great, impassioned project of girl group pop romanticism was the reduction in scope of of the extraordinary body of work from the preceding generation, the big band/swing era, whose typically elevated forms of expression brought us an aristocracy of twentieth century American pop. It was a time of serious economic and social deprivation, when work was considered such an essential tool of survival that, conversely, self consideration and -contemplation were often thought of as unaffordable luxuries. The music reflected this line of thinking; it evokes luxury and glamor, creating a fantasy of over abundance and wealth that still persists today, albeit to a hip-hop soundtrack. World War II, however, shrank the globe, and when the men who fought it returned to the States, the music they came home to was tense with the gradually decreasing gap between rural and urban experience. New York City’s The Cake, along with famed LA production duo Charlie Greene and Brian Stone, conjure the spirit of the Ronettes, and elucidate the riddle of female desire and its covetous properties within the context of masculine adoration. Baby That’s Me is sung from the perspective of a young woman who, like Dorothy Gale, experiences the absence of value more than the worth of what she already possesses. This is the exemplary state of conditions in which capitalist markets thrive. Post-war economic and population booms in the States had created a robust middle class, and the ensuing, commensurate inflammation of the spending public’s sensual appetites began transforming the national landscape. Teenaged consumers were quickly becoming an integral component of this resurgence, and the slogan “Rock and roll is here to stay” began acquiring mythic status. The slogan eventually proved specious, of course, but for the period of time during which you could enjoyably take the presence of rock and roll among us for granted, it was still possible to occasionally know glory. From the 2005 Rhino CD box set One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost And Found 



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