CD Review

LISA LOEB
Cake and Pie
(Elektra)

Look up "white music" in the dictionary, and you’ll find a picture of Lisa Loeb. It’s not merely a matter of race—it’s a matter of soul. And Cake and Pie, the third album from her, is full of songs that are so inoffensive and pleasant that they’re almost soulless.

Hey, this isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes you really don’t want the gourmet hand-made hazelnut ice cream; you just want vanilla. And Lisa Loeb makes some of the best vanilla music around.

Her pleasantly bland voice is the perfect vehicle for the sweet, nondescript songs that populate this CD—12 pieces of amiable ear candy with just enough charm and quirkiness to make them endearing. Tracks like "Everyday" and "Bring Me Up" sound so generic as to be almost interchangeable, but before the end of the song, the hypnotic power of Lisa’s simple guitars and clear vocals will have drawn you in. There isn’t much going on, though the strings on "Underdog," "Someone You Should Know" and "The Way It Really Is" lend a surprising depth to Loeb’s less-than-profound reflections on love.

There’s a lot more experimentation going on in the latter half of the album, from the retro feel of "You Don’t Know Me" to the attempt at blues rock on "Payback." Loeb even tries her hand at shifting to higher gear on the aptly titled "Too Fast Driving," a track that takes her to the borders of alt-rock. But what does it say of her strengths that this part of the album also yields more ho-hummers than the safer first half?

What it says is that Lisa Loeb’s talent lies in simplicity. Nothing drives this point home more than the spare "Kick Start," which is dressed up in nothing more than a lone acoustic guitar. The lyrics are also at their leanest here, but in the midst of all this ingenuousness, Lisa manages to put across a strong, clear, touching point: If we’re really going, let’s go. (This track reminds me of the poignant "I Wish," off the soundtrack for the Natalie Portman movie Anything But Here—which is not included in this album, unfortunately, though the lesser "We Could Still Belong Together" from Legally Blonde is.)

Cake and Pie—the title, with its built-in emphasis, means that one could not only have their cake and eat it, too, but have pie as well. That’s what Lisa says, anyway, but after listening to the album, it’s easier to think of the sugary guilty pleasures that lie within.—Kristine Fonacier of Pulp Magazine