Cage The Elephant – Cage The Elephant

“What works in polite society doesn’t necessarily apply to rock and roll success,” Robert Fulgham wrote All I Really Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. But such education only applies to the rock lifestyle if said lessons learned include strutting your stuff like a street walking peacock, summarizing the (fool’s) golden rule with the singular word “mine,” and sugar OD’ing on Capri Sun over and over.

With that said, rock stardom is not child’s play; it’s merely practiced by overgrown children. After all, where else can drug addiction and rehab be equal virtues? And how else can ugly mugs attract super models? Lastly, how do you even explain anyone wanting to look like Keith Richards?

Unfortunately, many of rock’s best bad examples are also its worst possible practitioners. Without a doubt, nobody has a death wish greater than the members of Mötley Crüe, yet few are even minutely jealous of their recorded catalogue. Most would kill to be a member of Guns ‘N’ Roses, but who has the patience to put up with Axl? In other words, a great minority ever amount to Lou Reed, who, bless his heart, nearly died for his art. But he – unlike, say, Mötley Crüe – also created art worth dying for.

Cage The Elephant is the obvious elephant in the room; the one that lives up to rock’s low ideals, yet also effortlessly creates high art. Upon first listen, this act sounds like a British import. Vocals are the booger ‘n juice snottiest since Liam Gallagher. Instead of ripping off the Beatles, as Oasis has made a career of, however, Cage The Elephant borrows (steals?) from The Rolling Stones. There’s much more of a soulful groove vibe running through this self-titled disc, instead of any Liverpool-ian anglophile cleanliness.

Surprise, surprise! Cage The Elephant is from Bowling Green, KY. What? Really? Then why is it so finger lickin’ good? And how come the guitar line to “Judas” sound so much like Johnny Marr? They sound so English, in fact, one wonders if this is pre-Revolutionary War music – back when the North American land mass was broken up into miserable colonies. But alas, rock did not exist then. This country hadn’t tortured its slaves enough for them to create gospel, jazz, blues, and eventually rock yet. Don’t forget: tragedy plus time equals rock ‘n’ roll. (Apologies to Woody Allen)

Furthermore, this music is not merely style over substance. Tracks, like the one-two punch of “In One Ear” and “James Brown,” are wordy and smart, and sung like a literate, poetic meth-head. These boys are precociously cynical before their time. They’ve already seen it all before actually witnessing anything. They know that we live in a crap world, presumably in a crap universe, so they don’t need time-consuming first-hand experience to solidify their anti-social attitudes.

Cage The Elephant is what The Hives would sound like, if they were serious. They’re what The Vines would sound like, if they had a sense of humor. They’re what The White Stripes might be like if all band members played equally well. So at the risk of preaching like a false prophet, Cage The Elephant is the world’s next great rock and roll band. You can have your pretentious The Killers. Go ahead, take ‘em. You can keep your Coldplay, unless you smash their girly piano first, and then we’ll talk. And as much as I respect U2, I don’t quite like the idea of my grandparents being the toothless spokespersons for my generation. If you want to hear the call of the fiercely wild, lend a careful ear to Cage The Elephant.

Tagged as: Bowling Green, Kentucky, Rock

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