78. The Cool Kids, The Bake Sale
Chocolate Industries
Released May 20, 2008
The Bake Sale was the closing of a first chapter in the Cool Kids’ career. Most of its tracks had already circulated around the Internet, catapulting the Cool Kids — Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish — into notoriety. Songs such as “One, Two,†where Mikey Rocks percussively looped a girl lolling “da da da da,†were modest, minimalist wonders. Even if Mikey Rocks mostly borrowed bass styles from other regions for his Chicago coolness – the booty bass codes of deep South towns like Miami and Atlanta and the pre-rugged noise of mid-80s golden age New York – he mixes his influences into a uniquely middle-class vision: the freewheeling hipster consumerism of “Gold and a Pager†and “A Little Bit Cooler.†Aspiring to old-school glory, the Cool Kids couldn’t muster the fly rhymes that typified those old-school classics. Instead, they produced a new kind of classic with The Bake Sale, one both informed and unencumbered by the past.