''Cake Pop 2'' is the debut studio album by American band

Cake Pop A cake pop is a form of cake styled as a lollipop. Cake crumbs are mixed with icing or chocolate, and formed into small spheres or cubes in the same way as cake balls, before being given a coating of icing, chocolate or other decorations and ...

, consisting of

Dylan Brady Dylan Marshall Brady (born November 27, 1993) is an American music producer and singer-songwriter best known for being one half of experimental electronic music duo 100 Gecs, alongside Laura Les. He also owns and operates his own record label, ...

, Ravenna Golden, Cali Cartier, Lewis Grant, Kevin Bedford, Pritty, Adam Newcomer, and Robel Ketema. The album is the sequel to their 2015 self-titled EP, and was released on April 30, 2021, by

Mad Decent Mad Decent is an American record label founded by Diplo. The label has helped introduce Brazilian baile funk and Angolan kuduro to clubs around the world. Recently, it has popularized moombahton, a genre of electronic dance music created by D ...

. It was promoted by the singles "Black Rum" and "Satin Bedsheets".

Composition

''Cake Pop 2'' is a

hyperpop Hyperpop is a loosely-defined music movement and microgenre that predominantly originated in the United Kingdom during the early-to-mid 2010s. It is characterized by a maximalist or exaggerated take on popular music, and artists within the genr ...

experimental pop Experimental pop is pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries or which attempts to push elements of existing popular forms into new areas. It may incorporate experimental techniques such as musique concrète, a ...

happy hardcore Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or " hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990 ...

, and alt-rap album with elements of dancehall,

trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...

, and

EDM EDM or E-DM may refer to: Music * Electronic dance music * Early Day Miners, American band Science and technology * Electric dipole moment * Electrical discharge machining * Electronic distance measurement *Entry, Descent, and landing demonstrat ...

Critical reception

Sophie Walker, writing for ''The Forty-Five'' called the album "fun" but lacking creativity, saying " If Cake Pop only wanted to push the envelope just that little bit further to find new, uncharted territory in an increasingly rigid hyperpop universe – and to have fun doing it – then ''Cake Pop 2'' truly is a thing of great, rowdy, ridiculous beauty." Joshua Bote of ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...

'' called the album "a lively introduction to Cake Pop and its members, but as the sounds of Brady’s busy schedule leak in, there’s a sense that we’ve heard most of it before. Though the production flexes to fit the eccentricities of each song, the tailoring could have been closer."

Track listing

References

{{reflist 2021 debut albums Mad Decent albums Albums produced by Dylan Brady Hyperpop albums Experimental pop albums Alternative hip hop albums by American artists Experimental music albums by American artists Pop albums by American artists