Officially crossing the line from MySpace rappers to legit recording artists, The Cool Kids bring The Bake Sale, their first big commercial release. While the collection is being called an EP, the ten tracks here are a pretty full offering. If you like one song, you’ll probably like them all, so especially for an EP, Bake Sale is a better value than most full albums these days. Standouts include the high-tempo “What It Is” and the hard-hitting “Mickey Rocks,” built entirely out of bass and swagger. The duo prefers to rap about BMX bikes instead of Phantoms, but they’re just as cocky as Fabolous or Jim Jones. The only real difference is that they don’t add any fantasy tales of guns and drug dealing to make them seem more “street.” There is a little bit of bad news for bigger Cool Kids fans; most of these tracks were already released on last year’s free Totally Flossed Out EP with only minor differences. On the other hand, the few good little boys and girls left that who are still paying for their music are already used to spending money on an album that they’d already heard for free – the double dip isn’t really a high-crime in 2008.Everyone likes to talk about taking it back to the old school, but these two are actually doing it. Dismiss them as hipster trash if you want to, but The Cool Kids won’t care and neither will anyone else who actually listens to The Bake Sale.
