Cupcakes: Cupcakes

Despite the occasional pocket of punk-rock resistance, the Midwest's most lasting gift to modern music may have been ultra-polished anthemic AOR. Or should that be AOR buyers Artists from Peter Frampton to Journey to Boston did big business in Middle America, and from the crafty Cheap Trick to the reviled suburban rock of Survivor, Styx, and REO Speedwagon, the '70s and early '80s were virtually synonymous with massive guitar and vocal overdubs, at least as far as the radio was concerned. No matter how much bands like The Smashing Pumpkins or Local H might try to align themselves with alternative rock, it's pretty obvious where their allegiances lie. Cupcakes is rock with a capitol "Q," and that stands for Queen, right down to the fey appellation. Granted, Queen was about as far from the Midwest as possible, but the band's bombast fit right in with wayward parking-lot teens. Cupcakes singer Preston Graves owes a thing or two to Freddie Mercury, not to mention Robin Zander, but something about the band sounds like he's letting on far less than he knows. "Turning art into commerce is so perverse, but you do it anyway," he sings on the honest-to-goodness power ballad "Space Age Boy." Graves yelps with the confidence of dollar signs, but despite Stephen Street's slick production and all the chunky power chords, Cupcakes may not be above a little ironic distance. The ingratiating "Vidiots" maligns the current state of violent-game-obsessed youth culture, and "Future Girls Future Boys" is a Columbine-inspired castigation of high-school culture. But isn't this the very demographic Cupcakes arguably needs to court to make it big Like Cheap Trick, the band seems to stake its claim in the unfashionable geek corner, addressing itself to the awkward adolescent masses behind a pulpit of populist riffs. It's a tried-and-true formula, but only time will tell whether it works: Irony doesn't translate too well to the airwaves, and as far as sales are concerned, "clever" is synonymous with "novelty." Cupcakes may go over well in the big city, but how will it play in Peoria