Michaelangelo Matos is the author of Sign 'O' the Times (Continuum, 2004), part of the 33 1/3 book series, and writes columns for The Stranger, Cowbell, and Flavorwire. He lives in Brooklyn.

Behind the mugging of Cake Boss, the mumbling on Ace of Cakes, and the hysterics of Top Chef: Just Desserts, is the dirty secret that cake TV is impossibly, definitionally boring.

Prince will release his new album via a U.K. newspaper insert Saturday, having declared the Web “over.” Sour grapes have led the once-visionary musician to become embittered.