Last Day on Earth (1994)

At the start of this art-rock song cycle, a voice plaintively asks: ''Can you show me the way out of here?'' Seems we're in a desolate landscape after the ''end of the world,'' which we soon learn is a metaphor for our troubled lives. It quickly becomes just as apparent that the album, Last Day on Earthchokes on its all-too-obvious (but well-meaning) irony. Luckily, Cale (who started out with the Velvet Underground) and Neuwirth (an unknown-to-the-public songwriter every musician reveres) bathe their parables in oddly appealing music. You can listen to their record, but you don't have to care what it says.