BARENAKED LADIES: MAROON (2000)
1) Too Little Too Late; 2) Never
Do Anything; 3) Pinch Me; 4) Go Home; 5) Falling For The First Time; 6) Conventioneers;
7) Sell, Sell, Sell; 8) Humor Of The Situation; 9) Baby Seat; 10) Off The Hook;
11) Helicopters; 12) Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel.
Maroon is like A
Day At The Races to Stunt's A Night At The Opera: a twin companion
that makes a point of not offering
anything radically new, but is simply there so that the previous record would
not feel too lonely — and there have been no countries so far that made it a
capital crime to milk the same formula twice, especially since, every now and
then, second time around the results may be even stronger (experience and all).
In this particular case, I would not say that Maroon «improves» on Stunt — the two are so similar in
style and so consistent in content that it is a matter of some very fine
distinctions in taste. The important thing is that the band has lost none of
the sharpness and none of the inspiration; also, the proceedings may have been
influenced by keyboard player Kevin Hearn's recuperation from leukemia, as this
is altogether arguably the merriest,
most uplifting record by these guys ever since Gordon established them as the trendiest college clowns on the
block. Except that Maroon has no «joke»
songs on it whatsoever: «uplifting» does not equal «hilarious».
There is
one big unresolved problem that is getting bigger and bigger: as per «the world
according to the Barenaked Ladies» at this moment, it (the world) revolves
almost entirely and exclusively around the issue of broken relationships and
how to fix them. Now this is, most
definitively, one of the most important problems for the average college
student stumbling through life and learning to learn on his / her mistakes — and
is therefore guaranteed to provide fame and admiration to whoever tackles it
with intelligence and originality, as the Ladies do. But still, the amount of «he
vs. she»-themed songs, already huge on Stunt,
begins to feel irritating. With a couple of exceptions that aim at more global
themes (ʽSell, Sell, Sellʼ — no need to comment; the anti-war lament of
ʽHelicoptersʼ), Maroon is all about Mr.
Page on the couch and Dr. Robertson in the armchair, or vice versa, and this
gives a fairly monotonous coating to all of the songs, no matter how many
different tempos, tonalities, styles, or tributes they are based on.
Technically, most of the songs are fine,
concentrating once more on the aesthetics of classic power pop, but also with some
«alt-rock» elements thrown in every now and then (the jiggly, syncopated
ʽNever Do Anythingʼ could just as easily be done by the likes of Avril Lavigne,
even if her version probably could not have contained lines like "let's
play tic tac toe, I'll play X, you can be the O"). Those who love the
Ladies primarily for their ability to merge old-style electric pop riffs with
contemporary sentiments will particularly enjoy ʽToo Little Too Lateʼ with its
swirling merry-go-round pattern; ʽGo Homeʼ, reminiscent of the «dance-folk»
vibe espoused by some of the Nuggets-era
bands; ʽHumor Of The Situationʼ, where the band plays at top volume, aiming for
a musical explosion (which, unfortunately, never really comes, due to the innate
limitations of their skills as vocalists and arrangers); and the catchy, but
somewhat lumbering ʽBaby Seatʼ.
For some reason, none of these songs were
chosen for the honor of lead single — the honor went to ʽPinch Meʼ, maybe
because they thought it had a more contemporary sound, with the drum loop, a
rap in the chorus, and harmonies that suspiciously sound as if they were
influenced by boy bands. Similarity with ʽOne Weekʼ is rather glaring, and if
the song was deliberately written as a commercial follow-up, this explains
where it fundamentally fails where its predecessor fundamentally succeeded — through
happy songwriter accident.
However, I am not going to pretend that Maroon is not a great album simply
because it makes such serious concessions to trends and fads. The Barenaked
Ladies are much too well aware of their own strengths and weaknesses to
understand that «selling out» would be the death of them, anyway — who would
they be going to compete with, the Backstreet Boys? Maroon is a very good, but not a great album not because there are
too few songs here like ʽToo Little Too Lateʼ, but because there are too many of them: well-done and
well-meaning, but not quite hitting
the spot, if you know what I mean. Probably just because the music, the lyrics,
and the vocals do not find the perfect way to gel — as «shallow» as it is, one ʽI
Should Have Known Betterʼ is still worth an entire Maroon to me.
But let me tell you where it does gel a bit. It does gel when, on
ʽHelicoptersʼ, they go for a grander subject and strengthen the effects with a
simple, but powerful theme (doubled on violin and something else, I think). And,
amazingly, it does gel at the very end — there is a hidden track here called
ʽHidden Sunʼ, written and sung by the miraculously cured Kevin Hearn, and it is
a gorgeously atmospheric dream-pop piano ballad that I will take over anything
else on this album, since there is nothing about its sweet sentimentality that
rubs me the wrong way, and even Hearn's shaky, unassured vocal is more credible
than Page's.
That said, we must not forget about the mind,
either, and on a purely rational basis, Maroon
deserves its rightful thumbs up — the lyrics are hard to assail, as are
the band's musical tastes and creative decisions. And, for that matter,
ʽTonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheelʼ is probably the silliest send-up
of those country sounds since the days of the Stones' ʽDear Doctorʼ and ʽFar
Away Eyesʼ, and a fine enough conclusion to the main (unhidden) body of the
album to wrestle out a positive decision at the end of the day. Anyway, it's
all really a matter of owning the key to this particular aesthetics — I seem to
have lost mine somewhere along the way, or maybe I never had one in the first
place, but you, the reader, are always
welcome to try. (But it does seriously help if you're 19 years old and
enrolled in Berkeley or something).
Check "Maroon" (MP3) on Amazon
Their best post-Gordon album IMO (though that's definitely not a consensus, I've seen just as many folks reward that title to Everything To Everyone, Stunt, or even Snacktime as I have Maroon). Its highs reach just as high as those on Stunt and it's one of the very few BNL albums without a single dud in sight. We just get great song after great song. The first half of the album especially feels like that because it's almost completely upbeat. Pitch Me has mellow moments but for the most part it's power-pop nirvana until you hit Conventioneers. Though I do acknowledge that this approach does result in one of BNL's least diverse albums, and some of it could sound a little samey to some people.
ReplyDeletePinch Me may be a sequel to One Week but it is a very successful one, tweaking the formula of pop-song-with-silly-rapping-in-it plenty to serve quite a very different purpose than One Week. One Week could easily qualify in the novelty category, whereas Pinch Me is more serious and actually about something more significant than pop-culture references. It's also given far more time to develop and flesh itself out. What it lacks in the pure joy of spontaneity, it gains in rock-solid songwriting and arranging.
Maroon still has pretty fun lyrics through and through, but very little here qualifies as being overly silly or jokey, it's the perfect balance really. And the more serious songs like Conventioneers and Helicopters come off quite well.
Kevin Hearn's first contribution to the band might also be his very best. A lot of what was so great about When You Dream applies to it as well, but Kevin's humble vocal and pure honestly (he wrote it on his might-have-been deathbed) elevate it even higher to me. It also functions tremendously as the coda to the album. Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel is the surreal moment near death when you can't believe what is happening to you, but gradually start to make sense of it and you mind is racing a mile a minute. Hidden Sun is finally coming to peace with the circumstances and gracefully floating towards the light. A tremendous pairing.
Baby Seat isn't among their greatest collaborations ever but it's a solid sendoff for the Duffy/Page songwriting duo which wouldn't be returning for another BNL album (though it would continue to bear fruit on Page's two solo albums).
Sell Sell Sell is a delightful showbiz sendup. Go Home may or may not have the hookiest melody on the record, but it's definitely the bounciest. Humour Of The Situation was once my favourite track. It's not anymore but there's something to be said for being the most upbeat track on an already very upbeat album.
So yeah, I like this album a lot. Very consistent songwriting, and also by far their biggest success at being a serious rock band. I will cop to a little extra nostalgia here since the band's tour for this album was the first big rock concert I ever saw and I still remember having a great time at the show today.