Barenaked Ladies: Ladies And Gentlemen

BARENAKED LADIES (AND THE PERSUASIONS): LADIES AND GENTLEMEN (2017)

1) Narrow Streets; 2) Gonna Walk; 3) Don't Shuffle Me Back; 4) The Old Apartment; 5) Keepin' It Real; 6) For You; 7) Some Fantastic; 8) Good Times; 9) Odds Are; 10) Sound Of Your Voice; 11) When I Fall; 12) Maybe Katie; 13) One Week; 14) Four Seconds; 15) I Can Sing.

Yes, well, okay, this is Barenaked Ladies using the pretext of performing with the veteran vocal band The Persuasions to re-record a chunk of their back catalog — or, perhaps, Barenaked Ladies using the pretext of re-recording a chunk of their back catalog to perform with The Persuasions. Hell if I know, hell if anybody knows. Why The Persuasions? Well, apparently a chance meeting with Kevin Hearn led them to appear at a Barenaked Ladies show in 2016, and supposedly there's been chemistry and all that, and now we have a lengthy, triumphant title: Ladies And Gentle­men: Barenaked Ladies And The Persuasions. And we are supposed to give a damn.

To be honest, I never heard The Persuasions before — as a strictly a cappella band, they never had much chart success, despite being put on the map by no less than Frank Zappa himself back in 1968 (come to think of it, maybe that is why they never had much chart success), and, as far as I can tell, their only more or less remembered minor hit was 1972's ʽGood Timesʼ, which happens to be the only Persuasions song covered here, with an entirely new rapped bridge creeping in mid­way through. This is probably not a major omission: the guys predictably generate slick, com­plex, pro­fessional harmonies, devoid of individuality. Why did Hearn and Robertson decide that utilizing these harmonies for Barenaked Ladies songs would make a lot of difference?

Well, it is probably not a matter of whether it is The Persuasions, The Impressions, The Tempta­tions, or The Fornications (spot the odd one out): it is more a matter of the band expressing a de­sire to remake some of its songs in a more consciously retro style. Look at ʽNarrow Streetsʼ, ope­ning the record: on Silverball, it opened in the style of classic New Wave, with a post-punkish guitar riff and a Cars-style organ dominating the sound, whereas here it opens with barbershop quartet vocals, and the entire arrangement consists of minimalistic bass, drums, and piano, with the vocals of the Ladies and the Persuasions bearing the main brunt of the melody, as if this were 1958 all over again or something. This does not mean that the entire album is going to be that way. Later on, we get our acoustic and even our electric guitars, and the style is not retro enough to make them re-write all the melodies in ways that would be appropriate for the Fifties — for instance, the hard-rocking swagger of ʽKeepin' It Realʼ is preserved fair and square — but the general idea is clear: to introduce the old, innocent vibe of the pre-rock era (the «authentic» vibe, that is!) into music that once used to herald the post-rock vibe (not in the Sigur Rós sense of the word «post-rock», but rather in the They Might Be Giants / Ween sense of it, of course).

Does it work? Well, not enough to make me judge that the action was really worth it. For starters, they could have sure picked a better setlist: I appreciate that they did not completely focus on the post-Page era, but on the whole, they picked quite a few boring clunkers — couldn't they have done ʽBrian Wilsonʼ instead of ʽWhen I Fallʼ, for instance? For another thing, too many tracks just do not differ that much from the originals, Persuasions or no Persuasions: much too often, «Ladies and Gentlemen» just sing in unison with each other (ʽOdds Areʼ), rather than thinking of more interesting ways — or even labyrinths — to distribute their collective vocal power. And finally, even when they do get it right (ʽMaybe Katieʼ, etc.), this is not enough to turn the songs into anything radically different. They were light, friendly, romantic, and humorous in the first place; spicing them up with soulful / doo-woppy vocals is, at best, like adding a splash of whipped cream on top of your icecream cone — most of the time you barely notice it is there.

None of this ain't bad, though. Well, a few of the songs are, but, fortunately, they did not take a lot of their dreary adult contemporary ballads (hardly suitable for Persuasions contributions any­way), so the record is largely listenable all the way through. And I guess that these days, Bare­naked Ladies still get more fans than The Persuasions do, so it should be counted as a generous gesture towards a hard-working bunch of vocal veterans who probably deserve better. But clearly this is just a stop-gap release, another harmless, but expendable oddity in the band's catalog that will not be remembered. And I have a deep fear that those few reviews for the album that I have encountered were all positive simply because the critics had already forgotten how those songs sounded or even where they all came from in the first place, and simply had fun listening to them all over again; so here's hoping that Hearn or Robertson do not run into Diana Ross or the re­maining Jack­son brothers any time soon, because there's still plenty of backlog tunes left to re­record for people with long term memory loss.

Barenaked Ladies: Silverball

BARENAKED LADIES: SILVERBALL (2015)

1) Get Back Up; 2) Here Before; 3) Matter Of Time; 4) Duct Tape Heart; 5) Say What You Want; 6) Passcode; 7) Hold My Hand; 8) Narrow Streets; 9) Toe To Toe; 10) Piece Of Cake; 11) Globetrot; 12) Silverball; 13) Tired Of Fighting With You.

Honestly, by the time the Pageless Barenaked Ladies released their third album, I have forgotten everything about every single note off the previous two — so either I have become a softie over the last two years, or Silverball is actually a slight improvement, because this time around, I would not describe the record as a «languid, go-nowhere crust of mediocrity». It is a bit languid, sure, and it is somewhat mediocre, but it also seems as if Robertson finally got his head out of that «maturity oven» and started paying a little attention to hooks — which, really, should be your first concern if what you are making is an album of pop songs, and Silverball sure as heck ain't cosmic psychedelia or ambitious symph-rock.

I have no idea why they decided to kick-start the record with a Blue Öyster Cult-style hard rock riff, when in reality ʽGet Back Upʼ is just a mainstream pop-rock song in the style of pre-slutty era Miley Cyrus — a program song, in which Robertson asserts his right to solid mediocrity ("not everything is sink or swim") while at the same time, perhaps, admitting that things had indeed taken a turn for the worse over the previous years ("I'm a little bit worse for wear"). Well, okay, if a tepidly produced hard rock bridge section helps you get back up, so be it — the question is, can the rest of the album actually satisfy the pledge?

Well, if you accept that for the Ladies, «up» really means «rocking back and forth in a cozy rocking chair by the fireplace», then it does. Most of these songs are predictably cuddly, but they are also bouncy, fast-paced, and focused on catchy choruses — a type of unassuming domesticity that I could see as successful, sort of like a tribute album to ʽWhen I'm Sixty Fourʼ, even if none of the band members are even close to that age border at the moment. Regardless of whether the song in question is electric power-pop with an anthemic refrain (ʽHere Beforeʼ), soft toe-tappy country-pop with a cute electronic lining (ʽMatter Of Timeʼ), or a nostalgic throwback to Eighties synth-pop à la ABC or Duran Duran (ʽDuct Tape Heartʼ), they all share two things — soft intro­spective sentimentality-vulnerability and a genuinely singalong chorus, sometimes supported with strategically placed harmonies (like the woo-woos on ʽDuct Tape Heartʼ).

This does not cure the music of its main illness — complete lack of teeth, particularly deep biters that could tear a serious hole in your soul. This is indie on the level of, say, Badly Drawn Boy, more appropriate for a second-rate Pixar movie soundtrack or some other family entertainment franchise than for anyone who wants to experience the true power of music. But, surprisingly, song after song they succeed in populating the melodies with hooks — either a fun keyboard line, or a nice vocal twist, or an odd retro move (like that flourish at the start of ʽPiece Of Cakeʼ that seems to have been borrowed out of some ambitious disco piece circa 1978), and as they accu­mulate, it slowly leads me to the inevitable conclusion: Silverball is an album that at least has a right and reason to exist, unlike its two predecessors. As George Harrison once wrote — "When your teeth drop out / You'll get by even without taking a bite", a perfect sentence to be used as a tagline for this album and this stage of the band's career in general.

And the best song on the album? As much as Kevin Hearn's ʽDaydreamin'ʼ was a bore, ʽTired Of Fighting With Youʼ is a touch of humble beauty; it helps to know that the song was written during his latest bout with the freshly returned leukemia, but even without that knowledge the vocals, the lyrics, the gently descending waves of melody cut straight to the heart this time. The title of the song and the way it is stretched over the chorus might trigger faraway associations with the Kinks' ʽTired Of Waiting For Youʼ, with which the tune also shares its aura of tender melancholy, but not its subject matter — actually, I guess this might be one of the tenderest songs about a lethal illness ever written.

Anyway, I would like to advance the record its thumbs up: even if there is very little here that would make me want to return to the album now, I do feel like I could easily return here as I ad­vance in age — the whole thing is so homely and cuddly and insists on tackling serious problems and issues in the softest, politest, gentlest ways possible that it would make the perfect soundtrack for nursing homes. And many of us will eventually end up in nursing homes, so it's always wise to stack up a little something for future use.

Barenaked Ladies: Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before!

BARENAKED LADIES: STOP US IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE! (2012)

1) I Don't Get It Anymore; 2) Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!; 3) Half A Heart; 4) Old Apartment; 5) Shake Your Rump; 6) Same Thing; 7) One Week; 8) Teenage Wasteland; 9) Long While; 10) Second Best; 11) I Can, I Will, I Do; 12) Adrift.

Considering how productive Page and Robertson had shown themselves to be over the centuries, one would think it reasonable to suggest they might have a shitload more of stuff in the vaults — enough to fill out a boxset or two, and delight the fans, especially those that admire the band's «serious» side as sincerely as their «quirky» side. Moreover, some dedicated and knowledgeable fans occasionally confirm that suspicion — which makes it all the more surprising why the heck is the band's only archival CD, containing a modest 46-minutes worth amount of music, focused almost exclusively on alternate versions of already well-known tracks, always inferior ones and sometimes differing only in regard to the mix.

The official explanation is that the record was originally planned as a «companion» to a proper best-of package (Hits From Yesterday & The Days Before), but something went awry, the two projects could not be properly synchronized, and eventually the rarities package got delayed and was released as a separate entity one year later. Regardless, it's a fairly pointless entity. The only track that is worth some interest is the previously available single B-side ʽYes! Yes!! Yes!!!ʼ, a fun, catchy power-popster co-written by Hearn and containing one of the fuzziest riffs in Bare­naked Ladies history (although, might I add that the cheesy synthesizer line that comes in to double the riff adds a suspicious whiff of a teen-oriented summer-themed video game). Maybe it is also possible to throw together some excitement for the unfinished electric demo of ʽLong Whileʼ, but there is nothing special about it.

Technically, there is also some live stuff here that could be useful for fans — early performances of ʽSame Thingʼ and some pointless bore that is arrogantly titled ʽTeenage Wastelandʼ, preceded by silly jokes on the art of performing in the German language and eventually transforming itself into a subsconscious, but flaccid, tribute to Otis Redding's cover of ʽSatisfactionʼ. Yes, there is also a live run through a Beastie Boys song (ʽShake Your Rumpʼ), but I see no point in the Bare­naked Ladies covering the Beastie Boys other than informing their audience that they do, in fact, love the Beastie Boys, which we already know because of ʽOne Nightʼ etc.

Everything else is just demos and alternate mixes of songs that weren't that good to begin with (ʽI Can, I Will, I Doʼ), or, on the contrary, songs that were already perfect (ʽOne Nightʼ) and needed no further undisclosed variations. In short, this whole package is more for the historiographer of the Barenaked Ladies than even the loyal fan; maybe someday Robertson might learn how to get it right, but until then, you might want to trust my thumbs down on this.

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Barenaked Ladies: Grinning Streak

BARENAKED LADIES: GRINNING STREAK (2013)

1) Limits; 2) Boomerang; 3) Off His Head; 4) Gonna Walk; 5) Odds Are; 6) Keepin' It Real; 7) Give It Back To You; 8) Best Damn Friend; 9) Did I Say That Out Loud?; 10) Daydreamin'; 11) Smile; 12) Crawl.

With another heavy sigh, I have to admit that The Barenaked Ladies' second post-Page album of original material generates more or less the same impressions as its sleeve photo. To be more pre­cise, it has the very distinct feel of music conceived and executed by a bunch of morose, stern-looking, grayish-haired (var.: bald), suit-and-tie-clad office workers, blankly staring in no particu­lar direction, trying to express something that must have accumulated in their shirt-stuffed breasts and finding themselves completely unable to do it in the least interesting manner.

In other words, Grinning Streak — the title is the best thing here, since it so aptly summarizes their latest developments — proudly wrestles the laurels away from All In Good Time, offering twelve more indie-rock compositions that come and go without creating as much as a ripple. The marginal victory is possibly due to Ed Robertson now writing almost the entirety of the album — only one song goes to Kevin Hearn, and three more are co-credited to Robertson and Better Than Ezra's frontman Kevin Griffin.

On the other hand, Hearn's ʽDaydreamin'ʼ is far from his best: a bouncy soft-rock ditty with faint echoes of techno and psychedelia at the same time, it goes on for far too long on too little fuel, and fails to make proper use of Hearn's best side — tender, honest-sounding sentimentality. The idea here is probably to generate a credible «daydreaming» atmosphere, with a mix of laziness, nonchalance, fantasy, and repetitiveness, but there are no hooks to go along with this mix, and the heavy effects on Hearn's voice make it stupidly robotic rather than wistfully magical. In short, Hearn's minimal presence here is as disappointing as his maximal absence, so we probably should not lay all the blame on Robertson alone...

...as tempting as that is, because he just keeps sinking further and further into the abyss of «gene­ricity» — something like ʽBoomerangʼ, with its syncopated percussion and quiet-to-loud dyna­mics, just sounds like bad Oasis or any other old Brit-pop band who would follow the old Ben Franklin maxim of «those who try to sacrifice memorable riffs for singalong catchy choruses de­serve neither». That it happened to be the first single released from the album just goes to show how utterly directionless the band has become. (For comparison, try ABBA's song of the same name if you really need a fun, energetic pop song).

Of the three numbers co-written with Griffin, only ʽGonna Walkʼ stands out a little bit by being poppier and cutesier than the rest, with a mild martial punch, singalong harmonies, and a jovial atmosphere that provides some respite from the many shades of gray that dominate the record. ʽKeepin' It Realʼ is an exercise in blues-rock grittiness, a somewhat different twist for the Ladies and handled professionally, but, like everything else on here, in a sterile manner — including the «blazing» guitar solo at the end. Particularly awful is the album closer: ʽCrawlʼ is overstretched, overcooked, over-emoted adult contemporary, and you'd probably have to be Ed Robertson's wife, parent, or offspring (or you'd have to want to be any of these) to enjoy the song.

Perhaps if the reviews for All In Good Time had not been all that glowing — praising the band for finally trading in their clown outfits for «mature» suits and ties — Robertson might have had second thoughts about going even further in this «introspective» direction. There is nothing of­fen­sive or unintelligent, per se, in these songs about complicated relationships and personality crises: it is just one of those cases where you almost wish something were offensive or openly dumb — anything at all to break this languid, go-nowhere crust of mediocrity. Unfortunately, at this point, with Grinning Streak getting even more positive reviews from critics who seem to be completely forgetting what it used to mean to be «fun» in rock music, it does not seem likely that  Robertson will be swerving from this steady, unadventurous, concrete-laden path any time soon, so here is another thumbs down in a series that, probably, has not yet run its course.

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Barenaked Ladies: All In Good Time

BARENAKED LADIES: ALL IN GOOD TIME (2010)

1) You Run Away; 2) Summertime; 3) Another Heartbreak; 4) Four Seconds; 5) On The Lookout; 6) Ordinary; 7) I Have Learned; 8) Every Subway Car; 9) Jerome; 10) How Long; 11) Golden Boy; 12) I Saw It; 13) The Love We're In; 14) Watching The Northern Lights.

Did the departure of Steven Page make any difference? Frankly speaking, Page and Robertson seem to have always been very much alike in form and spirit — nothing like a John/Paul or a Mick/Keith dichotomy here, which was really a weakness for The Ladies: you had to be a serious fan to understand the difference in seasoning that each of the two brought to the table. If any­thing, it was Kevin Hearn who used to be responsible for a differently colored streak, that of instantly likeable innocent sentimentality, and he was the one that didn't quit.

In short, the loss of Page could be expected to bring about a slight drop in quality control, at worst. Instead, it brought about the worst that could ever have happened — «MATURITY», as some of the critics called it, almost happy to notice that, finally, the Barenaked Ladies have shed off their goofy, oddball image, stopped pranking around like overgrown kids, and started writing and recording really serious, responsible, intelligent material that would probably help their fan­base mature and become serious and responsible as well.

Unfortunately, critics tend to have short memories — and it's hard to blame them, given the ever-growing waves of new artistic material engulfing them every day — so their basis for comparison must have been (a) the latest of the Ladies' oeuvres, which was Snacktime!; (b) ʽOne Weekʼ; and (c) maybe some of the earliest goof-off songs like ʽBe My Yoko Onoʼ, because the first cut is the deepest and suchlike. What they did not remember, as it seems, is that the Ladies' first concentra­ted attempt at achieving serious maturity was already on their very second album, and that, since then, the general tendency was rather predictable: the more serious they got, the more tedious and generic their records tended to sound (Born On A Pirate Ship? Barenaked Ladies Are Me?) — the more they indulged in their prankish side, the more smart and sympathetic they managed to come out (Stunt / Maroon, Barenaked Ladies Are Men).

My confession is as follows: as I reached the middle of ʽYou Run Awayʼ, I was almost ready to cry — not because the song was so emotionally moving, but because it was already more or less obvious how miserable my next fifty minutes would become. The song is not particularly awful or anti-melodic or anything: it simply bears the thickest, densest stamp of «generic indie» to ever come from these guys. It sounds like a perfect soundtrack element to a Nora Ephron movie — echoey, soul-probing pianos, confessional, slightly trembling vocals, gradual build-up towards a rock guitar explosion, the works. It is something that would be completely natural for a prover­bially mediocre outfit like the Dave Matthews Band. It is something I have no interest whatsoever in hearing from The Barenaked Ladies, and do not, for the life of me, understand why should anybody else. And this is only just the beginning.

In Robertson's defense, I must say that the heavy riff-rockers on the album do not usually produce the same feeling of hollowness and fakeness. ʽSummertimeʼ starts out unimpressively, but gets better as the power-pop elements start coming through; the pissed-off rant ʽI Have Learnedʼ is acceptable alt-rock, stuck somewhere in between Pearl Jam and Alanis Morissette in spirit, but with classier production (and in the Ladies' case, «classier» always means «closer in form to the band's garage / glam sources of inspiration»). The fake-o-meter usually starts convulsing on the balladeering front — ʽOrdinaryʼ, ʽThe Love We're Inʼ, all that stuff. But this does not mean that the heavy riff-rockers will want to continue to keep you company once the album is over — the riffs themselves don't have anything particularly unusual or stunning about them.

In disasters like these, you can usually count on Kevin Hearn to come in with something idiosyn­cratic, but not this time. ʽAnother Heartbreakʼ has a pretty vocal part (I continue to insist that Kevin has always been the most expressive vocalist of the bunch), but the song quickly descends into clichéd distorted indie-rock. ʽJeromeʼ is a somewhat visionary landscape, a melancholy tri­bute to the departed Old West that somehow ends up cluttered with too much percussion. And ʽWatching The Northern Lightsʼ is an atmospheric conclusion to the album that matches its title rather well — the repetitive, reverb-delay-filled arrangement and trance-inducing vocals really create the impression of lying on one's back and watching them Northern Lights. But, once again, this sort of lazy ambience is simply not what one expects from this kind of band. They will not be stealing any bread off of Enya's plate, anyway, so why bother?

In the middle of all this, there is exactly 1 (one) «goof-off» number on the entire record: ʽFour Secondsʼ is an absurdist vaudeville number that sounds like Tom Waits adapted for toddlers (an outtake from Snacktime!, perhaps?). Its uniqueness works well in terms of memorability, but it can hardly hope to turn the tide, surrounded by all that run-of-the-mill alt-rock stuff — in fact, it only makes matters worse, reminding of the true call of the Ladies. That true call is to play the smart, sarcastic, snappy fool, not to try and turn into a «guitar rock band with soul», a market niche where competition is hot and the Ladies are not welcome at all. Thumbs down.

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Barenaked Ladies: Snacktime!

BARENAKED LADIES: SNACKTIME! (2008)

1) 7 8 9; 2) The Ninjas; 3) Pollywog In A Bog; 4) Raisins; 5) Eraser; 6) I Can Sing; 7) Louis Loon; 8) Food Party; 9) The Canadian Snacktime Trilogy: 1. Snacktime; 10) The Canadian Snacktime Trilogy: 2. Popcorn; 11) The Canadian Snacktime Trilogy: 3. Vegetable Town; 12) Drawing; 13) Humungous Tree; 14) My Big Sister; 15) Allergies; 16) I Don't Like; 17) What A Wild Tune; 18) Bad Day; 19) Things; 20) Curious; 21) A Word For That; 22) Wishing; 23) Crazy ABC's; 24) Here Come The Geese.

«Children's albums» recorded by adult artists more often than not turn out to be fakes — a good excuse for the artist to engage in fluffy silliness while at the same time churning out a product that most children would be, well, too child-like to properly understand and enjoy. In this respect, the Barenaked Ladies are no exception: while I do know personally a small handful of children that would probably enjoy Snacktime! and maybe even get addicted to it, most would probably find half of the record too boring, and the other half too befuddling (not to mention that there are a bit too many references to the Ladies' own childhood — I mean, Grease 2? Come on!). Adult fans of the Ladies, on the other hand, may react to the record just the way a Beatles fan reacts to ʽAll Together Nowʼ, ʽHer Majestyʼ, and ʽWild Honey Pieʼ — with a mix of mild external condescension and subtle internal amusement / excitement.

The idea of making a record specially for the children came from Kevin Hearn, who is respon­sible not only for an unusually huge percentage of the songs, but also for the artwork in the com­panion book. Robertson was in on the idea, but Page was not — he is credited for only five out of twenty-four numbers, and has since admitted that he was simply «along for the ride»; supposedly, his alienation from the affair was one of the factors that influenced his subsequent departure. It is interesting that one of the most «serious» numbers on the record — ʽBad Dayʼ, an introspective acoustic ballad that would have easily fit on any of their «adult» albums — is credited exclusive­ly to Page. Apparently, that was his little act of sabotage for the concept.

That said, as an adult who can still channel certain childhood memories and feelings, I find my­self along for the ride, too. The quirky, goofy side of the Ladies is not just activated with this pro­ject — it is put in overdrive, almost as if everything that they were holding back ever since it was decided that they should be «serious artists», not a comic act, suddenly broke through the wall and exploded it, as in the finale of a Roger Waters show. The twenty-four tracks in question run slightly less than an hour, with ideas bounced off each other in momentary splashes, and almost everything works — hilarious lyrics, replete with puns, sarcastic jabs at popular culture, and oc­casional edutainment value, set to simple, but catchy kiddie pop melodies.

The base reference point here is «wordplay» — already the opening number, ʽ7 8 9ʼ, illustrates that well enough ("why seven ate nine, nobody knows"), but the peak is reached on one of the last numbers: ʽCrazy ABC'sʼ pokes Bernard Shaw-esque fun at the peculiarities of English spelling and, along the way, introduces the listener, young and old, to words like ʽbdelliumʼ, ʽfohnʼ, and ʽqatʼ, knowledge of which is essential for survival in the Barenaked Ladies' world. (ʽZʼ is, of course, for ʽZed Zed Topʼ, whose music is also briefly referenced in the tune).

Other topics involve ninjas ("they speak Japanese, they do whatever they please and sometimes they vacation in Ireland"), raisins ("raisins come from grapes, I come from apes" — nice subtle anti-creationism indoctrination for the kiddies out there), food (ʽThe Canadian Snacktime Tri­logyʼ has a host of musicians, including Geddy Lee and Gordon Lightfoot, and their children lis­ting their favorite snacks), pencils, allergies, curiosities, wishes, in short, pretty much every single topic that an adult would like his kid to be interested in when his kid is only interested in smart­phones and video games — predictably enough, these are the exact subjects that never crop up in Snacktime!, being way too vulgar to fit in the perspective of Hearn's and Robertson's creative fantasy, stuck somewhere midway in between Lewis Carroll and Alan Milne.

Musically, Snacktime! mostly sounds like a typical pop-oriented Ladies album — lively acoustic strum (ʽNinjasʼ), thick power-pop riffs (ʽWishingʼ), with occasional smidgeons of synth-pop (ʽDrawingʼ), music hall (ʽPollywog In A Bogʼ), and country-western (ʽI Can Singʼ): again, this diversity is more likely to appeal to grown-ups than kids, accustomed to the monotonousness of teen-pop, but then again, we're hardly talking here about competing with the likes of the Mouse­keteers — most likely, the only toddlers to be exposed to Snacktime! must have been the little child­ren of old-time Barenaked Ladies fans.

In any case, goofy and silly as these songs are, they are not altogether insightless, and definitely not uninventive: whatever be, I'd rather listen to this stuff, where Robertson and Hearn are com­pletely in their element, than to Barenaked Ladies Are Me, for instance. With so many ideas to test and produce, not everything here works (I am particularly disappointed by the sentimentally anthemic album closer: ʽHere Come The Geeseʼ is too plain and repetitive to qualify for a true «grand finale», as it was probably thought of), but if everything here worked, the album would have been a downright masterpiece. As it is, it is just a very friendly thumbs up type of album.

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Barenaked Ladies: Barenaked Ladies Are Men

BARENAKED LADIES: BARENAKED LADIES ARE MEN (2007)

1) Serendipity; 2) Something You'll Never Find; 3) One And Only; 4) Angry People; 5) Down To Earth; 6) Beauti­ful; 7) Running Out Of Ink; 8) Half A Heart; 9) Maybe Not; 10) I Can, I Will, I Do; 11) Fun & Games; 12) The New Sad; 13) Quality; 14) Another Spin; 15) What A Letdown.

The Ladies gave the green light to the release of the rest of the songs they had recor­ded during the 2005-2006 sessions so quickly that it was quite clear — the two records do not relate to each other in a «main product / outtakes & leftovers» kind of way, but are actually two equal-rights parts of one whole. Which is, really, the only way to explain that Are Men is a significant im­provement over Are Me, much to the consolation of those (like me) who were expecting to hear something even more dreadfully dull and languid than the first part.

The general difference is that Are Me focuses on the slower, «rootsier», more intimate / senti­mental part of The Ladies' joint personality, whereas Are Men concentrates on the quirkier, more upbeat power-pop part. This is not an unbreakable law — there are exceptions to the rule on both sides — but hardly a coincidence, either: faced with the perspective of sorting their large pile into two smaller piles, Page and Robertson must have settled on a «thematic» approach. Which, upon first sight, means that Are Men has a priori better chances to succeed, given that the Ladies have always tended to thrive in power-pop, not roots-rock environments.

And it does, but not quite — some of these songs do actually manage to reach the heights of Stunt / Maroon-era material, yet on the whole the album still carries the stamp of the «quantity over quality» department. For instance, sentimental acoustic soft-rock like ʽBeautifulʼ and ʽHalf A Heartʼ is the kind of generic indie material you so often hear in pretending-to-be-cool family entertainment movies that wish to ask serious questions and then answer them with cheap soapy melodrama — uninteresting melodies spiced up with «authentic» arrangements and «intelligent» vocals. Again, the vocals are the weakest parts: sentimental music cannot be effective without actual sentiments, something that neither Page nor Robertson can properly provide — you'd at least need a Paul McCartney to make this stuff work.

The upbeat material is altogether on another plane. Sometimes it almost feels as if they try too hard: ʽAngry Peopleʼ, with its falsetto woo-hoos, martial beats, and happy harp à la Stevie Won­der, strictly follows an old patented recipe for pop catchiness — but it is, after all, a song about correcting angry people by surrounding them with happy ones, so the form suits the message to a tee, and it would be silly to get irritated instead of just getting into the fun groove. As Robertson sings in ʽDown To Earthʼ (another one of those quirky Apples In Stereo-style pop-rockers that thrives on combining guitars with sci-fi synths), "some people are just all show / well, I don't mind that if the show's worth watching" — well, the Ladies themselves operate better when they are mostly show, or, at least, when their sincere attitude is covered with plenty of makeup.

For some strange reason, Are Men yielded no singles, even though at least a good third of these songs would be top-notch single material for the band. Page's ʽRunning Out Of Inkʼ would be a prime candidate, in particular — it's fast, quirky, catchy, funny, and structurally diverse, as Page goes from a comically paranoid delivery into a comically operatic mid-section and back again. ʽQualityʼ would inevitably be a hit with college audiences, as it combines the steady romantic pulse of ʽEvery Breath You Takeʼ with lyrics that subtly send up the know-it-all attitude ("my quality, biology enhanced with high technology"): the Ladies have always tended to strictly ob­serve the balance between the college punk and the college nerd, and they do have that talent for coming across as seriously educated guys without any particular showing off.

Yet another time, two of the best songs are contributed by Kevin Hearn: ʽSerendipityʼ has serious woo-potential in its echoey riff and, especially, clever vocal modulation — since he possesses the softest and sweetest voice in the entire band, Hearn is able to work some subtle magic with it that neither Page nor Robertson can conjure, and it is almost as if they recognize and respect that, by letting ʽSerendipityʼ open the album. Good move, or «Hearn the softie» could have been lost in the 16-song ocean: it certainly takes extra time and effort to uncover the similar charms of ʽAno­ther Spinʼ, where he keeps looking for his girl in different places (including Afghanistan, if only because it dissonantly rhymes with the song title) without any hope to find the right one, but in a state of complete vocal and instrumental serenity nevertheless.

I will not attempt individual descriptions / comments on all the songs — there is nothing truly ori­ginal or vehemently thought-provoking about most of them — but on the whole, this is a good listen, and although I have encountered opinions that value the first record over the second, I really have no interest in mulling and sussing and mulling and sussing over the Ladies' intro­spective side until it finally «gets to me». They have good, natural pop instincts, and they are well demonstrated — again — on Barenaked Ladies Are Men, and that is why it deserves a thumbs up, albeit a slightly less excited one than in the case of Stunt / Maroon. If anything, splitting their personalities in two just ended up as a transparent demonstration — which of the persona­lities it would be more fun to hang out with, and which one would do better if it never showed its nose out of the dormitory, not ever again.

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Barenaked Ladies: Barenaked Ladies Are Me

BARENAKED LADIES: BARENAKED LADIES ARE ME (2006)

1) Adrift; 2) Bank Job; 3) Sound Of Your Voice; 4) Easy; 5) Home; 6) Bull In A China Shop; 7) Everything Had Changed; 8) Peterborough And The Kavarthas; 9) Maybe You're Right; 10) Take It Back; 11) Vanishing; 12) Rule The World With Love; 13) Wind It Up.

Every once in a while, the world needs to be reminded of that old adage — «quantity does not equal quality» (said the Turkish sultan, ordering his ninety-nine brothers to be put to death). For that very reason, the Barenaked Ladies held a historical recording session in early 2005, where they came up with no fewer than 30 original compositions — an impressive pile that took a fur­ther year and a half to finalize, sort out, and release in several variants, eventually settling upon the «white album» and «whiter album» recipe that The Beatles never followed: Barenaked Ladies Are Me, with 13 songs on it, came out in September 2006, and Barenaked Ladies Are Men, containing the rest, followed half a year later.

Had these guys been songwriting geniuses, the story would be truly intriguing. Had these guys displayed their trademark «quirky» behavior and sarcasm, there would be some hope. What hap­pened instead can only be called a blundering catastrophe: apparently, they went into the studio with the solemn goal of writing a shitpile of deadly serious, «thinking-man-introspective-singer-songwriter» pop songs, almost completely bereft of any sense of humor or lightness of approach — or clever hooks, for that matter.

It is not even a question of monotonousness: formally, Barenaked Ladies Are Me is fairly di­ver­se, mixing acoustic folk-pop, electric power-pop, art-pop, alt-rock, bits of electronica, bluegrass, etc., in other words, touching upon all sorts of familiar ground that the Ladies had already cove­red previously, but wouldn't mind shuffling together one more time. And yet, simultaneously, it all sounds thoroughly tedious, mind-numbing, and sort of gooey, taking the stagnation of Every­thing To Everyone to a whole new level.

The few songs that are pinned to loud electric riffage can be seen as relieving exceptions. The best of the lot is probably ʽWind It Upʼ — why it happens to close the album rather than opening it with its bulgy, almost Townshend-ian punch, is way beyond my limited comprehension. Of course, it does not have much to recommend it other than that swirling riff (as well as a monster psychedelic guitar solo from guest star Kim Mitchell), but a good riff and a good solo is the bare minimum required from a decent power-pop tune. Another good one is Kevin Hearn's ʽSound Of Your Voiceʼ, whose garage-influenced lead melody spends most of the time battling against the slower, blues-shuffle-style rhythm section.

And both of these songs were singles, all right, but for some reason, the lead single was ʽEasyʼ — a song that stands much closer in spirit to the somnambulistic bulk of the album. Like many of the Ladies' songs, it is a potentially good number — but in this case, it would have probably rea­lized its potential much better, had it been handed over to U2. Listen to it, then try to imagine the Edge's echoey style instead of the wimpy acoustic foundation used over here, and Bono wailing "make it easy, make it easy" instead of Robertson. Now that could have been something; this version, compared with the imaginary ideal, sounds like a first-stage demo.

And the same applies to more than half of these songs. The ballads are smooth and mushy (ʽAdriftʼ, ʽHomeʼ), the electronics are underdeveloped (ʽBank Jobʼ starts out with bleeps and beeps that still end up chewed up and swallowed by generic alt-rock guitars), and even some of the fast, supposedly energetic pop-rock numbers are thoroughly devoid of creative ideas (ʽBull In A China Shopʼ — ʽBottle Of Diet Poisonʼ would have been a better title, if they really needed a suitable «tired old metaphor» to pick from the song's lyrics). Worst of the lot might be Creeggan's ambitiously titled ʽPeterborough And The Kawarthasʼ — a neo-folk concoction that has no dyna­mics whatsoever; I would have trouble recommending it as elevator muzak.

In short, we are «reborn on a pirate ship» here — once again, the Ladies are offering us serious intellectual pop music, forgetting that even serious intellectual pop music has to address the emo­tional centers in order to succeed. Besides, it's not even all that intellectual: a song like ʽMaybe You're Rightʼ, with its supposedly «deep» chorus of "shall I take back everything I've ever said / and live my whole life in silence instead?", hardly suffices to make the Ladies into respectable social spokesmen for their, or any other, generation.

Had this been a «simple pop» album, it would have been just mediocre. But it is not — the Ladies' acute desire to release everything they came up with, in two subsequent installments; and their equally acute desire to be judged as Serious Singer-Songwriters rather than monkee enter­tainers intentionally push the plank higher than necessary. And since, the way I see it, nothing makes me hate an album more than «inadequacy of intention», Barenaked Ladies Are Me is a certified thumbs down. One more time in its stubbornly frustrating career, the band simply tries to bite off more than it can chew — or, to be more precise, bites off something that is genetically incompatible with its digestive system.

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Barenaked Ladies: Barenaked For The Holidays

BARENAKED LADIES: BARENAKED FOR THE HOLIDAYS (2004)

1) Jingle Bells; 2) Green Christmas; 3) I Saw Three Ships; 4) Hanukkah Blessings; 5) O Holy Night; 6) Elf's Lament; 7) Snowman; 8) Do They Know It's Christmas; 9) Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah; 10) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; 11) Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer; 12) Carol Of The Bells; 13) Footprints; 14) Deck The Stills; 15) Christmastime (Oh Yeah); 16) Sleigh Ride; 17) Christmas Pics; 18) I Have A Little Dreidel; 19) Wonderful Christmastime; 20) Auld Lang Syne.

I reserve the usual right to keep reviews of Christmas albums as short as possible, but the farther we get on with this practice, the more this traditional Christmas album format tends to be subjec­ted to various alchemic practices and postmodern deconstructions — and despite all their at­tempts at being judged as a «normal» band, it would never make sense for the Barenaked Ladies to release a «normal» Christmas album. So this one has a few points of interest that might be worth listing for those who think that the «Christmas album» is just a kind of discography var­mint, to be exterminated or at least boycotted wherever possible.

First, about a third of these songs are original compositions — ranging from fluffy ditties about having to celebrate Christmas in the wrong part of the world (ʽGreen Christmasʼ, the Ladies' con­scious addition to the stock of ʽWhite Christmasesʼ and ʽBlue Christmasesʼ) to Page's merry Brit-pop celebration of his Jewish heritage (ʽHanukkah Blessingsʼ) to some really weird stuff (ʽElf's Lamentʼ — lyrically, I mean) to another heartfelt ballad from Kevin Hearn (ʽChristmastimeʼ, with nary a hint at any irony behind the sentimentalism). Naturally, the restrictiveness of the topic is an obstacle to any of these songs being masterpieces, but there is plenty of original songwriting, enough for all the regular fans to sit up and take notice.

Second, the choice of covers is certainly not all that predictable. There is not a lot of traditional Christmas chestnuts, and those that they do feel obliged to include are usually turned on their heads: ʽJingle Bellsʼ, for instance, consists of a hyper-slow «introspective» part and an absurdly sped-up «village idiot» section. Themes for ʽO Holy Nightʼ and ʽRudolphʼ are given over to organs and drum machines, stripped of vocals and made to run exactly one minute each. And ʽCarol Of The Bellsʼ features a spooky electronic chimes arrangement that could just as well be suited for the needs of Walpurgis Night, if necessary.

In addition, there are also takes on more recent Christmasy material — for instance, yet another one-minute instrumental electronic deconstruction deals with Paul McCartney's ʽWonderful Christmastimeʼ (serves it well, since it is arguably one of the worst songs the man has ever writ­ten), and then they run through a superficially-passionate take on Bob Geldof's Live AID monster, ʽDo They Know It's Christmas?ʼ — actually, the song sounds much better without all the Band Aid pathos of the original. Well, seems natural: if we are going to continue the lovely tradition of releasing Christmas albums long after the whole world has converted to Islam, atheism, or pasta­farianism, it does make sense to update the classic repertoire of ʽI'll Be Home For Christmasʼ, ʽHave Yourself A Merry Little Christmasʼ, etc., from time to time, even if we have to do it with bad McCartney tunes and Live Aid anthems.

In order to further commemorate their own legacy and assure the fans of Judaeic faith equal rights and privileges, the Ladies also quickly run through several jiggly Hanukkah tunes (ʽI Have A Little Dreidelʼ is worth getting to know if you never had any earlier pretext to get to know it — as a cultural bonus, you get to learn what a dreidel is), and, along the way, martyrize ʽDeck The Hallsʼ as ʽDeck The Stillsʼ by chanting ʽCrosby Stills Nash & Young!ʼ instead of the original words (it's funny for the first time, and then I just skip the track on subsequent listens).

The whole ravage ends with a straightface, no-bull finale of ʽAuld Lang Syneʼ, left holy and in­tact either because they have no courage to desecrate this one, or because something had to be left intact just for the sake of adding more colors to the record. Well, it's... ʽAuld Lang Syneʼ, it's hard to spoil it anyway. In short, this is a curious, often bizarre twist on yer average Christmas album, which is sort of what we'd expect in general from the Ladies. Whether it helps or not to add a special twist on your actual Christmas (or Hanukkah, for that matter) is up to you to decide — personally, I have never once in my life wilfully listened to a «Christmas album» on an actual Christmas or New Year, so I have no opinion on this situation.

For the record, it must be added that Page would later pretty much disown the record; that not a single track here was recorded by the band naked in the studio; and that ʽGreen Christmasʼ was originally recorded way back in 2000 for Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas, a movie starring Jim Carrey who also sang ʽYou're A Mean One, Mr. Grinchʼ, a song covered by many artists including Aimee Mann, who put it on her own Christmas album that would be recorded two years after Barenaked After The Holidays and would be a better album because Aimee Mann is (in my humble opinion) a better artist. See, that's why I hate trivia — when they're all piled up and disconnected, they look dumb, but once you try to chain them together, you find out that it's almost impossible to stop.

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Barenaked Ladies: Everything To Everyone

BARENAKED LADIES: EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE (2003)

1) Celebrity; 2) Maybe Katie; 3) Another Postcard; 4) Next Time; 5) For You; 6) Shopping; 7) Testing 1, 2, 3; 8) Upside Down; 9) War On Drugs; 10) Aluminum; 11) Unfinished; 12) Second Best; 13) Take It Outside; 14) Have You Seen My Love?

If Stunt established the formula and Maroon consolidated it, then Everything To Everyone re­presents the lo­gical slide into boredom once everything that could actually be said to everyone had already been said. The biggest difference is that the album was recorded in a post-9/11 world, and, apparently, The Barenaked Ladies thought the time had come to become more serious, ma­ture, and responsible. Well, on one hand, it does significantly reduce the number of «him vs. her» psycho-studies that made Maroon seem so repetitive. But on the other hand, I am not sure that I would like to adopt these guys as my spiritual gurus — and pardon them this decreased attention towards hooks, even when compensated with a more profound social perspective.

Not that one could ever guess anything about profundity when presented with the album's lead single: ʽAnother Postcardʼ does feature a rappy vocal that makes it obvious the guys were trying to repeat the formula of ʽOne Weekʼ one more time, but on the whole, it is a repetitive and, I am not afraid to say, somewhat cretinous-sounding tale of... an anonymous admirer sending the pro­tagonist an endless series of postcards of chimpanzees. «Cretinous» does not refer nearly as much to the storyline, though, as it does to the music — the idea may have been to indulge in a little bit of silly whimsy, but it isn't even funny, just repetitive and stupid.

The second single, ʽTesting 1, 2, 3ʼ, is not that much better, but at least it does not set out to irri­tate — being merely a forgettable soft-alt-rock tune; and the third single, ʽFor Youʼ, is an equally forgettable country-pop composition, not much different from millions of similar tunes flooding the airwaves. All of which is incredibly surprising, because neither of these songs even pretends to being «outstanding» in any way: it is almost as if the band was consciously discrediting itself as a singles act (come to think of it, that may have been the truth — I cannot fathom an intelligent human being having just written something like ʽAnother Postcardʼ and going «oh, this is going to be our next hit single, boy are those kids gonna love it! I mean, it's just gotta be a hit if it's about chimpanzees, right? Everybody loves a good song about chimps!»).

Anyway, the highlights section of Everything To Everyone, as far as I am concerned, have nothing to do with these songs. ʽCelebrityʼ has the album's juiciest piano hook, decent fame-con­demning lyrics, and a cute combination of ELO-ish strings and Beatlesque harmonies in the ar­rangement. ʽMaybe Katieʼ is stomping power-pop in classic Weezer / Fountains Of Wayne fa­shion and an unforgettable tagline ("what's so maybe about Katie?" is more of a fun line than "another postcard with chimpanzees", after all).

ʽShoppingʼ sounds like late period Apples In Stereo, combining elements of techno with old-style kiddie pop, and even though it is recorded in an even more openly puerile fashion than ʽAnother Postcardʼ, it clearly presents itself as a light­weight parody, ridiculing both the concept of shopping spree and certain musical trends at the same time, so it is openly funny. Finally, ʽUnfinishedʼ (which, if you listen closely, begins with more than a direct homage to the Beatles' ʽGetting Bet­terʼ) and ʽSecond Bestʼ have a good amount of energy, if not necessarily a barrel-load of hooks, and would have both made better singles than the band's actual choices.

I am not at all sure, though, about the most serious songs on the album — such as ʽWar On Drugsʼ and ʽNext Timeʼ, used as vehicles to express the Ladies' concern with the state of humanity at large. ʽWar On Drugsʼ in particular, expanded to five and a half minutes in a clear bid for the status of the album's magnum opus, hearkens back to the tedious languidness of Born Under A Pirate Ship, and no amount of string quartets, pianos, and bombastic buildups can hide the fact that the song is essentially just a formulaic folk ballad, mostly consisting of attitude, and even the attitude is mediocre (considering the ordinariness of Page's vocals).

Curiously, most of the songs I find emotionally acceptable on here have Kevin Hearn credited as co-writer along with Page and Robertson (or Jim Creeggan, on ʽMaybe Katieʼ), which leads to uncomfortable suggestions that will not be voiced openly. Whatever might have been the case, it seems abundantly clear to me that, once again, The Barenaked Ladies have committed the mis­take of overloading their boat — with stuff they neither know how to handle nor have any serious need of, in the first place. Not a «thumbs down» as such, since the good material manages to out­balance the bad one, but really nothing to get excited about: just another college rock record that is not very likely to make musical history, no matter how arrogantly grandiose its title, or even its front sleeve, have been designed to look.

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Barenaked Ladies: Maroon

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).

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Barenaked Ladies: Stunt

BARENAKED LADIES: STUNT (1998)

1) One Week; 2) It's All Been Done; 3) Light Up My Room; 4) I'll Be That Girl; 5) Leave; 6) Alcohol; 7) Call And Answer; 8) In The Car; 9) Never Is Enough; 10) Who Needs Sleep?; 11) Told You So; 12) Some Fantastic; 13) When You Dream.

Stunt indeed — with the surprising success of ʽOne Weekʼ as the album's lead single, Barenaked Ladies managed to pull the stunt of becoming major celebrities almost overnight. Apparently, all it had to take was for Robertson to start rapping: channelling the band's trademark loquacity and humor into a hip-hop riverbed proved to be the key, even if the actual music never strays away from the regular pop-rock format. The song's subject matter (an ironic look at stupid breakups over nothing) probably did not matter as much as the rapid stream of cultural references — every­thing from Snickers to Sailor Moon to Harrison Ford to Kurosawa — but overall, the whole thing just sounds funny. Heck, it is funny — reinstating the band's «smart college clowns» image on a more sophisticated level than that of ʽBe My Yoko Onoʼ.

The rest of the album, fortunately, drops the rap angle (one stab is okay, more than one could be interpreted as too much groveling before the altar of the Beastie Boys and such), but continues to unfurl the general approach. The tempos are faster, the moods are lighter, the lyrical matters are quirkier, the hooks are sharper — the somber mood that permeated the previous two albums is all but gone, so that even the slowest and most sentimental number (ʽCall And Answerʼ) is an opti­mistic song of future reconcilement instead of a bleak account of separation. And although, from time to time, they do walk that fine line that separates clever satire from gimmicky novelty tunes (I still cannot quite make up my mind about ʽOne Weekʼ, for that matter), Stunt on the whole does not produce the impression of a «clownish» album.

For instance, already the second single, ʽIt's All Been Doneʼ, is just a well-written power-pop song, with jangly folk-rock guitars, Beatlesque ooh la-la-las and whoah-whoahs, and lyrics that complain about the repetitive nature of intimate relationships without any particularly smartass verbal flourishes. If it weren't for the vocals — one more pretext to repeat that Page and Robert­son always needed a much more accomplished and versatile vocalist in the band — it might have been a late masterpiece of the genre.

On the other hand, the third single, ʽAlcoholʼ, does derive much of its charm from the lyrics, which certainly paint a much more likable portrait of the substance than the Kinks song with the same title. What used to be «demon Alcohol» now becomes "alcohol, your songs resolve like my life never will" and, despite the clearly tongue-in-cheek attitude, could have easily been picked up by some promotional campaign (maybe even has?). If the song's basic melody leaves something to be desired, they compensate for it by loading the track with pianos, violins, and electronics — to demonstrate, no doubt, the sheer amount of sights and colors that alcohol brings into one's life. One can only guess at the popularity ranking of the song on the college circuit when it came out.

Genre diversity is displayed throughout: ʽIn The Carʼ appropriates an old surf-rock pattern; ʽNe­ver Is Enoughʼ has an organ part that almost sounds lifted from an old Bob Dylan number; ʽTold You Soʼ carries on the country-pop vibe with a whiff of R.E.M. drea­miness (not one of my favourites, it does sound a bit like an outtake from the Pirate Ship sessions); ʽSome Fantasticʼ swerves into bossa nova territory. As usual, though, the album does not feel diverse, because the personality of the Ladies remains the same throughout — it just helps avoid the impression of «one long song separated by pauses».

It all does make me, wonder, though: why does my personal favourite song on here happen to be the least typical of the album? ʽWhen You Dreamʼ is formally placed at the end as a good night lullaby, to smoothe out the edges, but even though I generally do not care much for the heart-on-sleeve side of the Ladies, this particular tender waltz (in which one can hear distant echoes of John Sebastian and the Lovin' Spoonful, among other things) strikes such a fine balance between sentimentality and intelligence that I would place it right next to John Lennon's ʽBeautiful Boyʼ in a personal rating of «toddler tunes». At the very least, it is hard to imagine it not finding the proper resonance in the heart of each and every inexperienced parent, provided that parent is advanced enough to own a copy of Stunt.

In other words, ʽWhen You Dreamʼ symbolizes the ultimate victory of emotion over reason, but that does not annul the effects of the other songs — on the whole, this is not quite the return to the level of Gordon that one might have hoped for, but it is a certified «return to making sense», with the band completely in their element. Lively, fun, smart, diverse within reasonable limits — not genius, just rock-solid quality, liberally sprinkled with charisma. Thumbs up.

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