Now if "Synchronicity" is my next roll things will really have taken a turn for the weird.
Disc 338 is...Gordon
Artist: Barenaked Ladies
Year of Release: 1992
What’s Up With The Cover?: The band members strike a variety of goofy poses. This cover is goofy, but not inspiring.
How I Came To Know It: At the risk of sounding like an annoying hipster, this is the Barenaked Ladies first CD, but I knew them before this. I had a friend who had an extra copy of a demo tape (known as "The Yellow Tape"), which featured five songs, four of which were to be re-recorded for Gordon, plus a cover of Public Enemy's "Fight The Power" which was surprisingly good. Anyway, I bought it off of her for two dollars, and bought "Gordon" when I saw it featured some of the songs I already knew I liked..
How It Stacks Up: We have four Barenaked Ladies records. They fulfill different musical needs for me, and so this one is either first or second best, depending on what style of pop music I'm in the mood for.
Rating: 4 stars.
After many years of college-play obscurity, The Barenaked Ladies hit it big with "Gordon" in 1992. The record went 'diamond' in Canada, which I assume means 'better than platinum.' Given that in 1992 grunge was still the king of the airwaves, I consider it no small feat that a smalltime humour-driven pop quintet would do so well.
When you listen to "Gordon" you can see why the band succeeded. They write very listenable pop music melodies, and they play well. The band has not one, but two gifted vocalists, Steven Page and Ed Robertson, who sound equally good as soloists, or blending together into harmonies, which they do often.
The album is best known for its novelty hits, like "If I had $1,000,000", "Be My Yoko Ono," and "Grade 9" all songs which I very much enjoyed singing along to in 1992 but have since lost their lustre with repeated plays (both were also on the "Yellow Tape" adding to the overplay). It is hard for a song founded on humour to have any lasting artistic value, but I think it is also important to take any style of music on its own terms. These songs are catchy, and even when I knew the next joke before it came, it still made my smile.
One demerit for the lyric indicating the band liked Duran Duran in Grade 9. That's just wrong. Fortunately, "Grade 9" makes up for this by playing Rush riffs lifted straight out of "Tom Sawyer" and "Spirit of Radio". The idea that these guys could've liked both bands is hard on the gulliver.
Those who bought the album, were treated to a much more well-rounded work. Sure there are many more songs based principally on humour. "Box Set" is a poke at aging bands that throw together a lot of questionable material to sell more albums (box sets were all the rage in 1992). "New Kid (On the Block)" is a song about the disturbing phenomenon that allowed that band to be wildly popular. Although clearly a poke at the NKOTB, the song is actually fairly sympathetic to twenty-three year olds forced to not grow up by soulless record execs. Best line:
"There's no need to be afraid of us
'Though it just might be your daughter on our bus."
For all this humour, my favourite tracks on "Gordon" after all these years are those where the band takes on a more serious topic. The breakdown of relationships in "The Flag," with its dark echoes of abuse and infidelity make it all the more dark, despite its soft, memorable melodies.
In "What a Good Boy" Page (he is the dark partner) explores how hampered we are by societal and parental expectations we may spend a lifetime straining against. He describes it thusly:
When I was born, they looked at me and said
'What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy'
And when you were born, they looked at you and said
'What a good girl, what a smart girl, what a pretty girl.'
We've got these chains that hang around our necks
People want to strangle us with them before we take our first steps
Afraid of change, afraid of staying the same,
When temptation calls, we just look away."
"Brian Wilson" is a song exploring the mental illness of the title character by internally musing on what he thinks about while 'just lying there.' At the same time Steven Page's own demons make him equate himself with Wilson at an emotional level. Songs like "Brian Wilson" and the excesses described in "Hello City" are early harbingers of the troubles Page would later have with fame, and the break up of the band. However, even if there weren't a single biographical note to be had, they are both fine songs.
The album is a little overlong at fifteen tracks, where it could easily be twelve without some unfortunate filler. It also has a few too many pop culture references, even if those references are very cleverly worked in. I almost lowered the record to 3 stars, but considering twenty years later I still liked it enough to play it twice in succession today without ever feeling the need to fast forward, it just clears the hurdle into four star territory.
Best tracks: Hello City, Brian Wilson, What A Good Boy, Box Set, The Flag
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