I am still not feeling particularly musical, but hundred of music reviews are not going to write themselves, so here I am. For my friend Catherine, this next band is her Nickelback (as in - she really, really hates them). Hey, everyone has to have a Nickelback.
So with apologies to Cat, I am now going to say generally positive things about the Barenaked Ladies.
Disc 389 is…Maroon
Artist: Barenaked Ladies
Year of Release: 2000
What’s Up With The Cover?: Um. I believe it is supposed to be arty. I like the font choices for the band name and album title, and I like the colour scheme, but beyond that I'm not a fan of this one. I prefer my art to look like something I couldn't draw. That sets the bar pretty low.
How I Came To Know It: As I noted in my review of Gordon (back at Disc 338) I've known the band since their demo tape days. Sheila is a bigger fan, and she either bought this album when it came out, or I bought it for her for a birthday or Christmas present.
How It Stacks Up: We have four Barenaked Ladies albums, all from early in their career. Of the four, I'd put "Maroon" 3rd. Not bad, but not great.
Rating: 3 stars
The Barenaked Ladies write very catchy pop melodies, and I think too often this skill is too casually dismissed. It is not as easy as it sounds.
Their records tend to be a mix of whimsical humour and wordplay and a few more serious songs that will surprise you with their depth. My problem with "Maroon" is that they kind of blended these two approaches into almost all of the songs. The songs all seem on the surface to be light and pop-fueled. Lyrically, however, they have a sadness to them.
"Never Do Anything" is a jumpy song with a narrator musing on becoming a professional tic-tac-toe player or becoming wealthy with an internet scheme (which I think samples a Sting song in its opening bars, but couldn't put my finger on it). Anyway, the more you listen to it, though, the more you realize this is the story of a bitter, angry couch-surfer who is a big talker that will never motivate to do anything. It is OK, and works but is all a little too obvious. By comparison, I recently reviewed Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" album with the song "It's Good To Be King" which I think handles the material better, simply by crediting the listener with the skill to figure it out on their own.
Other songs on "Maroon" feature more quiet desperation, "Conventioneers" recounts an office romance that leads to an awkward workplace and "Sell Sell Sell" is the story of a man who dreamed of making it big in acting, and is now famous for his ability to convincingly pitch products in commercials.
All of these songs are carefully crafted, and easy on the ear, but the effort to infuse humour into dark topics is forced and obvious, making it hard to enjoy them as much as I would've liked. This is summed up nicely by track 8, "The Humour Of The Situation":
"I said on the phone 'don't wait 'til I'm home'
But, I'm sure I could hear you crying
I said where it was, but you doubt it because
It's the caller ID you're buying
In the hour that it took for me to drive up to the door
You'd arranged all my belongings on the lawn.
"Come on, now
Come on, now
Enjoy the humour of the situation."
Except obviously, there is no humour in this situation, and no jumpy pop beat will make it so. If that's the only point they're making (that it is ironic that there is no humour in the situation, but we'll sing it as if there were) then it is too obvious to be interesting.
Fortunately, after this track "Maroon" gets its feet under it and delivers some great tracks for its final third.
This begins with "Baby Seat," which is one of my favourite tracks on the album. Stephen Page's singing is finally on display (he is a surprisingly good pop vocalist when he wants to be). The song is about accepting your responsibilities and recognizing life is hard. It begins:
"You left Billy with the kid
And all the selfless things you did with Billy
You left your home town in the spring
And turned your back on everything
You thought your life would just go by
Without a pause to wonder, don't be silly."
The rhyme scheme may read cutesy but sounds great with the clever phrasing of the song.
A couple tracks later, "Helicopters" sings of the experience of a band touring a war-torn country, shocked by not just the devastation, but the callous attitudes of foreigners passing through, and the deep cynicism of the locals who never expect things to get better, and are tired of promises to the country. The fact that the country is never named would usually bother me, but here it works to write the experience across any number of situations - pick your foreign conflict and plug it in.
The album goes out with a quiet, slow song "Tonight Is the Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel." It is a song in two parts. The first a traditional pop song telling the story of a car accident, and the second a piano-driven ethereal imagining of the narrator's soul leaving his body after first responders fail to save him at the scene. This song is almost nine minutes long, but never feels like it is dragging. By comparison some of the four minute numbers early in the album feel too long.
"Maroon" is a competent record by a talented band, but it takes a little too long to find its groove. Once it does it has a lot to say. As usual, the Barenaked Ladies are best when they decide to take themselves seriously.
Best tracks: Pinch Me, Baby Seat, Helicopters, Tonight Is the Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel.
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