CD Odyssey Disc 443: Barenaked Ladies

Over the weekend I finally got out and spent the gift certificate my friends Cat and Ross got me for my birthday.  It was for a local record store.  I love seventies and early eighties vinyl, but I limit the amount of it I buy for space considerations, and to keep peace on the home front (I already take up a lot of space with CDs, after all).

The two albums I bought were Blue Oyster Cult’s “Some Enchanted Evening” and Alice Cooper’s “Dada.”  I’ve reviewed the CD version of both already, so click on the link if that’s your thing.  I even have enough credit left over to grab some Emmylou Harris when I go back this Saturday (it was upstairs in storage, but the owner is going to get it down for me).

Anyway, many sincere thanks to Cat and Ross for the thoughtful gift – and now on to a review that I enjoyed but I know from personal experience will not make either Cat or Ross happy – they are not fond of this next band.

Disc 443 is… Stunt

Artist: Barenaked Ladies

Year of Release: 1998

What’s up with the Cover?  A very bad version of collage art.  Is there a good version of collage art?  I can only hope there is some collage-master somewhere waiting to blow me away, but it seems unlikely. 

How I Came To Know It:  This album came out early in my relationship with Sheila.  We both liked the Barenaked Ladies and this album got a lot of play at the time.  I can’t remember who bought it – probably her – but we both put it on a fair bit in the day.

How It Stacks Up:  We have four Barenaked Ladies albums.  I like them differently for different reasons, but I guess I’ll put this one a very close second to “Gordon.”

Rating:  3 stars but almost 4

When I reviewed “Gordon” I mentioned it was the album that made this band ‘big’ – in Canada.  “Stunt” was the album that made them stars in the United States with a #1 hit “One Week.”  As a Canadian, I’m always happy when one of our bands is successfully exported that isn’t Celine Dion or Bryan Adams.  More important than all that success and national pride, “Stunt” is a quality record.

The Barenaked Ladies have always had a good mix of humorous and catchy pop hits and serious songs cleverly hidden as catchy pop hits.  While “Stunt” errs a little bit too far into their silly side, there’s still enough meat on the bone to keep me interested.  Also they do silly pop songs exceptionally well, and that’s hardly a crime

On the silly side is their big hit, “One Week,” a song driven by rapid fire rap-lite lyrics that tell the story of a couple’s one week argument, peppered with a hundred pop culture references that somehow still sound current when I hear them fifteen years later.  The song is a guilty pleasure, but it makes you want to sing along (when you can keep up) and it puts a smile on your face, so if it isn’t anything more than that, then I’ve said worse.

It is always interesting to me when  record becomes so defined by one monster hit (in fact, I wonder if in the United States market these guys are something of a one-hit wonder).  The hit tends to overshadow everything else on the record, and in the case of “Stunt” that’s unfortunate.

“One Week” isn’t even the best funny pop song on the album; that honour goes to “Alcohol” which was apparently released as a single in the U.S. and only made it to #33, which basically means it briefly rode the coat-tails of “One Week.”

“Alcohol” is a funny description of some of the less noble reasons why we drink to excess (as if there were any more noble reasons).  It’s also the way humour should work; making us laugh but also wince a little at our own foibles.  It starts off:

“Alcohol, my permanent accessory

Alcohol, a party-time necessity

Alcohol, alternative to feeling like yourself

O Alcohol, I still drink to your health.”

The song will have you mirthfully recalling all the dumb things you’ve done when you were young, drunk and stupid.  We all love to tell these stories, which is strange, since most of them involve some kind of bad judgment and almost all of them end with the denouement of a brutal hangover.  Yet the song is such infectious fun, that even as it closes with the very sober lines: 

“O Alcohol, would you please forgive me?

For while I cannot love myself

I’ll use something else.”

We still sing along gleefully.  This is a song about alcohol abuse (hence the plea for forgiveness), but it is wrapped up in a delivery system so sweet and tasty you have to concentrate to notice – not unlike its subject matter often is.

“In the Car” aren’t as interesting melodically, but I like the way it tackles early lust, and the experience we’ve all had as teens; making out in the car.  It brought back all of the awkward and fun memories of that North American rite of sexual passage.  Of course, this being the Barenaked Ladies, the narrator tells his audience that he secretly lusted after his girlfriend’s Mom, fancying that she might hear him sing about it on the radio and turning to her new husband to exclaim, “I think that’s me.”

On the more somber side, “Call and Answer” is the ‘side two’ version of “One Week.”  It is the story of a longer and more serious collapse of a relationship, but one with the chance of hope, as the singer desperately reaches out through the hurt to his partner, advising her that if she calls, he will answer, all the while admitting they are ‘courting this disaster.’  Yeah, an intended pun, but if you hear it, it works.

Other times, however, “Stunt” misses on its efforts to be straight up somber.  “Light Up My Room” sing about living near power lines, but the topic isn’t interesting enough to be either funny or serious.  “Leave” is a song about a relationship breakdown, but unlike “Call and Answer” it is too cute for its own good.  The cute turns of phrase don’t speak to a deeper truth, they just cover it up completely.

That said, “Stunt” is much more likely to hit on any given song than miss, and these guys can write a song about anything.  In “When You Dream” they muse about whether a newborn baby dreams about quantum mechanics while seamlessly slipping in baby anatomy words like “fontanelle” (look it up – I had to).  Sure this album is a bit too clever for its own good, but better that than not clever enough.

Best tracks:  One Week, Alcohol, Call and Answer, Never is Enough