The Bitter Guide to the BNL
Jan. 19th, 2004 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebitterguyVery much enjoying Everything to Everyone, the new Barenaked Ladies CD. Certainly, the fact I like them probably damns me to a large number of you (to which I reply: pretentious bitches), but these guys were, to put it in simple terms, my college band. No, literally. I saw them during Frosh week at Carl Eton Memorial. Twice. The second time, they closed down the bar they played at and it didn't open for years.
God, I was such a slacker back then. But that's neither here nor there.
ETE is very good, better than Maroon, their last release. The best track on that album was called The Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel, a love song narrated by the victim of a fatal car accident. It's soft, mellow, and utterly tragic, with music that sounds like a carnival calliope.
One thing that grabs me about the new release is the cover art. Ever since we evolved from LP to CD (with the short interregnum of cassette tapes and the hopefully cover art has kinda suffered. CDs just don't have the proper space to showcase good cover art, so we get approximations of cover art. The BNLs have let their cover art evolve over the course of their career.
The previous high point was Born on a Pirate Ship, with a young lad, paper hat on his head, distending his mouth in the standard fashion that'll cause that phrase to come out so delightfully different. Stunt and Maroon both had unengaging cover art.
EtE has a painted photo-realistic cover, depicting the five band members standing in front of a sunset, mountains in the distance, a banner flapping above their heads.
The image is evocative of old Soviet propaganda art, with less idealism of the form (Steven Page's second chin still visible), with elements of Iwo Jima ;the five standing in a row, behind/beneath their flag, their blood and bodies bound to its principles. The banner is blank, reflecting that being everything to everyone can result in being nothing at all.
The music is the standard pop we've come to expect from them. Since they haven't stopped aging over the past decade, the songs reflect guys going into their thirties, with all the fears and sadness that that includes. Admittedly, that's guys who are millionaires going into their thirties, but hey. You can't be in Grade 9 for the rest of your life.
The Catchy Pop Hit of the album is Another Postcard, about a guy slowly being driven mad by someone sending him chimp decorated postcards from far away. Really, that's it. I haven't seen the video, but I'll bet you money it involved monkeys. Possibly monkeys performing the song while someone receives postcards with pictures of the band on it, but that's just one idea.
My two favourite songs on the album are Maybe, Katy about the 'hazards' of dating an older woman, and War on Drugs, about the medication of the crazy. WoD even mentions the Bloor St. viaduct and the Luminous Veil designed to prevent suicide leaps from that structure.
Really, you should never take music advice from me. I'm tone deaf, and not very critical. But EtE is a very enjoyable collection of music. If you enjoyed the BNL any time in the past decade and a bit, you'll probably enjoy this album. If you haven't, but are just suffering from a premature midlife crisis, this is cheaper than a sports car. And more dignified.
God, I was such a slacker back then. But that's neither here nor there.
ETE is very good, better than Maroon, their last release. The best track on that album was called The Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel, a love song narrated by the victim of a fatal car accident. It's soft, mellow, and utterly tragic, with music that sounds like a carnival calliope.
One thing that grabs me about the new release is the cover art. Ever since we evolved from LP to CD (with the short interregnum of cassette tapes and the hopefully cover art has kinda suffered. CDs just don't have the proper space to showcase good cover art, so we get approximations of cover art. The BNLs have let their cover art evolve over the course of their career.
The previous high point was Born on a Pirate Ship, with a young lad, paper hat on his head, distending his mouth in the standard fashion that'll cause that phrase to come out so delightfully different. Stunt and Maroon both had unengaging cover art.
EtE has a painted photo-realistic cover, depicting the five band members standing in front of a sunset, mountains in the distance, a banner flapping above their heads.
The image is evocative of old Soviet propaganda art, with less idealism of the form (Steven Page's second chin still visible), with elements of Iwo Jima ;the five standing in a row, behind/beneath their flag, their blood and bodies bound to its principles. The banner is blank, reflecting that being everything to everyone can result in being nothing at all.
The music is the standard pop we've come to expect from them. Since they haven't stopped aging over the past decade, the songs reflect guys going into their thirties, with all the fears and sadness that that includes. Admittedly, that's guys who are millionaires going into their thirties, but hey. You can't be in Grade 9 for the rest of your life.
The Catchy Pop Hit of the album is Another Postcard, about a guy slowly being driven mad by someone sending him chimp decorated postcards from far away. Really, that's it. I haven't seen the video, but I'll bet you money it involved monkeys. Possibly monkeys performing the song while someone receives postcards with pictures of the band on it, but that's just one idea.
My two favourite songs on the album are Maybe, Katy about the 'hazards' of dating an older woman, and War on Drugs, about the medication of the crazy. WoD even mentions the Bloor St. viaduct and the Luminous Veil designed to prevent suicide leaps from that structure.
Really, you should never take music advice from me. I'm tone deaf, and not very critical. But EtE is a very enjoyable collection of music. If you enjoyed the BNL any time in the past decade and a bit, you'll probably enjoy this album. If you haven't, but are just suffering from a premature midlife crisis, this is cheaper than a sports car. And more dignified.
