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Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies Are Me
(Desperation/Nettwerk)
First Appeared in The Music Box, September 2006, Volume 13, #9
Written by John Metzger
There always have been both campy and serious aspects to Barenaked Ladies’
music, and its material has fared best whenever these opposing concepts have
remained in equilibrium. The problem the band increasingly has faced, however,
is that the more it has striven for maturity, the more its clownish behavior has
felt forced. Add to this the notions that its audience has begun to outgrow its
oddball lyrics and goofy antics as well as that it has become fashionable to
deride Barenaked Ladies for the same reasons that it once was beloved, and the
makings for a full-scale implosion are in place. This is precisely what occurred
when the ensemble issued its 2003 endeavor Everything to Everyone.
Although the title of the set poked fun at the band’s marketing approach, and
its contents weren’t substantively different from what had been successful in
the past, the album largely was met with a general sense of apathy by critics
and fans alike. With the release of Barenaked for the Holidays, the
Canadian outfit opted to regroup by taking more control over its music, and in
opening its latest outing Barenaked Ladies Are Me with the gentle,
melancholy refrains of Adrift, the group further has signaled that it
wants to be taken more seriously.
Although there remains a charmingly childish quality to some of Barenaked
Ladies’ lyrics — the details of a foiled heist in Bank Job, for example,
are divulged in a clever fashion, while the playful Bull in a China Shop
is riddled with overused clichés (though
that also is precisely the point of the song) — Barenaked Ladies Are Me,
when taken in its entirety, finds the band sounding decidedly more relaxed as it
delivers its pop-oriented refrains. On Wind It Up, the group recasts They
Might Be Giants as a southern rock ensemble, and on Sound of Your Voice,
it giddily merges Journey with Queen while also adding dashes of both Electric
Light Orchestra and The Beach Boys.
As he hinted on Everything to Everyone’s Testing 1, 2, 3, Ed
Robertson has grown tired of being pigeonholed as the guy who delivers the fast
rapping, nonsensical fare, and not surprisingly, he ditched this aspect of his
work completely on Barenaked Ladies Are Me. The problem, however, is that
in the process of trying to move beyond its past, Barenaked Ladies has lost some
of the factors that initially made its music unique. Too often, the band settles
for subdued, run-of-the-mill songs in a folk-pop vein — Easy, Home,
and Maybe You’re Right, among them — that are utterly indistinguishable
from those of the countless other acts that are traversing the same terrain.
It’s possible that, one day soon, Barenaked Ladies will find a way out of its
downward spiral, but as Barenaked Ladies Are Me makes plain, turning
itself into another generic alt-rock outfit isn’t the answer.  ½
Barenaked Ladies Are Me is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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