I'm starting a thread about the Barenaked Ladies.

[IWasBored]

i don't quite think i could handle hearing "the old apartment" without mr. page on lead vocals. that does not sit well with me at all.

talked about it too much and ended up having to take a listen. well, i regret doing that. now to bum myself out even more and listen to million dollars...

oh wow, that was horrible.

 

[thatsnotmypuppy]

There is a list of songs I shall deliver in writing in person on Feb 13 that they should not touch!! Ah then again that may not go down too well.

I will say this - if they even try 'War On Drugs' as a 4 piece I am done with them. And 'What A Good Boy' or 'Break Your Heart'. Steve is the superior balladeer of the group - but I love more Ed songs as it were. 'Pinch Me', 'Told You So', 'Bank Job', 'These Apples'...

While I love 'Pirate Ship' I am personally torn between 'Maybe I Should Drive' and 'Everything To Everyone'. 'For You' is an almost perfect pop song.

 

[VintagePunk]

talked about it too much and ended up having to take a listen. well, i regret doing that. now to bum myself out even more and listen to million dollars...

oh wow, that was horrible.

I listened to one of the boots they offered through their website a while after Page left, got a few minutes into it, and just couldn't do it anymore. I wish them well, but it's just an entirely different band now.

I feel incredibly bitter about him leaving, which is insane, I know. I'd love to hear the story behind it, though.


Speaking of Kevin Hearn, about a month or so ago, we heard that he was going to make an appearance at a trendy new coffee shop here in town, as part of this arts night/pub crawl deal. We were going to go, but then a day or two before, it was clarified that it wasn't musical, they were just doing an exhibition of his art, so, we kind of left it as "eh, maybe we'll check it out," but then we didn't. Heard a few days later though that he did pop in and do a short acoustic set. I'm sorry I missed it, but it sounds like it was an impromptu thing, and short of staking out the coffee shop for the weekend, there was no way of knowing.

 

[cobl04]

they recorded the big bang theory theme song; a from me.

 

[IWasBored]

I listened to one of the boots they offered through their website a while after Page left, got a few minutes into it, and just couldn't do it anymore. I wish them well, but it's just an entirely different band now.

I feel incredibly bitter about him leaving, which is insane, I know. I'd love to hear the story behind it, though.

bands can go on for years with significant (ie frontman/half the primary songwriting team) line-up changes and be just as good as they were before, but they're never the same band. it's kind of petty-sounding, i'd just feel a lot better about it (not just in this case, but with anyone) if they changed the name when it happens.


i saw a really long video on youtube taped from a candian radio/tv something or other page did. think that's the most of a "story" you're going to get. i don't want to know why, i don't really care whether it was artistic differences combined with oh well we can't have a coke fiend in a band when we're putting out children's music any more than i would care if it was because someone woke up one day and decided they were no longer allowed to have people whose names started with the letter S in the band.

 

[IWasBored]

There is a list of songs I shall deliver in writing in person on Feb 13 that they should not touch!! Ah then again that may not go down too well.

I will say this - if they even try 'War On Drugs' as a 4 piece I am done with them. And 'What A Good Boy' or 'Break Your Heart'. Steve is the superior balladeer of the group - but I love more Ed songs as it were. 'Pinch Me', 'Told You So', 'Bank Job', 'These Apples'...

While I love 'Pirate Ship' I am personally torn between 'Maybe I Should Drive' and 'Everything To Everyone'. 'For You' is an almost perfect pop song.

haha. yeah, there's a long list or stuff. looooooong list. only official boot show i took a look at setlist-wise was the thing that's streaming on the band's official site. and aside from so-called classic hit-type stuff, i was glad to see that there really wasn't a whole lot of non-ed stuff going on. if it were up to me, it would be like sorry folks, you don't get to hear the old apartment or million bucks anymore. hardcore fans might agree with me, but i've seen the band live. i've seen a lot of bands live. and i'm not going to be naiive enough to think that the bulk of the people in the crowd would even notice page is gone. i see they're playing in worcester next month, and on the list of reasons i won't be going is i really don't want to overhear some idiot standing next to me say, "hey, where'd the goofy guy with the glasses go? he was funny." because that would happen. i always end up standing next to that moron. as i was saying, they kind of have to keep those songs in the setlist to keep the casual fans coming. so i know why they do it with the songs that might be easier to alter. still sucks, though, and i still hate to hear it.



i love maybe you should drive. part two of the music-listening-history-of-iwasbored (part one being a couple long, rambling posts i made in one of the incarnations of the beatles remastered threads) revolves around a lot of mainstream late 90s alt-rock radio stuff, BNL being the most important band personally in that story if i were to subject you folks to it. but i won't. don't worry. anyway, i love maybe you should drive. but most of the songs i like are the "jane," "you will be waiting," "alternate girlfriend," "everything old is new" steven page stuff. "am i the only one," "these apples" are good songs, but i'm looking through the song credits and seeing that it's no contest, i prefer page's stuff. however, that might all be moot since "life in a nutshell" was a combined effort and the absolute best song on the album.



oh, totally agree regarding "for you." that song is perfect. actually, since i saw this thread bumped, and it coinciding with me hearing bnl on the radio and realizing it's been a while since i've really listened to them, i listened to everything to everyone quite a few times. that and bnl are me, mostly because i never gave them the hardcore spins in the cd player that i did to maroon and everything before it. pirate ship got beat up pretty good, i smashed the case up quite a bit over the years and it's scratched to hell. stomach vs heart skips like a sonofabitch. but i bought it in 1998 and the album itself was a couple years old by then, anyway. so i've had a lot of years to play the crap out of it. when the last two came out there were a lot of other bands i was listening to, they didn't immediately grab me as OMGTOTALLYAWESOME like the older stuff did when i first heard it. i'm seeing now that there were actually a lot of really good songs on those albums, and i'm enjoying them quite a bit. "for you" definitely being one of those songs.

 

[thatsnotmypuppy]

Ah - good choices - 'E2E' is one very under-rated album. 'War On Drugs' is awesome - there is a live boot I have somewhere where Steve sings with such absolute venom

From the very fear that makes you want to die
Is just the same as what keeps you alive
It's way more trouble than some fuckingsuicide is worth

It floors me eveytime. I think his sister (?) killed herself - and as such he stated in a few interviews that it is the most personal song he has ever written. Thus if BNL mark 2 even tried it on... nope. Nuh uh.

As for 'Are Me/Are Men' - I got the deluxe edition with 29 or something songs - I will admit I haven't bothered listening to it more than once or twice. I will give it another spin though.

Being Australian we only ever had one big BNL hit - 'One Week' - and I kind of worked backwards from there before catching up with them again around the 'E2E' era. I think I latched on to 'MYSD' as it was very, very mellow after the frenetic cheesefest of 'Gordon'. Oy! After the first listen of 'Gordon' I almost gave up! I absolutely agree that 'Life In A Nutshell' and 'You Will Be Waiting' are the stand outs. Since it looks like we will get a solo album and tour from Mr Page sooner rather than later I hope he feels he has the right to bust out some of his BNL contributions.

It's weird - looking back over their stuff so many songs trigger huge memories - thats the sign of a keeper. It has been 11 years since 'One Week' and I have to say they have probably been the one group I have never failed to buy a new album from. I admit - I still dont own 'NLOTH' for instance...

 

[IWasBored]

I admit - I still dont own 'NLOTH' for instance...

neither do i.




been listening to the vanity project while i play video games the last couple days, too. digging it quite more than i did when it came out, actually.


when i saw bnl on the E2E tour, "war on drugs" was definitely a highlight of the show. i got a little ticked off when the entire fucking floor sat down, save for me, my mother, brother (who i told to get back up, just cos it's a quiet song you don't sit) and a handful of random other people scattered throughout the crowd. hey, that reminds me i didn't pull the bootleg of that show off the shelf when delved into the catalogue the other day. you know, along the same lines, i think "this is where it ends" is a truly underrated fan-fucking-tastic song, too.

fucking hell, i wish my ipod hadn't gotten lost/stolen. this discman/computer speakers shit is LAME. how did i ever listen to music like this before the advent of that awesome bit of technology?

 

[VintagePunk]

bands can go on for years with significant (ie frontman/half the primary songwriting team) line-up changes and be just as good as they were before, but they're never the same band. it's kind of petty-sounding, i'd just feel a lot better about it (not just in this case, but with anyone) if they changed the name when it happens.


i saw a really long video on youtube taped from a candian radio/tv something or other page did. think that's the most of a "story" you're going to get. i don't want to know why, i don't really care whether it was artistic differences combined with oh well we can't have a coke fiend in a band when we're putting out children's music any more than i would care if it was because someone woke up one day and decided they were no longer allowed to have people whose names started with the letter S in the band.

Thanks for that video mention, I'd never seen it before. I just watched it, and...I don't know, I could be wrong, but a lot of it doesn't ring true for me. They've all done their share of side projects over the years, and the band seemed to always be very accommodating to individual members working on other things. Who knows.

I think my interest and (admittedly irrational) feelings of betrayal lie in the whole Canadian thing. They were one of my bands, dammit, and I'm offended that they did this to me (cue self-righteous anger). They were always supposed to be there.

I got looking at their wiki page to see when I actually became a fan - because at this juncture, my brain is too full of other crap to hang onto such trivial matters - and it was remarkably early, earlier than I'd thought. Pre or circa Yellow Tape. I distinctly remember the nonsense about their planned appearance at Toronto city hall being cancelled. They were getting regular radio airplay around here for quite some time before that.

Apropos to nothing, perhaps, I just saw another Page interview at a Calgary music festival this past summer, and he looked awfully thin. That kind of raised some red flags, but hopefully I'm being unduly suspicious, and he's on some fitness regime, or something.

Where is fah? She needs to chime in here.

 

[IWasBored]

Thanks for that video mention, I'd never seen it before. I just watched it, and...I don't know, I could be wrong, but a lot of it doesn't ring true for me. They've all done their share of side projects over the years, and the band seemed to always be very accommodating to individual members working on other things. Who knows.

I think my interest and (admittedly irrational) feelings of betrayal lie in the whole Canadian thing. They were one of my bands, dammit, and I'm offended that they did this to me (cue self-righteous anger). They were always supposed to be there.

I got looking at their wiki page to see when I actually became a fan - because at this juncture, my brain is too full of other crap to hang onto such trivial matters - and it was remarkably early, earlier than I'd thought. Pre or circa Yellow Tape. I distinctly remember the nonsense about their planned appearance at Toronto city hall being cancelled. They were getting regular radio airplay around here for quite some time before that.

Apropos to nothing, perhaps, I just saw another Page interview at a Calgary music festival this past summer, and he looked awfully thin. That kind of raised some red flags, but hopefully I'm being unduly suspicious, and he's on some fitness regime, or something.

Where is fah? She needs to chime in here.

yeah, i didn't watch the whole thing. it just bummed me out more about him no longer being in the band.

i didn't get into them until much later, like the bulk of us americans who didn't get into the band til one week. way back on page one of this thread i mentioned disliking the gordon stuff, it was actually kind of funny--i knew who the band was before one week came out, a couple of my friends were into them. they had gordon, but i was still so anti-any music not the beatles at the time that i hated them. loathed brian wilson in particular. i started warming up to some other bands: metallica, third eye blind, smash mouth and some other stuff i'd be ashamed to admit i still have a soft spot for. and one week came out, so i heard it on the radio and liked it, then had to give gordon another chance once i found out crap, this is that band i hated! also, as i said, they were my first concert. so yeah, they've always been my band too, and they've always been there even when my music taste branched out to the library it is today. it really sucks that half of what made them so awesome is no longer there.

 

[thatsnotmypuppy]

Appropriate bump time.

I see we didn't really discuss the 'All In Good Time' era at all and now we have 'Grinning Streak' - released just a few days back. I am giving 'GS' it's first spin and at the halfway mark my initial thoughts are they've really gotten into the electronics this time - and its a bit of an uneasy mix. 'Boomerang' was a poor choice of first single - 'Limits' is far more interesting and on first listen I had to check I had put the right CD in - quite a ballsy opening. 'Off His Head' is like nothing they have done before while 'Odds Are' sounds like it could be a huge hit if it was by pretty much anyone else.

'Gonna Walk' is classic BNL, while 'Give It Back To You'' could have been a 'Maroon' era track. 'Keepin It Real' sounds like Ed is pissed off - which actually kind of works. 'Best Damn Friend' is business as usual - nothing exceptional.

So far - so very interesting. And unlike 'All In Good Time' I am not missing Steve. The songs thus far work very well with just Ed and are not lacking that bit of oomph that Mr Page brought to the table. However I am well aware that a few BNL albums are quite frontloaded and the second half could be a g_dawful mess.

 

[bono_212]

I can't believe how miserable I am about seeing them live next month, but it just feels so hollow.

 

[thatsnotmypuppy]

That's the tour with Ben Folds Five and Guster? What is there to hate? The new album is pretty solid thus far - minimal Kevin Hearn wackiness - should be good live. Yeah there is no Steve - however their back catalogue is strong enough to fill a couple of hours with hits/well know tracks that are Ed-centric.

 

[bono_212]

Ben folds is why we are going. We managed the one to show on the tour without Guster for some reason though. I'm a little bummed about that to be honest. I don't love Guster or anything. But the song Amsterdam is pretty great.

 

[IWasBored]

I never listened to the last Page-less album, and I probably won't listen to this one either. On the other hand, I didn't really enjoy Page's solo stuff either (minus about two or three songs from the vanity album, but that was a while ago now). Everything to Everyone could probably be pinpointed as the real end of the band for me. A re-hash of pinch me as a lead single, that dreadful album cover, a handful of good tunes amidst some mediocrity, then followed by a wholly forgettable album and one of the most depressing concerts I've ever been to (the blame mostly goes to the godawful audience, miserable ticket sales where I saw them, and my own shitty seats--surrounded by a bunch of people so fat I thought they weren't getting up because they were stuck--until they repeatedly un-wedged themselves from between the armrests to make food court runs to feed).

Gordon through Maroon is still a fantastic run of albums. And I will defend born on a pirate ship to the death, although I will probably keep my personal reasons for doing so to myself, and the Jim Creegan songs on it really are trash...I wonder if a current QuickTime will recognize the videos on the enhanced cd portion. I should check.



Hey, where's mofo? My opinions have been almost scarily consistent over the years of this thread's existence.

 

[IWasBored]

As for Guster, I haven't listened to them since Lost and Gone Forever. And it's been so long I had to look up what the album was even called. There were 3 songs I really liked, and the rest was kinda blah.

 

[bono_212]

Another Postcard was the breaking point for me. But, I really enjoy Barenaked for the Holidays, you can call it the end after that.

Edit: ah wait, Easy was on Barenaked Ladies are Me, which is one of my favorite songs by them, and of course, 789 was a lot of fun. Bah, just call it the end when Steve left.

 

[IWasBored]

Either way, I have very little interest in bnl 2.0.

 

[thatsnotmypuppy]

And I have 100% respect in that stand. I - however - have always preferred an Ed vocal to a Steve (though I do like a lot of his solo stuff). Either way the first 8 tracks of the new album are worth at least a glance. As expected the last 6 odd songs are their standard filler(though not terrible by any means) - however it is good that they are trying new things.

Find a stream and check it out - and as for Guster, they've never really been my bag - but I do like 'Amsterdam', 'One Man Wrecking Machine' (one of the best video clips out there) and I think the other song is called 'Fa Fa Fa'?

 

[IWasBored]

So I made the mistake of watching the bad day video. I mean odds are. Sorry, I get doomsday news themed music videos mixed up.

 

[bono_212]

I gotta say, that song is growing on me. It's really lame, lyrically, but I like the music.

 

[IWasBored]

After I got done thinking "wow, Ed looks really old," I went right back to missing the old version of the band. At least that song is catchy. It's just not good. And the video...it's all been done...yeah...

But it seems like it would be a good night to make my way backwards through the solid part of the band's discography (which is apparently Gordon through Maroon, to me).

 

[bono_212]

I have to disagree. The theme of the video's been done before, but this version was fun to watch. I laughed through most of it and the ticker was just great. Only thing I didn't like was how much Jim was overacting. Everyone else was playing it cool, but he was unrealistic from the start.

 

[IWasBored]

I'm sure someone did the newscast thing before rem, and yeah it is a bit different with volcanos and aliens and shit. The song was catchy enough, more so than any of the other BNL version 2.0 songs I've heard. Is just the same old story I've been bitching about for the parts of this thread since Page has been gone.

I should just drop my email off the official site's list. Cos it bums me out every time I just delete them without reading them. Kind of why I actually opened this email and watched the video, cos I'm really not entirely content to live in the mid to late 90s, revisiting my mid teens and such when it comes to this band. And despite whatever total lack of taste credibility it gives me to say so, we're still talking about one of the top 5 bands that are most important to me.

 

[bono_212]

I know what you mean. I love the band, I can't really let them go. The worst part is that only now have I finally seen them live. I loved it, but, it just wasn't the same. I hope that we get the reunion thing going soon. You know it'll happen eventually.

 

[IWasBored]

Ok, that odds are song is actually pretty decent. Unfortunately, I don't feel that way about any of the other new ones I've heard.


They were the first concert I went to (well, where I actually wanted to see the band. I think my mother took me to a Clancy brothers concert when I was 6 or something), Stunt tour 1999. It was awesome, and I got hit in the head with a whole box of Kraft Mac n cheese during If I Had $1000000. I've still got the t shirt.

 

[The Panther]

I got re-acquainted with 'Another Postcard' recently, not having heard it for 12 years or something, and I still think it's great. Catchy as hell, and, yeah, insubstantial and quirky, but that's kinda BNL in general.

I'm Canadian, so yeah I was there right from Gordon. They've never been one of my favorites, but I like what they do (did?). There's certainly a place for that.

(As an aside, perhaps this thread could have been titled 'Barenaked Ladies', not 'I'm starting a thread about the Barenaked Ladies'. Otherwise, we might henceforth feel like titling every thread thusly, and I, for one, do not want to see 57 threads titled: 'I'm starting a thread about whether Pop was crap or the greatest album of all time', etc.)

 

[IWasBored]

The phrasing of the title was relevant at the time, before I realized you as created some idiotic and arbitrary rules of the Internet on thread titles. Now that you know what it's called, you shouldn't have that problem. The fact that this is post 148 should clue you in to how ancient this thread is now. Shouldn't be an issue for anyone slightly smarter than the average eykiw troll.

 

[bono_212]

I can't even read the rest of Panther's post because he said "Another Postcard" is a good song.

 

[IWasBored]

Also a fair point.