Ah, those wacky Barenaked guys. They try so hard to be hip,
\nedgy, and quirky. From “You Can Be My Yoko Ono” through the Gen-X
\nangst of “Jane” up to their breakout in America, “One Week”,
\nthey’ve proven themselves at their best to be glib, funny, manic,
\npensive dispensers of clever rock and roll.<\/p>\n
The problem is that it appears they’ve begun to read their own
\npress.
\nMaroon<\/i> is interesting, to be sure. It has some good moments.
\nBut, ultimately, it’s no
\nStunt<\/i>; it’s more uneven, with a couple of downright clunky
\nmoments.<\/p>\n
Let’s look at the good first. The musicianship is better – and
\nBarenaked Ladies were never slouches there to begin with. The
\narrangements and melodic structure are tight and well executed, and
\nvocalists Steven Page and Ed Robertson just keep getting better.
\nDon Was’ production adds a nice glitter and refinement without
\nsacrificing BNL’s occasionally rough edges.<\/p>\n
Some of the songs are downright tasty, as well. My favorite by
\nfar is the current single, “Pinch Me”, one of the cheeriest
\nexpressions of utter suburban angst and meaningless you ever wanted
\nto wrap your ears around. “Too Little Too Late”, “Never Do
\nAnything”, “Falling For The First Time”, and the irresistibly
\ncatchy “Baby Seat” are all good tunes as well.<\/p>\n
Then, however, there’s the bad. “Tonight Is The Night I Fell
\nAsleep At The Wheel”, “Sell Sell Sell”, and “Conventioneers” all
\nsuffer from the same problem – someone’s trying to be cute, and,
\nbluntly, it doesn’t work. All three songs are done in odd styles
\nthat fail to convey the charm BNL is capable of, and are delivered
\nin a flat, uninspired vocal. Much like a cheap rug, they just lie
\nthere, and their placement on the album pretty much guarantee they
\nwreck any attempt at album-wide energy.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that BNL is resting on their laurels. They
\nknocked out half an album of decent songs, padded it with some
\nbizarre stuff that Steven Page had lying around, and released it
\nfor a public that would go buy the latest album by “those ‘One
\nWeek’ dudes”. It’s not that
\nMaroon<\/i> is a bad CD. It’s not. It’s that it could have,
\nshould have, been much, much better.<\/p>\n
Early in their career, BNL was often compared with fellow
\nCanadian quirk-rockers Moxy Fruvous. The parallels remain – both
\nreleased a CD this year that is so, so much less than it could have
\nbeen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5986],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36774","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-barenaked-ladies","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36774"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36774"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}