Barenaked Ladies are Mean

Last Updated on: 8th December 2013, 09:52 am

You know what’s sad? When a really good band releases an awesome album, and then follows it up immediately with something that spends half the time sucking monkey balls and half being sort of kind of decent. Why did the Barenaked Ladies have to do that?

They released Barenaked Ladies Are Me. It rocked! It was cool! I don’t think there’s a song on there that I don’t at least like, and lots on there that I love. Plus that album will always have a special significance because of getting to see them live right after listening to it, but I think it still would have been a cool album without the concert.

Then they go and release Barenaked Ladies are Men. Ug why why why? Let’s be logical. If you know this album consists of 16 rejects from the good album, why would you think it’s a good idea to throw them all in the same album? Maybe it’s time to rethink this. You’re a good band, obviously you know what a *reject* is. Why would you release them all together? Maybe, if you thought they were ok enough to put on albums, you could squish them into albumvs slowly. But why make all your crap stand out?

It’s a strange album. I don’t know if I could really properly judge it because the crappy crap makes the sorta good stuff seem like the best stuff you’ve ever heard in your life. I did rip about half of the album because it was either listenable or I liked it. But the stuff that sucked, oh it sucksucksucksucked! It was like you were on a treadmill, never going anywhere. It actually made me try and figure out what makes good music good. Should I have to do that? I thought about how I like a pattern in music, but what’s wrong with this pattern, and why is it boring?

When I listen to an album of theirs the first time, I like to give it all my attention, but the sucky stuff was so monotonous that I started doing other things, and waiting, praying for the song to end. Some stuff would start off sucking right from the beginning, and some songs would make you think they had potential, and then promptly crap all over themselves. And some songs would just go on too long.

And then there were the few good songs. They did a really good one about the George W. Bush government, that oddly sounded like Bank Job from Barenaked Ladies are Me…which brings me to another point. They must have really liked that Bank Job tune, because they created 3 songs along the same lines. It’s pretty neat that you can make 3 different songs out of the same tune, two of them being good. The third one was just weird. Quality biology enhanced with high technology? What the hell? Oh well, they’re the Barenaked Ladies, and if they can get away with “Hey I’m a cow, I’m curious, hey watch me now, I’m furious.” I guess they can do this.

So the moral of the story is this album is far from hot stuff. If you really want it, wait for someone to buy it, go “blech!” and turn it in so you can buy it used. Otherwise, I think you can do without it. You, and your pocketbook, will be much happier, trust me.

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