Look, every band and musician has their own Kool-Aid drinkers, the rabid devotees who jumped on the bandwagon early, likely for good reason: the music spoke to them.
For these guys, I have to confess I thought of them mostly as a novelty band, and certainly they have a wicked sense of humor which they're not afraid to display. But there's more, so much more to these guys than "One Week" and some of the other funny tunes. The word that keeps coming into my mind is "competence".
Pam suggested that that was 'damning with faint praise'. But it's really not. It means they are good at every aspect of what they do. These guys have listened to a lot of music, from '50s through now, and have remembered everything they ever heard. They write hard rocking pieces that might have been written by AC/DC, followed by power ballads that Journey would have written and recorded if they were, you know, actually good.
And the thing is, they do it without irony or ego, just with talent. There's no pompousness or posing, except in fun. Thus, they skewer many of the bands they quote, by doing similar music stylings, but in an earnest manner.
He posts some good videos, too.
I became aware of The Barenaked Ladies accidentally, myself. They did a Saturday morning musical interlude in, oh, 1993 or so, in which Ed Robertson was dressed as some sort of shiny alien, singing about how it's okay to be different. I had a toddler; it wormed its way into my consciousness. Thers brought actual albums into the house, and we've been fans ever since. "If I Had a Million Dollars" is a fave of the 7YO, who likes to focus on the monkey content. But I've never seen them live.
But they ask that we post a user-submitted video, and you know I'm all about that crap.
And one for Rosie & the 7YO, that their Aunt Jenny found:
Enjoy!
5 comments:
Those puppets sing beautifully :)
I got into BNL because I live near the Ontario border and I think it's the law in Canada that BNL get radio play about once an hour. That's ok though. (NYC has the same law regarding Bruuuuuuce.) Their best song, IMHO, is the cover of "Fight the Power". It SO totally rocks.
:)
Hey thanks!
It was really as I stated, I knew they were good, but I had no idea how good.
Later!
I saw BNL last year before Christmas. They're so much fun. I had terrible seats and still it was such a full on blast.
"power ballads that Journey would have written and recorded if they were, you know, actually good."
Er, I LIKED Journey. A lot of people liked Journey.
Back BEFORE they became a sad shadow of what they were, that is.
Er, I LIKED Journey. A lot of people liked Journey.
Back BEFORE they became a sad shadow of what they were, that is.
I understand. They took a ton of musical talent and turned it into Nutrisweet.
Sad, really, because I liked them too, for the pop machine that they were. But I tired of Steve Perry using 14 syllables to sing the word 'night'.
While I worked at Capitol Studios, the talked about coming in to do an album with producer Elliot Scheiner. Our general feeling was, I think I have a Dr.'s appointment that day.
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