At 09:35 PM 12/18/2003 -0700, Will Harris wrote:
>> Have to beg to differ on this one....not the part about BNL being a "joke
>> band", but the part about "One Week" painting them into a corner. Check
>your
>> recent history. "One Week" broke them OUT of that cycle. It got them US
>> national television exposure, the cover of Rolling Stone, and sell-out
>> stadium shows across the USA -- something they weren't capable of doing
>> until they stopped wearing cut-off shorts on stage and started getting
>Top40
>> radio play.
>
>Perhaps it broke them out of one corner and into another one, then...one
>where they push a song with goofy lyrics to the masses.  On the whole, I
>think I preferred the first corner, where they were paying tribute to a
>genius in a sandbox...

Yeah, but look at the singles that came out since then: "It's All Been
Done," "Pinch Me," "Falling For The First Time," "Thanks That Was Fun."
Not one of those songs is goofy, not even the one with the "under
there"/"underwear" rhyme.  

I'm confused by what you're saying here, regardless.  Are you saying that
the early Barenaked Ladies records, the ones with songs like "The King of
Bedside Manor," "Grade Nine" and "Alternative Girlfriend," are LESS goofy
than the last three?

>I haven't heard anything from the new album except for the single...and the
>single was so awful that, for the first time since "Maybe You Should Drive"
>was released, I didn't buy their new album on its day of release...and, in
>fact, I STILL haven't bought it.  Christ, that song is bad.  Something about
>gorillas and postcards or something...?  Terrible.

"Another Postcard," which the band themselves have said is a deliberate
throwback to the much sillier days of GORDON, because they were hit with a
lot of criticism that MAROON was too serious.  Um, hi, member of the band
practically fucking died.  That's gonna be a downer when it comes to
songwriting time.  

Personally, I like the single, although there's at least three or four
songs I like better on the album, which I think is probably their strongest
collection of songs since their first album.  (STUNT and MAROON, though I
like them much better than MAYBE YOU SHOULD DRIVE and BORN ON A PIRATE
SHIP, are both kind of uneven records; EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE is far more
consistent.)

S