When Canadian popsters Barenaked Ladies broke through to the US mainstream in 1998 on the strength of their ridiculously fun and catchy single One Week, there were three camps that became fully entrenched. The first camp was those who hated that song, and therefore, they were going to hate EVERYTHING BNL. The second camp was those who were huge fans who wondered why it took the band a solid six years to really break through in the first place. And the third camp was those who liked/loved One Week and went on to discover the rest of BNL's catalog.
While I enjoy a good deal of BNL's past catalog, and while I seem to be one of the few who seem to really enjoy their two most recent releases (2000's Maroon, and 2003's Everything to Everyone), to me, the band has never come close to matching the pure giddy fun of their 1992 debut, Gordon.
More casual fans of the band will want Gordon because it is here where popular songs such as Brian Wilson, If I Had $1,000,000, and Be My Yoko Ono were originally featured. The song named for the Beach Boys' genius is a terrific pop song, with some wonderfully witty lines ("You can call me Pavlov's dog, Ring a bell and I'll salivate"), and some of vocalist Steven Page's best recorded work. $1,000,000 is a sweet love song done with what would become the Ladies' trademark brand of humor and goofiness. The one popular song that I've never been crazy about is Ono. I find the song to be unbelievably grating and well, irritating.
But anyone who would buy Gordon just for those three songs and procede to ignore the rest of the album would be missing a ton of other great songs. The opening duo of Hello City (with it's jazzy and groovy trombone parts) and Enid start the album off with a solid mix of jangly acoustic guitar and solid work from the rhythm section of bassist Jim Creeggan and drummer Tyler Stewart.
But while most people seem to corner the Ladies into the acoustipop corner, especially when discussing their earlier material, it's important to delve into the other sides of the band, as on the reggae-sounding Grade 9, or the moody domestic abuse ballad The Flag, which stands with Stunt'sCall and Answer as one of the greatest ballads Steven Page has ever written. The song is haunting, both in its music and the way Page sings it.
The band takes a few pot shots at a certain boy band on New Kid (On The Block, although the song could just as easily be seen as a rail against overindulgent fame. I Love You has a great jazzy flow to it, just an old school Sinatra cool to it that is refreshing to hear.
Gordon, more than anything else, is just good pop songcraft. The lyrics are solid, the band isn't always singing something depressing, rather, they mix it up well between lighthearted songs and serious songs. Outside of Ono, I enjoy every single song on the album an awful lot. I can't say that about any other BNL album, as good as some of them are. While I think that they have actually become better songwriters in the time since Gordon was released, they have not matched this album's consistency.
If you want to know if BNL is for you, and all you've heard are the songs radio plays, I strongly suggest you start with Gordon. It is a perfect mix of styles and represents who BNL are better than any other disc.
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