Barenaked Ladies – Barenaked Ladies Are Me

Barenaked Ladies – Barenaked Ladies Are Me

A while back, I wrote about the Barenaked Ladies podcast, “Live from the studio, Freaking Out.” The band began podcasting in February and has, with somewhat less frequency, continued to do so with their latest podcast that was released on August 31st. I listened to all of them and realized that I felt, for the first time in their career, that I really wanted to hear their new album. So, under the advice and/or mind control of BNL frontman Stephen Page, I pre-ordered the Barenaked Ladies Are Me: Super Duper Fantastic Morally & Socially Redeeming Deluxe Edition (actually it’s just called the Barenaked Ladies Are Me: Deluxe Edition).


Question: Was I a marketing push over? Did they, as they say, see me coming?

Answer: Possibly, but I prefer to think that I just had a lot of time invested.

Anyway, the Deluxe Edition of Barenaked Ladies Are Me has a whopping thirty tracks as opposed to the standard version’s thirteen...or fifteen if you buy it from the iTunes Music Store. You may be thinking that for someone who’s a casual fan of the band, thirty tracks seem like a lot.


Question: Was I duped by the evil and subliminal marketing strategies of the BNL sales juggernaut?

Answer: Most definitely, but you know what?

Barenaked Ladies Are Me is a really good album…not only the first thirteen “official” songs, but additional seventeen as well. That being said…


Here are my first impressions of Barenaked Ladies Are Me:

* With fear of sounding cliché, this album was recorded by a more mature BNL…not necessarily a more serious BNL mind you, just more mature.

* The album still has that signature BNL “tongue in cheek” feel, but it is not afraid to venture beyond that signature BNL “tongue in cheek” feel.

* The album seems to have a more raucous feel to it.

* There seem to be lots of guitars…lots of electric guitars.

* It feels like a more “electric” album than their past albums.

* There are very good instrumental and vocal performances by everyone.

* Bob Clearmountain did a great job mixing the disc.

* There seem to be infinitely more Ed songs on this album than usual…which is a good thing.

* Speaking of Ed…I love the line, “I was a baby when I learned to suck, but you have raised it to an art form” from Wind It Up.

All in all, I think Barenaked Ladies Are Me, in which ever form you find it; the normal edition, the normal edition with bonus tracks, the expanded edition, deluxe edition or the extremely rare and hard to find (not the least of which is because it doesn’t exist) supercalifragilisticexpialidocious edition; is a winner. By the way, you don’t have to feel too bad if you only managed to find a normal, thirteen song edition of Barenaked Ladies Are Me because the band has plans to release Barenaked Ladies Are Men, a follow up disc, in the new year that should contain most of the other tracks from the deluxe edition.