Barenaked Ladies - all in good time

[camaj]

Loved BNL are me (men not so much) so looking forward to the new album but worried it's a bit too soon after the last one (edit, has it really been 3 years?!) but more worried if the abscence of page will be a fatal wound. Logically it shouldn't be, the other members have written song as good if not better than page, kevin hearn being a real revelation recently

From wikipedia:
"You Run Away" (Robertson)
"Summertime" (Robertson)
"Another Heartbreak" (Hearn)
"Four Seconds" (Robertson)
"On The Lookout" (Creeggan)
"Ordinary" (Robertson)
"I Have Learned" (Robertson)
"Every Subway Car" (Robertson)
"Jerome" (Hearn)
"How Long" (Robertson)
"Golden Boy" (Robertson)
"I Saw It" (Creeggan)
"The Love We're In" (Robertson)
"Northern Lights" (Hearn)

Release is 23rd of march in canada, a week later in the us, don't know about here

Kryten, can you edit the title of your previous thread to
include the album title, please? "new barenaked ladies album" is a bit vauge.

[Kryten]

Have updated my old thread :)

I'll probably want to hear this before buying it unless it is very cheap.

[camaj]

Cheers!Why will you wait? Are you skeptical it'll be any good?

Don't think i mentioned it before but Paul McCartney said that BNL are his favouite modern band and he'd consider working with them. There's a similarity betweenthem and the beatles but it makes me wonder why they're not more popular than they are, do people consider The Beatles not that good?

[mikegray]

Sad to say I think they're done. Didn't like BNLAM at all, and the new single is dull.

[Woz]

I thought they'd split when Page left!
What made them so amazing was having two extremely talented songwriters who had distinct styles. Not sure it'll work without him :(
Best live act I've ever seen though.

[camaj]

Nope, they said at the time they would carry on. Ed Robinson is every bit as good as Page and Hern has written some excellent stuff so while i expect them to miss him they have enough in reserve to plug the gap.

Then again i loved "Are me" so maybe you won't like AIGT. To be fair, the last album wasn't as catchy but once you get into it, it's great. Love the variety of sounds as opposed to Maroon which was slightly samey. I love Home, Sound of your voice, Bank job and everything has changed and the rest are very very good

[MetalGearAl]

I quite liked You Run Away, but for me Page was my favourite member of BNL, so I'm not quite sure how much I'm going to like their new input. As much as I love Kevin, and some of his solo stuff is good, he isn't a very strong singer and I'm not sure I love his influence on the band's output. Time will tell though.

"Are Men" wasn't that great, but did have a good couple of tracks; Running Out Of Ink is fantastic. Whilst I do prefer Page's singing, Fun & Games was my 2nd favourite track on the album and that's Ed all the way.

[camaj]

I'm not sure what to say, Al. Ed is my favourite member but I don't think either he or Steve are solely responsible for BNL. Either one would have been a big loss but the band would be okay without either one (not both). Are you saying that Steven Page was responsible for all, or the vast majority, of what was good about BNL?

[MetalGearAl]

Nope not at all, but personally I've always preferred "his" songs; even though they're often written by both, it's easy to tell which of the two have had the stronger influence on a particular song, and most of my favourite ones it's been Steve, War on Drugs for example.

It might be because my tastes have also shifted, but whilst I'm looking forward to new stuff from them, I can't see them eclipsing their previous high points for me (around Maroon + Everything To Everyone). It's good to see them coming together and sharing the load amongst themselves and trying out something new.

Listening to You Run Away now, as I mentioned before I like it, certainly better than a lot of Are Men.

[camaj]

That's the second time you mention "Are Men". What about Are Me? Are Men appears to be the tracks they discarded from Are Me, I don't even count it as a proper album. I can't see a difference in the quality of that and the two preceeding it, there are some pretty weak tracks on Maroon.

BTW I just noticed Are Me=Army and Are Men=Amen. Barenaked Ladies Army has a nice ring to it.

[MetalGearAl]

Are Me = Army was an intentional pun :)

Are Men is a full blown album release, I don't think they see it as "discarded tracks". It was going to be a double-sided release but then it got split into two. It's not B-sides for Are Me. Are Me is certainly stronger though - I really like Adrift, Home, Bull In A China Shop + Peterborough

[MetalGearAl]

Have to say first impressions (after 2 listens) aren't bad, however it's very different. This is to be expected I think, since they want to mark it as a significant departure from their last record, wait until you hear Four Seconds.

It seems to run out of steam by the end, but I'm enjoying the initial 1/2 of the album. Will have to see how it stands up to repeated plays.

[MetalGearAl]

After a fair few more listens I'm underwhelmed, I'd say I'm enthusiastic about less than half the album.

As much as I like Kev I just can't get into his songs at all. Jim on the other hand gets some great songs on the album; perhaps it's just their differing singing styles (I really liked Jim's Pollywog and Peterborough from previous albums too, not sure if he wrote them too).

Would say the tracks I like are You Run Away, Summertime, Four Seconds, On The Lookout, Every Subway Car and I Saw It - which is under half the album.

Summertime + Four Seconds are two very different tracks for the band, and taking a look it looks like they were co-written by an outsider to the band, Ian LeFeuvre (from The Hundreds And Thousands), which might explain it.

Actually thinking about it, Kev's last track of Watching The Northern Lights is nice enough.

[MetalGearAl]

Just a heads up, BNL have announced a UK tour - http://barenakedladies.com/shows

Also, they'll be live (via phone) on Iain Lee's Absolute Radio show tonight at around 11:20pm.

Edit: Tour Dates -

Thurs Sept 9th Bristol, Colston Hall
Fri Sept 10th Birmingham, O2 Academy
Sat Sept 11th Southampton, Guildhall
Mon Sep 13th Brighton, Dome
Tues Sept 14th Nottingham, Rock City
Wed Sept 15th London, HMV Hammersmith Apollo
Fri Sept 17th Leeds, O2 Academy
Sat Sept 18th Manchester, Apollo
Sun Sept 19th Cambridge, Corn Exchange
Tues Sept 21st Newcastle, O2 Academy
Wed Sept 22nd Edinburgh, HMV Picture House
Fri Sept 24th Glasgow, O2 Academy
Sun Sept 26th Dublin, Olympia

[Arthur Fowler]

Was just about to post about the dates. Will be going for Cambridge when they go on sale tomorrow. :)

[MetalGearAl]

Southampton is nice and close for me, but the Guildhall is pretty crap so I might consider London. Not going to book the tickets just yet as I don't anticipate they'll sell out.

[camaj]

Completly forgot about this, the wikipedia page reckons the album has received generally good reviews, but I haven't heard much about it. Last time the videos got my attention but maybe I was just looking for them.

I might go to my first ever BNL show. Is it me or is there only one ticket price at Hammersmith?

[camaj]

:thumbs:

[camaj]

Okay, should have posted this earlier but BNL are over here on tour. They were in Glastonbury on friday (can't find footage though) and Glasgow on Saturday. They're playing koko in London and I'm going! Woo!

I hope they don't play too much of the current album, I've only listened to it a few times, it's even worse than Maybe you should drive and Born on a pirate ship, which the band themselves regard as weak. I just hope that they rushed this one to get something out post-Page.

[camaj]

Not bad last night. A good mixture of old and new, by which I mean very little new :thumbs:

At one point Ed said "We've heard you and understand that you want less of the old hits and more songs from the new album" Presumably he was being ironic, or at least I would have been had it been me. They then sang a song from the new album but I haven't the faintest idea what it was.

At one point Ed said something and then said "I think that's a lyric from something" and a guy in the audience sang the rest of whatever song he was clearly thinking of (turned out to be a song by The Who). Ed said it was now "their song" and suggested everyone should have a song with everyone they have a relationship with. He mentioned something about masturbating when listening to a particular song then picking that song. He had to restart the next song because he couldn't get the image out of his mind. :lol: He also forgot the lyrics to If I had a million dollars but explained to us that it usually takes him 22 years for the lyrics to really sink in and he should have it mastered soon.

Setlist from memory:
Who needs Sleep
New album track (Kevin)
Bank Job
It's all been done
Aluminium
Get in Line
One Week
Brian Wilson
New Album track
Big Bang Theory theme tune
Sound of your voice (Kevin)
Pinch me
You can be my yoko ono (sang by support act Boothy)
If I had a million dollars
Medely (Bohemien Rhapsody/Magic (by pilot)/California girls (Katy Perry)/New York state of mind) Apparently there was a Justin Beber song in there too.

Encore:
Alcohol (tyler)
What a good boy

For the most part the list is some of my favourite songs, probably because they're Ed songs rather than Steve songs. Ed songs tend to be the more humourous ones. Ed sang most, Kevin took stevens place on One Week and Sound of your voice.

At one point several people at the front threw their underware on stage (including a pair of boxers!) and the band stuck them on the ends of their guitars. During If I had a Million Dollars some people, probably the same people, threw toy monkeys on stage. Ed tried to use his guitar as a bad to hit them into the crowd, which failed, then tried to kick them, which also failed