Barenaked Ladies

‘Everything to Everyone’

Reprise

By Andrew Merritt

Collegian Staff

After 15 years, a band trying to reinvent itself runs into the threat of alienating their die-hard fans, the ones who bought the first cassette at a concert, who still sing back the lyrics to all the songs from the first compact disk at shows now. Barenaked Ladies have managed to avoid this malady simply by reinventing themselves with every song.

And it’s certainly not easy to keep reinventing over that amount of time, especially with the disasters the band has gone through, from the classic lineup realignment that saw Andy Creegan get replaced by Kevin Hearn, to the near-tragic circumstances of the cancer that nearly killed Hearn just as the band was enjoying its greatest success.

It’s a trend that began with 1998’s “Stunt,” an album that took them out of the obscurity of being a Canadian band with few songs American radio even paid attention to, and made them a brand name, a group relevant to pop music. Part of that came from the fact that they were willing to dull the sharp emotional and satirical edges on their songs, and make them more radio-ready.

The trend continued in 2000’s “Maroon,” which saw them find a little pop success (“Pinch Me”), but also opened up their ability to craft songs that sound like simple pop, yet surge with darkness and emotion underneath.

It would appear, with the release of “Everything to Everyone,” that they’ve found the happy medium. BNL finally has found the balance between inserting emotion under the surface, and making the actual sound so user-friendly that nearly every song is sing-able, with pieces that just about any listener can latch on to.

The first single, “Another Postcard,” is a perfect example. The first, second, and maybe even third listen of the track will have most wondering how musicians who have been around since 1988, and had nearly three full years to work on a new studio album, wasting time on lines like, “some chimps in swimsuits/ some chimps in jackboots/ some chimps in hard hats/ some chimps who love cats.” The reality is that there’s a frustration woven underneath the silliness that can be interpreted, as is often the case with this quintet, many different ways.

“Another Postcard’s” style is also noteworthy, because a synthesizer/vocoder beginning gives way to Ed Robertson’s singing, which alternates between R’B-influenced soul, and an improbable turn into the rapid-fire vocals of an upbeat reggae tune.

But it’s not all departure from the norm on “Everything to Everyone.” Fans who flocked to the rock ‘n’ roll sound of “It’s All Been Done” from “Stunt” or “Too Little Too Late” from “Maroon” will be pleased with songs like “Second Best,” a classic Barenaked Ladies-style tune. “Second Best” even starts out much like some of the other lesser-known but well-done songs in the BNL catalog, with guitar-driven melody that has just enough electric color to make it closer to the rock side of the pop spectrum.

There’s also a very soft side to “Everything,” one that was mostly absent from “Maroon.” “For You” is Robertson at his best, addressing his object with the same sort of lonely questioning as “Stunt’s” “Leave” or “When I Fall,” from 1996’s “Born on a Pirate Ship.” According to the weblog the band put together – clearly a measure to appease fans waiting at long length for another recording – “For You” was a group favorite, but nearly didn’t make the record. Listeners will certainly be glad that it did.

There’s also a happy medium of the rock stuff and the softer intentions on “Maybe Katie,” a song in defense of the date-worthiness of the single mother. BNL doesn’t try to make political statements on “Everything to Everyone”, which is good because it’s never been their forte. They simply stick to social satire, like the somewhat-overdone snipes at Hollywood on “Celebrity,” and other moderately poignant personal missives.

It’s not a complete success in the venture to reinvent, though, because just as the main single off “Stunt”, “One Week,” was a bit of a throwaway by BNL’s standards – meaningless, bubbly, and catchy to the point of irritation – the track “Shopping” is in the same vein. “Shopping” sounds like there was a base for some sort of silly-yet-smart satire of consumer culture, but it becomes a repetitive, pointless song that will have most fans – at least those of more than two years – skipping to track seven.

“Everything to Everyone” is blessedly unaffected by the incompleteness of “Shopping,” and goes on to give BNL a completely new face. What will keep long-time and new fans coming, though, is that it’s not an unrecognizable one. The band manages to make their music a new experience every time, without letting the material on “Gordon,” “Maybe You Should Drive,” and “Born on a Pirate Ship” – the music of their early career that was so important to their development – fade into history.