Barenaked Ladies – Stunt – 1998
Stunt is the fourth studio album by Canadian Pop/Rock act Barenaked Ladies. I got it many years ago to broaden my horizons, I sometimes acquire albums about which I have no prior knowledge. This is one such album! I really had no idea what I would hear when I ordered it. The name certainly led me to think it could be a girl band of some sort. Not that I literally expected fully naked girls performing the music, but at least female voices. But there’s not much of that here!
What it’s about, however, is a Canadian band that, at least on this album Stunt, delivers quite light-hearted pop, not without a certain humor. One could compare it to The Beautiful South in some perspective. It’s reminiscent of the musical lightness but also the humor in the lyrics. It’s perhaps not always entirely obvious, but one can read between the lines and discern a certain cynical attitude. Some passages are wonderfully formulated!
Musically, it’s not as convincing. It’s definitely listenable and not something one would suffer from hearing now and then, but it’s also nothing that I feel will go down in history. There are a few exceptions, of course; for instance, the song Alchohol is something I could listen to quite a few times without getting tired. There’s another one that comes close to the same level, but overall, it’s music that’s quite easy to forget.
