Barenaked Ladies - Rock Spectacle

I don't plan to review multiple albums from the same band, back-to-back, very often, but I'm not making any rules against doing so either. So, as a follow-up to yesterday's review, here is one for the Barenaked Ladies only live (non-bootleg, digital, legal or otherwise) album.

This album really disappointed me. It's one that I remember really enjoying and listening to over and over again. I was very excited to have put this in the CD player, especially after enjoying Stunt the day before. These live versions seem really restrained and clunky; they don't have a lot of life in them and seem to be heavy on the psudo- acoustic side of things. I've seen BNL in concert a few times -- including once in my high school gymnasium after the school had won the concert as a part of some milk promotion -- and they're usually very upbeat, involved, high-energy affairs. This album captures none of that, until about the last two or three tracks. Maybe.

I also don't understand the almost total lack or between song banter on the disc. The Ladies, especially at this point in their career, were known for on-stage improvisation and humourous commentary between the band, between songs. The only time this does appear on the album is, oddly enough, at the very end, after the last song. This is extra weird/annoying because, during their If I Had a $1000000 performance, they make reference to this stage banter... but you have no idea what it's all about until after the song is over!

For a band with such a great stage presence and upbeat catalogue of music, this album didn't do them justice.

Recommended track(s):	Life, in a Nutshell
Worth another listen?	No.
Overall rating:	Two-and-a-Half Stars

Barenaked Ladies - Stunt

There was no rhyme or reason to review this album first. It might be just because it was one of the most recent albums that I'd put into my iTunes library in anticipation of starting this project.

This is the fourth studio album for the Barenaked Ladies and, I believe, the one that really broke them in the US market. While we'd known about them for years up here in Canada, international success had been hard to come by. It's also the last/most recent studio album that I own by the band. Their follow-up, Maroon, never really connected with me and I stopped buying their albums after that. Listening to this album, and the joint vocals of both Ed Robertson and Steven Page, I can't imagine their sound today without Page (who left the band in 2009).

Lyrically, the album is much darker than I remember it being, and significantly darker in lyrical tone than Gordon (although, in hindsight, Maybe You Should Drive may also have darker undertones; I'll have to listen for that when I review that album in the future). Musically, however, it's still a fun, poppy album with lots of highlights. Next to Gordon, this is very likely my favourite BNL album and a pleasure to have heard again.

Recommended track(s):	One Week; Light Up My Room; Who Needs Sleep?
Worth another listen?	Yes!
Overall rating:	Four Stars

Title Track

As the sub-heading at the top of the blog explains, my iTunes library recently crossed the 500 albums mark. I actually have over 600 albums (if not more); however, only so many have made it into my library so far. Regardless, this random benchmark made me realize that there are lots of albums that I'd loved when they came out, albums that I rushed out to the store to pick-up the day they were finally released. When was the last time I'd listened to them? Are they really as good as I remember them? Have they stood the test of time? I think it's time to find out.

Welcome to Compact DISCovery.

I was going to come up with a whole bunch of rules for myself (number of albums to review per month, etc.) but in the end, I'm going to leave this kind of open and just run with it for as long as I'm enjoying it. I've done the math, and even at an album-per-day, it'd take me nearly two years to review everything I own... and I won't be going at it that hard core! I don't have to listen to every track, I don't have to do anything in particular for each review -- I'm just going to write about the album as I heard it that day and use a rough five star system to rate them for those (like me, sometimes) too lazy to read the actual review in full.

I'll try to link to the artist's website (if they have one), but as I'll likely be writing most of these entries from work during my morning break, I won't likely be able to track down YouTube links or Twitter streams for artists; but you're likely only a Google search away from finding them yourself. I'd love to hear your take on an album, so please feel free to agree or disagree in the comments section attached to each entry.