A pirate ship not entirely filled with treasure.. (Born On A Pirate Ship - Barenaked Ladies)

Member Name: Wezzo

Product:	Born On A Pirate Ship - Barenaked Ladies
Date:	12/05/08 (69 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A few classic songs

Disadvantages: Too much filler

1996 saw Canadian alternative rockers Barenaked Ladies at a turning point. Personal problems among the band's personnel and an inability to determine the direction they would take took their toll on the group, and it's no surprise that their release that year is a patchy affair - a hotch-potch of the quirky literate pop of debut album "Gordon" and the more emotional ballads of "Maybe You Should Drive", with an unwarranted dash of genre experiments mixed in too. "Born On A Pirate Ship" is, at best, a moderate success. It improves with repeated listens as you begin to pick up on more of the lyrics, but even when you're completely familiar with every word it's a mixed bag.

Things start badly, with the not-as-funny-as-it-should-be "Stomach vs. Heart" about, er, confusing your stomach with your heart. Maybe it's a metaphor for something, I dunno. It's not as witty as the Ladies usually are, and the music is - at best - acceptable, with all manner of unnecessary sound effects and jumping from soft to loud and back for seemingly no reason. One to skip.

"Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank" is an improvement. A country-tinged rocker, it sees a serious improvement in the lyric department - sung from the perspective of a stalker, though you'd never guess if given the upbeat tune - with the odd catchy hook too. It's no BNL classic but it's a huge improvement on the disc opener.

Track three is "I Know" tends towards the stupid a little too much for my liking. It's catchy enough but the lyrics lack the subtlety and incisive wit of the best tracks by the band, they're packed with "edgy" non-sequitors that reference sex and race with no discernible story (that I can figure out, anyway). By this stage, the album starts to look like a disappointment.

Thankfully, though, things kick into high gear with the solid track 4, "This Is Where It Ends". Finally, here it wit and wizardry we've all been hoping for: "You play doctor but I've lost patience", "I don't buy everything I read, and haven't even read everything I've bought". Cleverly distilling the mentality of the "Prozac nation" into a three-minute pop song, it's one of precious few songs here that really hits the mark both musically and lyrically. The chorus of "Call the police and call the press / But please, dear God, don't tell my friends" is both amusing and hard-hitting; the music is catchy but never overpowering.

The album's finest moment, lyrically, is next. It's "When I Fall", just about the saddest song about the oft-overlooked profession of the window-cleaner. It's a very slow, very sweet ballad that doesn't just amuse but moves too ("I wish I could fly, from this building, from this wall.."). No other band could make the line "a crystal-clear canvas is my masterpiece" so ridiculously emotional. If you don't pay attention to the lyrics the song can drag, but if you attempt to follow, you'll be rewarded by a wonderfully sweet piece.

"I Live With It Every Day" is another fair effort - if you ignore the occasional annoying sound effects (seriously, what is with them?) and come to terms with how the fast tempo doesn't really match the ethos of the song, it's an enjoyable listen. It's about a child who accidentally killed his friend with a BB gun at 12-years-old ("He had baby-blue eyes that I shot him between"). The lyrics are very nice - "I live with it every day, for every step I have to pay / The only thing that they can't take: the guilt that spirals in my wake" - even though the backing music could do with improvement.

"The Old Apartment" follows, one of Barenaked Ladies' most well-known and well-loved songs. It's most certainly a highlight here, one of the best on the album. Part pounding-guitar rocker, part nostalgic ballad, it tells of returning to the titular "old apartment" and reaction to how things change after you've left. It's about a literal apartment but the idea works metaphorically too; about change that you miss when you're away. The lyrics are excellently observed - the apartment is "42 steps from the street", our narrator recalls, as he asks the new residents "why did you paint the walls?" A definite highlight.

The next track, "Call Me Calmly" was never really going to live up to "Apartment", but unfortunately it doesn't even try. It's just forgettable. Clever in conception, yes - it's about a hooker talking to a prospective, er, "customer" - but it doesn't come off well. Superficially catchy but it gets a bit boring after a few listens. Not a highlight.

"Break Your Heart" steps things up once again, thankfully. It turns the traditional "I'm done with you" love song on its head and sings not from the perspective of joy at leaving the relationship, but of proclaiming that while "it's not 'cos I'll be missing you that makes me fall apart", they "never meant to break your heart". It's very sweet and entirely relatable if you've ever been in a relationship that you know has to end but you can't bear to do it for fear of hurting the other. Sound-wise, the backing is appropriately minimal, while the vocals are amazing (the line ""Just stop wasting my time / And now I know that you will be okay..." is sung with nigh-on ridiculous power). Excellent.

Sadly, things are pretty much unanimously downhill from here. "Spider In My Room" follows "Break Your Heart" and it's an awful, experimental-They-Might-Be-Giants type piece, with stupid sound effects, ridiculous chanting and unfunny lyrics. Not even worth bothering with once.

"Same Thing" provokes a less visceral reaction but it's still pretty mediocre. Bland and insubstantial, it lacks both lyrical and musical punch. "Just A Toy" is more memorable, but for all the wrong reasons: it's heavily distorted and sounds like some kind of heavy metal rip-off, with indistinct vocals and appalling instrumentation. It's a shame, as the lyrics are quite amusing - sung from the perspective of a wooden puppet jealous of Pinocchio ("I know you must have loved me sometime / But now I'm just a toy").

And "In the Drink" fails to improve things. A five-minute-long dirge that never really goes anywhere, the lyrics are sporadically interesting - turning thirst into a metaphor for yearning for love - but they don't redeem the one-note melody. Thank heavens for album closer "Shoebox", originally featured on the Friends TV soundtrack, which kicks things up into high-gear once again with a fun, all-out pop song that is a shining beacon among the mediocrity of the later tracks on this album. The cracking chorus - "My shoe box / Shoebox of lies" - is simple but catchy and memorable, like all good choruses should be.

"Born On A Pirate Ship" is a bit of a mixed bag of an album, then. BNL completists will want it, but if you're only a casual fan it's probably worth just downloading a few of the best songs here ("The Old Apartment", "Break Your Heart", "When I Fall", "Shoebox" and "This Is Where It Ends" is probably all you'll need.) The album is available on CD or as an MP3 download from iTunes etc. The CD can be found for just a couple of pounds on Amazon marketplace, and it's a no-frills affair, with a lyrics booklet being all you'll find alongside the disc itself.

(Some editions of this album put BNL classic "If I Had $1,000,000" as the closing track here. However, as it was originally recorded around the time of first album "Gordon", I'm not counting it for the purposes of this review.)

Summary: Only for completists; casual fans should just download a few of the best tracks