Barenaked Ladies Are Men

I picked up "Barenaked Ladies Are Men" by (obviously) Barenaked Ladies. I've only heard it one time now, but there's one song in particular which kinda moved me to comment- the song "Fun & Games".

For me, Barenaked has always been a "mellow" band, something I would have playing in the background while working on code or updating web pages, something where I need to pay attention to what I'm doing, but where intense concentration is not overly critical (i.e. there's not a building with 200 people who will be cut off the internet, or an ISP with 60,000 people who will not have access to their email, if I make a typo.) And other than this one song, the new album seems to be another example of what I truly love about this band. You see, their songs usually talk about relationships, or just random snapshots of life, with a dose of irony or humour thrown into the mix to make it interesting- nothing overly deep, nothing really controversial, just good music for chillin' out, crankin' code, or driving down the road.

I've seen film clips of Steven Page (the band's "front man"- the one with the glasses, if you've seen pictures of the band but don't know who they are) promoting environmental causes (WWF) and speaking out against DRM, both of which I admire him for. However, this song is the first time I've ever heard them put any real political content into their music. It's basically stabbing into the heart of the American "establishment", both the Gummint™ and the Media®. The song doesn't specifically mention it, but the lyrics bring two different topics to mind- their promotion of the so-called "war in Iraq" (i.e. the invasion and occupation of Iraq), and the increasing level of Gummint™ surveillance and control over the lives of the american sheeple, who seem to have forgotten that the government works for them and not the other way around.

I'll have to listen to the song several more times before deciding what I really think it's about- but that will be a pleasure. To BnL I say thank you for yet another excellent album (although "Everything to Everyone" is still my favourite album, with "Maybe Katie" as my favourite BnL song) and congratulations for mixing a good political statement into a good song.

Speaking of Mr. Page's stance against DRM, if you visit the band's web site, you can download DRM-free versions of some of their albums, along with the actual shows from the UK and Canadian legs of their "B.L.A.M." tour. They're not free, but they are normal MP3 or FLAC files without any kind of DRM, which means you can play them using any kind of media player software or device.

Of course this also means that there is nothing to physically prevent you from sharing the files with your friends, or putting them on a file-sharing network somewhere. Please, kids- do the right thing. If you DO download music, do it legally... and don't share those files with the whole world. BnL is making a gesture here, that they trust their fans to do the right thing- don't make them regret that decision. I have occasionally seen other bands do the same thing- They Might Be Giants, for example, had a few of their albums up on their web site as MP3 files a few years ago. (Yes, I downloaded two albums, AFTER paying for them.)

In fact, I just purchased the FLAC version of BnL's prior album, "Barenaked Ladies Are Me", from their web site. I hadn't seen the album in any stores here in Orlando- in fact, when I picked up "BnL Are Men" yesterday, I thought it was "BnL Are Me"- the covers are very similar. I haven't listened to it yet, the FLAC decoder is still chewing on the songs, but I'm looking forward to it. One thing I think is rather cool- the .zip file with the FLAC files also contains a .mp4 file which has a Flash version of the booklet which would accompany a physical CD.