25 Years In the past, One Band Dropped An Album You Both Cherished Or Hated — However By no means Forgot

It’s been twenty-five years because you checked out me, cocked your head to the aspect, and stated you have been offended. It’s additionally been twenty-five years since Barenaked Ladies have even thought of apologizing for the 1998 hit album Stunt. Whether or not or not you liked this album when it dropped on July 7, 1998, is kinda not the purpose. There’s a earlier than and after with Stunt, despite the fact that the earwormy nature of those songs principally traveled again in time to make us suppose that all the pieces on the album had all been accomplished earlier than.

With Stunt, the Barenaked Women made their most mainstream album and put their model of joke-folk rock into the brains of everybody. For many informal music followers, Barenaked Women didn’t exist till all of us heard “One Week” on limitless rotation on the radio. However, for the devoted who beloved Wrath of Khan jokes on their debut album 1992 Gordon or the notorious, or endlessly catchy “The Outdated House,” from the 1996 album Born on a Pirate Ship, the discharge of Stunt in 1998 was just about when the remainder of the world caught as much as the existence of the band. Simply to ensure everybody’s obtained this, Stunt — and due to this fact, the massively in style tune, “One Week,” — was the fourth studio album from Barenaked Women. Stunt is a comeback album that seems like a debut album.

Laden with popular culture references which have oddly aged higher than they’ve any proper to, Stunt, after all, kicks off with probably the most overplayed tune of 1998, the hit “One Week.” Right here’s the issue with “One Week.” It’s an excellent tune, masquerading as a nasty tune. The hook is nice, the precise melody is fairly stable, and the lyric content material is borderline moronic. And but, in the event you have been to place your self into your 1998 physique, you may bear in mind when these lyrics felt relatable. Hell, in 2023, Harrison Ford continues to be getting frantic, and it’s nonetheless enjoyable to look at an X-Files with no lights on. (Sure, I do know that Frantic is a film that has nothing to do with Indiana Jones, so please, maintain your emails.)

The bigger level is in the event you hate “One Week,” it’s partly as a result of it feels just like the band was making an attempt to get in your nerves on function. The lyrics and magnificence of Ed Robertson and Steven Web page on “One Week” completely seize the interior monologue of a one-sided combat that everybody has had of their heads with their accomplice. This doesn’t imply “One Week” is completely nice, but it surely does be part of the lengthy custom of catchy rock-pop songs which are about considerably severe, on a regular basis disagreements. “One Week” additionally incorporates a tiny little bit of hope inside its depiction of a dysfunctional relationship: The “character” is aware of that this has all occurred earlier than, and can occur once more.

However Stunt is extra than simply “One Week.” The album retains issues shifting with the memorable “It’s All Been Finished,” in addition to “Name and Reply.” Barenaked Women purists (they exist) may declare that these three songs are all approach catchier and radio-friendly than any of the band’s earlier stuff, however that’s a bit of like these pals you had within the early aughts who didn’t like “Float On,” as a result of Modest Mouse was supposedly promoting out. Barenaked Women aren’t a band that’s severe sufficient to be allowed to have an “indie interval” and a “sellout interval,” however the paradox is that’s precisely what Stunt was: an album from a bizarre, silly-ish band that truly managed to get actually large. And the rationale it obtained large is that sure, it was catchy, but it surely was additionally fairly rattling good.

It’s onerous to say the Barenaked Women had a direct affect on any bands that adopted, and admittedly, that’s most likely an excellent factor. Stunt is a wonderfully named album; a file that seems like a trick being carried out by some guys who don’t actually care in the event you see how they’re doing it. It’s a assured file made by a band that appears like they’re joking round to compensate for a insecurity. It made the top of the Nineteen Nineties a bit of extra enjoyable and allowed everybody to chuckle at their issues. Stunt is an escapist file grounded in real looking angst. You could not have preferred it. You could have hated it. However, for any individual you liked, in 1998, this file was all the pieces.

The Barenaked Women are currently on tour for the Last Summer on Earth Tour.