Released: 1992
Tracks: Hello City; Enid; Grade 9; Brian Wilson; Be My Yoko Ono; Wrap Your Arms Around Me; What a Good Boy; The King of Bedside Manor; Box Set; I Love You; New Kid (On the Block); Blame it on Me; The Flag; If I Had $1,000,000; Crazy
Best track: Grade 9 or Enid
Track to skip: Blame it on Me
This is the only BNL album I own (for now) and although I haven’t listened to every second of the other albums, this is still my favorite from what I have heard. There’s something special about this album that I’ve heard in certain later songs, but not in others. There’s a lot of silliness here, but that’s a plus for me because I actually enjoy humor and silliness in music. Imagine that! Scanning the tracklist I’d say that 8 out of these 15 songs are silly. I’m interested to know if the successive albums have more than half goofy stuff. Maybe it isn’t desirable to hear old men act goofy and silly, but I think it’s something that shouldn’t ever go away.
This is a long album. I really don’t think there’s any other way of stating it. 15 tracks are a few too many. Ever since I first got this my thought was that they should have trimmed it down a bit. Of course, the problem is which songs to cut. The only song that I listed above as a skipper is Blame it on Me, which really isn’t that bad of a song, but it’s not the best on here. The album starts out wonderfully with the first 5 tracks. The pacing and energy of these five are brilliant. This is definitely the best part of the album. Yes, Million Dollars & Crazy are great, and wonderful ways to end the album. It’s just the first five that define what this album is (and to some extent, this band) about. They write silly songs, big deal. They also write GOOD songs (silly and serious) and they’re also really good musicians. I like the sound of the group back on this album: upright (fretless) bass, acoustic guitar, piano, great vocals and drums with some percussion thrown in. The acoustic guitar and bass especially make the album sound so desirable. But yeah, they’re good musicians and it’s great to hear a goofy pop band with such a high quality of musicianship. You also get a small glimpse that they could be a damn good jam band from the ends of Brian Wilson and Crazy.
I go back and forth between Enid and Grade 9 being the favorite. Grade 9 was the first song I was attracted to (I love the Rush bits in there), but Enid is one of those great songs that just makes me smile. I do like the songs between Yoko Ono and $1,000,000, but it’s such a major sag compared to the ends of the album. They are good songs, and really eclectic, but once you hear $1,000,000 you’ll want to skip ahead to it. A lot of times when I listen to this I do skip the middle part of the album; I admit it. The middle does go on too long, but there really aren’t any songs that should be cut. So the album’s a little long, that’s all right. I’d rather have the songs there and just use the fwd button if I need to. Overall I really like this one and it’s a great debut. If all you’ve heard is One Week or The Old Apartment then I highly recommend this.
Rating: 90
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