This biography would have been better if it were bare naked

Barenaked Ladies: The Authorized Biography

Paul Myers

Fireside

…

Barenaked Ladies: The Authorized Biography

Paul Myers

Fireside

It’d be very easy for a fan to be disgusted about this book, but what would be the point?

“From geeks in short pants to multiplatinum artists,” the back cover proclaims, “Barenaked Ladies are nothing less than a phenomenon.” It’s a pretty accurate measure of what comes inside; that is, pretending BNL is something it’s not.

Any fan of BNL’s music that’s not on top-40 radio will probably read this page-turner and, after about 100 pages, look quizzically at the ceiling because there’s something missing. Describing the humor-driven BNL as a “phenomenon” just seems wrong somehow. This is a band that has made its living by being nerds, the guys too smart to be mainstream. How can they be anything other than some Canadian guys singing with incredible talent, humor and tenderness, let alone a phenomenon?

Paul Myers, who knew the band from fairly early on, is a competent writer. He gets the point across for a remarkably easy read, blowing by entire years in a few pages. The problem is that he’s just not as funny as the Barenaked Ladies band members. Most of his narration is unsatisfyingly surface-level, fraught with exclamation points and failed attempts at cleverness. Predictably, the best parts are when the band members tell stories with the same candor and self-deprecating sensitivity that make their songs so good.

For example, one story revolves around the recording of “The King of Bedside Manor,” a track on their debut album Gordon. Through a series of random comments, we learn from band member Tyler Stewart that every session that ever led to the track’s recording involved nudity. By everyone. Including the sound guys.

“I have the pictures of us naked,” Stewart says, “We should publish them! Especially since we edited out my screams of ‘I’m naked!’ at the end of the track!”

Even with Myers’ overpunctuation he can get his hands on, quotations like that give real sense of what is so lovable about the band.

I’m doing my best not to be that guy that goes nuts about how one of his favorite bands has sold out and forgotten their roots and all that. The thing is that I don’t really think they have sold out – their music is every bit as good as it ever was – and a large part of me desperately believes that this book was not their idea. And it’s not awful, either.

The problem, really, is simple: Any book written about the Barenaked Ladies needs to do next to nothing to be entertaining. With five intelligent, witty, talented, hilarious guys there, why do anything but let them tell their own story? There need be no other person present except for the purposes of organization and directing the conversation. Yet, throughout the entire course of the book, the exposition is ever-present, keeping us from the pearls of dialogue that any fan knows are lying just on the other side of the narrator.

Barenaked Ladies are not a phenomenon. They are an excellent band with distinct personality and a good story to tell. Sadly, it’s a story we never get from them.