Barenaked Ladies: Rock Spectacle

After three albums—the latest of which, Born on a Pirate Ship, came out earlier this year—the need for a Barenaked Ladies live album wasn't a pressing one. But here it is, and it's uniformly as pleasant as you'd expect: Whether the band is playing quirky pop laced with gentle humor ("If I Had $1000000") or earnest ballads about stuff like gender stereotypes ("What a Good Boy"), Barenaked Ladies' musical talent and lovely, harmonious voices make its albums listenable and likable. The new Rock Spectacle, which also includes a multimedia CD-ROM track full of skits and silliness, is about as disposable as live albums come: Most of the renditions are note for note ("Life, In a Nutshell" is an exception), and the crowd singalongs on a few tracks (particularly "Brian Wilson") are distracting and even frustrating. Loyal followers will enjoy Rock Spectacle as a supplement to the three fine studio albums, but the newly initiated should start with Gordon and go from there.