Gordon Review

Gordon was the debut CD and first major-label album by Barenaked Ladies. It was released in 1992 in Canada and went double platinum in record time. Many of the band's signature tracks appeared on the disc, including "If I Had $1000000", "Be My Yoko Ono", "What A Good Boy", "Grade 9" and "Brian Wilson".

The only track recorded for the album but left off the finished record is a remake of the Public Enemy song "Fight the Power" (a shorter version of this song appeared on the successful Yellow Tape). Although left off the album, it later appeared on the sountrack for the movie The Coneheads and was later released as a promo-only single ("promo" meaning only issued to radio stations and as free giveaways).

The album was a massive success in Canada, where it topped the album charts for 8 weeks and sold over a million copies. Although US interest was virtually nil, with Gordon never charting there at all, the album eventually did earn a gold record in America after their sudden rise to fame there in 1998.

The recording of this album also spawned a Barenaked Ladies tradition, the naked track. During the recording of the song "King of Bedside Manor", the band felt they needed to inject some sort of raw enthusiasm into the track, and one of the band members suggested that they record this song completely in the nude. It worked, and they have recorded one track on every subsequent album (except 1996's Rock Spectacle, which was culled from live recordings) naked ever since.