The Yellow Tape

Barenaked Ladies, most commonly referred to as The Yellow Tape, is a 5-song cassette released by BNL in July of 1991. The name The Yellow Tape, used even by the band nowadays, comes from the fact that the cassette had a pale yellow cover with a pen-and-ink rendering of the band's name next to a drawing of a sandwich with a flower stuck in it.

According to Steve in interview footage for The Barenaked Truth, the tape was prepared as a demo for the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

The tape was massively popular in Canada for an indie EP, and was the first independently released cassette to go platinum in Canada (which at the time meant 80,000 copies). Notably, it was outselling Michael Jackson at Toronto-area chain record stores for a time. The tape's success cemented the band's status as a popular band throughout the country and paved the way for them to release their even more successful full-length debut Gordon a year later.

The first track, "Be My Yoko Ono", was recorded at Toronto's Number 9 studio in 1990 (before Tyler joined the band and before Andy temporarily left to travel to Ecuador), while the rest were recorded in 1991 after Tyler joined at Wellesley Sound. The tape's last track, a truncated cover of the Public Ememy track "Fight the Power", was recorded at the last minute as filler when the band was told there was an extra minute and a half on the recording tape reel. The band would later record a full-length cover as a warm-up for the Gordon sessions at Le Studio in early 1992, and again at a later date for the Coneheads soundtrack album released in 1993.

The tape was distributed by Page Publications, an independent record label run by Steven Page's father Victor Page.

The same recordings were released on 12-inch vinyl and compact disc in the United Kingdom later in 1991 by Cheree Records, with the track "Fight the Power" left off (presumably to save money on royalties). This time, the cover art features a photograph of a sandwich next to the same style of lettering for 'Barenaked Ladies' that would later be used for Gordon-era releases.

Track listing

 * 1) Be My Yoko Ono
 * 2) Brian Wilson
 * 3) Blame It On Me
 * 4) If I Had $1000000
 * 5) Fight the Power (cassette version only)