Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before is a compilation album by Barenaked Ladies which includes rare recordings dating between 1992 and 2003. The album was originally planned as a companion to or even as part of a deluxe version of Hits from Yesterday & the Day Before ; however, the release was pushed back to May 8, 2012, making it a standalone release. The twelve-track album contains ten never-before-released tracks, as well as two previously released rarities. The album was released by Rhino Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group which is also the parent company of Reprise Records. Reprise was Barenaked Ladies' record label from their first album, Gordon in 1992, through Everything to Everyone in 2003. As a result, Warner holds the rights to the band's recordings made during that period, notwithstanding the fact that the band has been independent since that time.
Album contents
Stop Us If You've Heard This One Before contains 12 songs spanning 1992 to 2003. It contains four final studio recordings, three live recordings, three demos, an "outtake" and a remix. Two tracks were previously released as B-sides on singles, and in other releases. "I Don't Get It Anymore" is the only final studio recording included for which the song was not later re-recorded and released on an album. "Second Best" appears on Everything To Everyone, and "Adrift", "Half A Heart" and "I Can, I Will, I Do" were subsequently re-recorded for Barenaked Ladies Are Me/Men. Much of the material on Stop Us comes from late in the band's Reprise period. Four of the tracks come from 2003's Everything to Everyone, two more come from the sessions for 2001's , and one track comes from the sessions of 2000's "Maroon". The remaining tracks include three live recordings from 1992 to 1994, a demo of The Old Apartment and the "One Week",. The early live recordings include "Same Thing" from 1992, a song later released on Born on a Pirate Ship in 1996; "Teenage Wasteland" from 1993, an original song of which only bootleg live recordings exist, and which is not known to have ever been recorded in-studio; and "Shake Your Rump" from 1994, a cover of a Beastie Boys song which Barenaked Ladies performed during their 1994–95 tour.
Release versions
Aside from the standard CD and digital releases, on May 1, 2012, an advertisement briefly appeared on the band's homepage for "The Deluxe Rarities Package" which included Stop Us and Hits from Yesterday & the Day Before in a special 2-disc tall package which also displays two souvenir BNL guitar picks. The package also purportedly contains a signed and hand-numbered lithograph, as well as a booklet with never-before-seen photos of the band, letters, drawings from fans, and "much more". The advertisement was thought to have been accidentally unveiled a week early, but there was no mention of it for months after it was taken down. It was finally released under the title "Rarenaked Ladies" in the latter part of 2012.
