Oh, Ben Folds. I’ve been following Ben around for about 13 years (way to date yourself, Josh) and have seen the guy in concert a good 5 times and has consistently been a perennial favorite of mine. I’ve always enjoyed his combination of melodic gift, verbal wit, and eagerness to mix things up. Having said that I haven’t always fallen in love with his albums. In fact, his previous effort, 2008’s Way To Normal, felt like a low point to me. Now that could have just been me as that disc reached #11 on the Billboard album chart upon release but it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been out of step with things.
So two years later, what do we get? Ben went all Elton John on us. Instead of writing this album in a similar fashion to his previous releases, he teamed up with English novelist Nick Hornby in which Nick wrote all the lyrics (The “Taupin”, to keep the analogy going) leaving Ben to writing music and melodies with the stories. I, for one, applaud the decision to get this far into a career to shake things up this way. Also because of that decision, themes, characters, and stories come about in new ways which does provide a degree of freshness to the set.
As for songs, themselves, lead single “From Above” is a study on the notion of fate dealing with love. Do we wind up with the person we’re “supposed” to or is it more haphazard than that? Nick votes for the latter. I’ll have to think about that. In “Picture Window” we have a story of the illness of someone close to the protagonist in which they are hospitalized. You hear the anguish over false hope when Ben sings the chorus, “You know what hope is/Hope is a bastard/Hope is a liar/A cheat and a tease/Hope comes near you/kick its backside/Got no place in days like this” Divorce is the focus in “Claire’s Ninth” as she just wants to celebrate her ninth birthday but it’s not as simple as that. The album ends with “Belinda” a look into a still touring “one hit wonder” (only in his mind, kids) whose only “well known song” is, unbeknownst to the audience, the true story of how he foolishly left the only woman who ever loved him and now all he has of her is this song he has to sing every night.
Now the reason why we have Ben at 14 is because, there *are* a few semi-clunkers as far as I’m concerned. Their take on Levi Johnston in “Levi Johnston’s Blues” comes across as being juvenile, “Your Dogs” is not very gripping, “Password” takes an uninspiring theme (Going over someone’s passwords. I’m serious.), and in “Saskia Hamilton” I never really buy the retro 80’s synths or the staccato delivery. However, when the album hits, I think it’s very effective and affecting. Anyway, here are a few vids:
Introduction to Lonely Avenue
Lead single From Above
Picture Window
Belinda
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