Ben Folds Five, a 90’s era rock trio,
was for me the antidote to grunge.
Here was a band with a piano
at the center that rocked harder
than any guitar. Ben was like a
punk rock Elton John. Joined by
two guys who seemed neither
punk nor grunge, looked a little
bit like a couple of jazz nerds,
Ben pounded out the most raucous
pop music and the most heart-
breaking ballads. Ben Folds Five
made four studio albums, all great,
before Ben left the band to pursue
a solo career and a wide array
of other kinds of projects, like being
one of the judges on the television
a cappella singing contest show
“The Sing-Off,” or collaborating,
as he has, with symphony orchestras
performing his songs. Ben Folds
Five would reunite one more
time for a new album in 2012,
and that was wonderful, but because
Ben is Ben and not because
the other two of the Five
were expendable, a Ben Folds
solo album and a Ben Folds Five
album are very similar experiences,
always good, sometimes transcendently
great.
It was 2008 when I bought my first
Ben Folds album on vinyl–early in my
years as a new collector–I splurged
on a deluxe edition of Way to Normal,
a double album on heavyweight vinyl
inside a box that included the complete
album on CD in a DVD style booklet
and a bonus CD of improvisational live
pieces, I Made It Up On Stage. It is not
my favorite Ben Folds record ever, although
it contains several gems; the collaboration
with Regina Spektor is terrific and the
two or three ballads are beautiful songs,
but the rockers are a bit self-indulgent,
even for Ben, and a few of them seem
downright misogynistic, clearly coming
off of a nasty divorce (my understanding,
one of at least four, maybe five divorces
by 2024). At any rate, self-indulgence
and anger aside, it’s still a wonderful listen.
It’s good to get the band back together.
The Ben Folds Five reunion album of 2012
was a joyous occasion. I missed Robert Sledge’s
distortion bass, and Darren Jessee’s percolating
and messy drumming, both of their sweet
backup vocals behind Ben, and here they are
in all their glory back again, and these are all
great songs, maybe as good as anything they
pulled off in those first four studio albums
from the 90’s. This album is chock full of
rockers and swingers and a couple of great
ballads and some tremendously powerful
lyrics, like this heart-wrenching closer:
“Thank you for breaking my heart. Now I know
that it’s in there.” Ben Folds, like Guy Garvey
from Elbow, is one of only a handful of songwriters
who know how to formulate the perfect
combination of word and melody to just
absolutely wreck me. I think this was
Burt Bacharach’s gift as well.
On the 2023, long-awaited studio album
What Matters Most, I think Ben makes his first
overtly political statement in the opening
track: “Wait, there’s more,” as he describes the
way the discourse has devolved in the U.S.
so that there’s no end to the depths of depravity,
and yet, the chorus asks, “but do you still believe
in the good of human kind,” answered by “I do.
I do. I do.” Three times. This record is Ben at
his most chill, most reflective, most serious.
Except for the silly number about the out
of control groupie, most of these tunes
interrogate the ins and outs, the ups and downs
of the middle aged adult romantic relationship,
and this one tune, a highlight, “Kristine from
the Seventh Grade,” tells the story of a reconnection
via social media decades later with a woman
the speaker remembers as a happy child, now
turned into an angry, conspiracy-theorist nut-
job in her middle age. “Seriously, Kristine, are
you okay?” he asks, while trying to get her
in an imaginary conversation to see what is still
beautiful in this life. You know, what matters most.
Inevitably, this is a failure, as the conversation,
the connection, is only hypothetical, and Kristine
will likely go on and on in this unhappy state
until she dies. It’s a poignant, heart breaking song.
“Paddleboard Breakup” might be the greatest,
most awkward breakup song ever, as the dude,
who is clearly the villain in the song, decides
to tell his girl that it’s over when they’re both
on a paddleboard together in the middle of a lake.
The lyric takes a really dark and tragic turn
at the end, which I won’t spoil here. It’s devastating.
Again, the title of this album is doing a lot of work,
as I think every song on this record attempts to
answer the question. In this way, it’s maybe
the closest thing Ben Folds has ever done to
a concept album. This guy is a treasure, if you
ask me. One of the most significant musical
artists of my lifetime. I never tire of him.
The last Ben Folds record in my vinyl collection
is his Christmas album of 2024. At first, I thought,
no way, it’s March already; I’m not gonna listen to
a Christmas album, but then, as I looked at the track
list on the cover and remembered that there’s only
one tune on this whole album that is a “traditional”
holiday song, I thought I could stomach it, if for
no other reason than to spend a little bit more
time with Ben. So I did. I listened to the Christmas
album. It’s lovely. Light. Easy. Jazzy. My favorite part
of this album, however, might be the song
“Me and Maurice” and the accompanying cover art,
where Ben is cartoon-illustrated walking his
dog down a snowy street, carrying with him
in the non-leash hand, “a green bag full of
shame,” i.e. a bag of poo. Perfectly Ben. And I guess
at the joy he must feel in the pun when he tells
potential listeners that this is his “Sleigher” album.
Get it? Isn’t that funny?
Notes on the vinyl editions:
- Ben Folds, Way to Normal, Epic Records, 2008, double black vinyl in a box that includes the album on CD and a bonus live CD I Made It Up On Stage.
- Ben Folds Five, The Sound of the Life of the Mind, Ima Vee Pee Records, 2012, double black vinyl, audio on three sides.
- Ben Folds, What Matters Most, New West Record, 2023, black vinyl.
- Ben Folds, Sleigher, New West Records, 2024, coke-bottle blue vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 