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Ben Folds aims at normal, cracks open head in Japan
Ben Folds may have named his third solo LP Way To Normal, but the North Carolina native doesn’t have any such destination in mind. If you listen closely, you can see he’s on the highway to hell, or at least to “Effington,” his own version of The Truman Show. More movie set than true home, that song—and the entire album—reaffirms the long-suspected idea that Folds is more comfortable on the margins of art, respectability and society, a perpetual outsider reveling in his own eccentricities, from naming his former trio Ben Folds Five to mounting a project with Ben Lee and Ben Kweller and dubbing it “The Bens” to producing an album for William Shatner to palling around with “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Ben Folds may have named his third solo LP Way To Normal, but the North Carolina native doesn’t have any such destination in mind. If you listen closely, you can see he’s on the highway to hell, or at least to “Effington,” his own version of The Truman Show. More movie set than true home, that song—and the entire album—reaffirms the long-suspected idea that Folds is more comfortable on the margins of art, respectability and society, a perpetual outsider reveling in his own eccentricities, from naming his former trio Ben Folds Five to mounting a project with Ben Lee and Ben Kweller and dubbing it “The Bens” to producing an album for William Shatner to palling around with “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Instead, these 12 songs are more of an anthropological study of
aberrant human behavior, idiosyncratic news stories and bizarre
chapters of the musician’s own autobiography, all observed with the
same unstinting absurdist eye as J.D. Salinger when he penned Nine Stories
more than 50 years ago. Folds’ “Kylie From Connecticut” suffers from
the same thwarted dreams, disillusionment and frozen acceptance as the
highball-drinking heroines in Salinger’s “Uncle Wiggily In
Connecticut,” and the song conveys that same sense of being the
prisoner of your own wrong choices.
But this doesn’t seem to be the case for Folds. Married four times, he seems obsessed with dissecting gender relations on this album, and understanding the physics of love in the bombastic and comically misogynistic “Bitch Went Nuts” and “You Don’t Know Me,” his fragile, fractured duet with Regina Spektor. The latter, Way To Normal’s standout track, delves into a couple’s intimacy problems using a he said/she said dynamic, but with a twist. Like those frothy Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies of yore, the song shows how a little bit of mystery works for a relationship. Almost high-concept musical theater, it’s both lighthearted and profound, a blast of cold water on your expectations.
Folds returns to the theme on two-song suite “Before Cologne” and “Cologne,” but with much different results. It’s a travelogue of a relationship in the last stages of decay, and it exquisitely captures imaginary conversations with an absent lover, and the small claustrophobic details that stay with you as watch your own heart break. Woven into the middle of the song—like a movie within a movie—is the story of NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak, who drove from Houston to Orlando to murder a romantic rival. Folds takes poetic license with some of the details, but still conveys the idea of romantic obsession and addiction.
After spending so much time on heavy subject matter, Folds changes things up and fixates on a runaway dog. While doing nothing to coax back his lover in “Cologne,” he’s desperate to find his pooch in “Errant Dog,” which is clearly a stand-in for his lost love. “He’s my everything, he means the world to me,” he sings. “He’s my hopes and dreams / Fungible property / Sometimes I wonder why I put up with his shit / If I could I would become a lesbian.” Frantic, hysterical and a little unhinged, this seems like a return to some of the comic antics of his albums with Ben Folds Five, capturing the best of what he often does in his shows, but rarely on record.
The same is true of “Hiroshima (BBB Benny Hit His Head)” the story of Folds falling into the orchestra pit during a concert in Japan. What should be a punch line became an excursion into his psyche, almost like Being John Malkovich, except Folds invites you in, going through each excruciating detail of his mishap, from the sheer embarrassment to the blood on his keyboards as he continued the show, to his X-rays. “You wanna see what’s in my head / Check it out ‘cause / Got pictures of what’s in my head.” An homage to Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” the song humanizes the often acerbic, cerebral musician, but more than that, it ends up as an unexpected anthem, complete with the rousing football-chant chorus.
Maybe the tumble in Japan jarred something loose in Folds’ fecund brain. This is the first album where his artistry seems fully realized, both in terms of subject matter and performance. Witty, balanced and highly charged.
Listen to Ben Folds' "Hiroshima (B-B-B-Benny Hit His Head)" from Way To Normal:
But this doesn’t seem to be the case for Folds. Married four times, he seems obsessed with dissecting gender relations on this album, and understanding the physics of love in the bombastic and comically misogynistic “Bitch Went Nuts” and “You Don’t Know Me,” his fragile, fractured duet with Regina Spektor. The latter, Way To Normal’s standout track, delves into a couple’s intimacy problems using a he said/she said dynamic, but with a twist. Like those frothy Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies of yore, the song shows how a little bit of mystery works for a relationship. Almost high-concept musical theater, it’s both lighthearted and profound, a blast of cold water on your expectations.
Folds returns to the theme on two-song suite “Before Cologne” and “Cologne,” but with much different results. It’s a travelogue of a relationship in the last stages of decay, and it exquisitely captures imaginary conversations with an absent lover, and the small claustrophobic details that stay with you as watch your own heart break. Woven into the middle of the song—like a movie within a movie—is the story of NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak, who drove from Houston to Orlando to murder a romantic rival. Folds takes poetic license with some of the details, but still conveys the idea of romantic obsession and addiction.
After spending so much time on heavy subject matter, Folds changes things up and fixates on a runaway dog. While doing nothing to coax back his lover in “Cologne,” he’s desperate to find his pooch in “Errant Dog,” which is clearly a stand-in for his lost love. “He’s my everything, he means the world to me,” he sings. “He’s my hopes and dreams / Fungible property / Sometimes I wonder why I put up with his shit / If I could I would become a lesbian.” Frantic, hysterical and a little unhinged, this seems like a return to some of the comic antics of his albums with Ben Folds Five, capturing the best of what he often does in his shows, but rarely on record.
The same is true of “Hiroshima (BBB Benny Hit His Head)” the story of Folds falling into the orchestra pit during a concert in Japan. What should be a punch line became an excursion into his psyche, almost like Being John Malkovich, except Folds invites you in, going through each excruciating detail of his mishap, from the sheer embarrassment to the blood on his keyboards as he continued the show, to his X-rays. “You wanna see what’s in my head / Check it out ‘cause / Got pictures of what’s in my head.” An homage to Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” the song humanizes the often acerbic, cerebral musician, but more than that, it ends up as an unexpected anthem, complete with the rousing football-chant chorus.
Maybe the tumble in Japan jarred something loose in Folds’ fecund brain. This is the first album where his artistry seems fully realized, both in terms of subject matter and performance. Witty, balanced and highly charged.
Listen to Ben Folds' "Hiroshima (B-B-B-Benny Hit His Head)" from Way To Normal:
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But what about the *music*? I've listened to this album intently, and I can't find anything that remotely comes close to a good song. Sure, some of the lyrics are affecting ... But there're no strong melodies, no hooks ...
Great production; no substance.
As a BF fan, I'm hugely disappointed ...
http://heavysoil.blogspot.com/2008/10/ben-folds-way-to-normal-enormous.html
Tom -
Full agreement here. As a serious fan (6 cds, attended four concerts) Ben is headed full tilt toward mediocrity. Silverman wasn't a very good album, and this one is worse. And for someone for whom I still have respect for as a pop tune craftsman, it sure would be nice if he could learn how to END a song. He sure seems skilled at learning how to end a marriage. Anyone can make a mistake or two in love, but when you've been divorced four times, it's all on you (Ben). At this point, he's lost me as a fan. I'll stick with Rocking The Suburbs, Whatever and Ever...See ya Ben!
Unless you were attempting to use it ironically, you used bombastic incorrectly. It really makes no sense with "The Bitch Went Nuts".
To reply to the other comments, while this album isn't the same catchy melody based album, it does have a lot to offer and listening to it multiple times through shows that it does have a lot to offer.
Oddly enough, your reviews tend to be in line with several professional reviewers but the problem is that their reviews are incredibly shallow or are asking that Ben offer something other than his comments and tirades about America. Ben writes music. He does not write political satire or literature or social commentary or anything else. We often forget this because as far as his music goes, his music comes far closer to these things than much of what the main stream has to offer. But music's purpose is to create emotion, which is something that his music does, this album creates emotion and creates the emotion that Ben aims for it to create.
This album is not a failure record, it is not a record that falls short, it is not record aimed at venting his frustration at the ends of marriage; it is, however, an album that creates emotions that he has felt that he has noticed, etc. The songs aren't instantly catchy but when you listen through them three or four times not only do they stick but they stick harder than the others. The album is great and he has not lost his talent. It is different and it isn't a good or bad different. It is just different. While he could keep churning out the same stuff, he makes new songs constantly, which is what he does in concert.
Quit judging his marital life that has nothing to do with the caliber of his music abilities. You were not in the conflict and you also have no ground to judge his personal life. Review the music, review it as songs written to create emotion but don't review it purely as him saying who he is or as an excuse to dissect his personal life. Honestly, talk about immature venting.
I have to agree with Will. I didn't think too much of the album the first time I listened to it, especially Free Coffee, as I'd heard it twice in concert and expected it to be truly great (it sounded extremely... uhh, odd, on the album my first few times listening to it).
However, now that I've spent 3 weeks listening to the album, it's really grown on me. The Frowne Song is one of my all-time favorite Folds tunes now, right up there with Battle of Who Could Care Less for tunes I listen to when I want to feel like I'm back in college driving down to Daytona for Spring Break.
Cologne initially turned me way off with the diaper story (it seemed really out of place in such a touching song), but after listening to it a few times, I realized the character was focused on the minutae... he's in that dreamlike stage when the relationship's over but the grief hasn't set in yet. It hit home after a while and took me back, and now I love that song.
As for Free Coffee, I still like the live version better, when the tin pan or maraca or whatever it is he has on the strings doesn't overpower every other instrument. It really sounds like static; my wife can't even listen to the song because it literally hurts her ears! However, the dreamlike quality of the album version has grown on me and now I'm pretty into it (guess years of motorcycle riding have killed the more sensitive parts of my eardrums, heh).
The rest, especially Errant Dog and Effington, are fun little tunes, and I'm happy to say I can listen to the album straight through without really being tempted to skip any songs (something I can't say about every Folds' album, though I absolutely LOVE many of the songs).