I know I said it wrong
Sep. 23rd, 2008 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfieldMy latest CD review for the Hartford Courant ran today: my take on Ben Folds' new album "Way to Normal."
The Courant reviews are limited to about 200 words, and half of those are routinely changed, twisted or excised during the editing process. (Apparently someone on the copy desk resents my persistent use of the exclamation "Shazam!")
But if I had more space, this is what would have been written after the first paragraph:
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The album's lead track, "Hiroshima," is ostensibly a live number brimming with Folds' trademark thumping piano chords. But underneath the arena-rock conceit is an embarassing true-life story about the artist falling off a concert stage and sustaining a concussion. And he invites the audience in on the joke, asking them to check out his cranial x-rays.
"Way to Normal" isn't a concept album, but there are subtle threads between tracks. Folds' Japanese health care episode gives way to "Dr. Yang," an energetic but uninspired mockery of east asian pseudo-medicine. The critical observation continues on "The Frown Song," in which he attempts to puncture upper-class pretense to a mid-tempo swing beat. In both instances he crafts cute little melodies but the final products seem to be less than the sum of their parts. He seems incapable of social commentary without somehow implying that it's all just a big goof.
Even at his most earnest and sentimental, as in the bittersweet ballad "Cologne" (and its instrumental prelude "Before Cologne") he can't help a passing reference to a certain psychotic diaper-wearing astronaut. Nevertheless, the song's haunting refrain, "four, three, two, one/I'm letting you go" combines lyrical tension with sweet musical resolution.
Having come so close to genuine emotion, he naturally backs away from it with the forgettably strident (and disappointingly literal) "Errant Dog," notable only because he makes a direct allusion to said dog in a later song. This is followed by "Free Coffee," a sonic experiment in static reverb that is otherwise similarly mundane. At the end of the track, though, a guru's voice provides a spoken-word introduction to the album's next and best track.
That track is "Bitch Went Nutz," a hilariously bouncy breakup song that serves as a fitting bookend to the Ben Folds Five classic "Song for the Dumped." The song is so brutally graphic that he may hear cries of misogyny or chauvinism, but only from people who aren't listening hard enough. Folds sings with his tongue so firmly in-cheek that he’s practically choking on it, and probably should.
Thus begins the album's denouement, beginning with the infectiously dissonant "Brainwascht," which also serves an uncomfortably candid response to a mysterious critic out there somewhere. (Folds, to some credit, seems to realize the immaturity of this give-and-take, but goes ahead with it anyway.)
The album closes with two ballads, the gently ironic "Effington," part-epithet, part-elegy. But whatever overarching message it is that he's trying to communicate is lost between the song's essential linguistic gimmick and the opening salvo, "If there's a God/He is laughing at us/And our football team." The final song is "Kylie in Connecticut," which seems to aspire to be an epic musical narrative but never gets past the first page.
Awkwardly wedged in there, between "The Frown Song" and "Before Cologne" is the disc's sugary lead single "You Don’t Know Me," which might get some limited radio airplay. But featured guest Regina Spektor dominates the song with her breathy soprano vocals as well as her clipped, synthetic production style, and ultimately the song seems to belong on her album rather than Folds'.
Each song represents a different picaresque vision of the world, particularly the ridiculousness of the mundane. In this way, he is a worthy heir to the tradition of Harry Nilsson (without the mania) or Randy Newman (without the depression). On "Way to Normal" he plays mania and depression against each other -- just when he's starting to enjoy himself, he exposes an emotional nerve, and just when he's saying something serious he undercuts it with a joke.
Through it all, Folds is clearly having fun, but is he laughing with us or at us? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. But it’s even harder not to smile.
-----------
The Courant reviews are limited to about 200 words, and half of those are routinely changed, twisted or excised during the editing process. (Apparently someone on the copy desk resents my persistent use of the exclamation "Shazam!")
But if I had more space, this is what would have been written after the first paragraph:
-----------
The album's lead track, "Hiroshima," is ostensibly a live number brimming with Folds' trademark thumping piano chords. But underneath the arena-rock conceit is an embarassing true-life story about the artist falling off a concert stage and sustaining a concussion. And he invites the audience in on the joke, asking them to check out his cranial x-rays.
"Way to Normal" isn't a concept album, but there are subtle threads between tracks. Folds' Japanese health care episode gives way to "Dr. Yang," an energetic but uninspired mockery of east asian pseudo-medicine. The critical observation continues on "The Frown Song," in which he attempts to puncture upper-class pretense to a mid-tempo swing beat. In both instances he crafts cute little melodies but the final products seem to be less than the sum of their parts. He seems incapable of social commentary without somehow implying that it's all just a big goof.
Even at his most earnest and sentimental, as in the bittersweet ballad "Cologne" (and its instrumental prelude "Before Cologne") he can't help a passing reference to a certain psychotic diaper-wearing astronaut. Nevertheless, the song's haunting refrain, "four, three, two, one/I'm letting you go" combines lyrical tension with sweet musical resolution.
Having come so close to genuine emotion, he naturally backs away from it with the forgettably strident (and disappointingly literal) "Errant Dog," notable only because he makes a direct allusion to said dog in a later song. This is followed by "Free Coffee," a sonic experiment in static reverb that is otherwise similarly mundane. At the end of the track, though, a guru's voice provides a spoken-word introduction to the album's next and best track.
That track is "Bitch Went Nutz," a hilariously bouncy breakup song that serves as a fitting bookend to the Ben Folds Five classic "Song for the Dumped." The song is so brutally graphic that he may hear cries of misogyny or chauvinism, but only from people who aren't listening hard enough. Folds sings with his tongue so firmly in-cheek that he’s practically choking on it, and probably should.
Thus begins the album's denouement, beginning with the infectiously dissonant "Brainwascht," which also serves an uncomfortably candid response to a mysterious critic out there somewhere. (Folds, to some credit, seems to realize the immaturity of this give-and-take, but goes ahead with it anyway.)
The album closes with two ballads, the gently ironic "Effington," part-epithet, part-elegy. But whatever overarching message it is that he's trying to communicate is lost between the song's essential linguistic gimmick and the opening salvo, "If there's a God/He is laughing at us/And our football team." The final song is "Kylie in Connecticut," which seems to aspire to be an epic musical narrative but never gets past the first page.
Awkwardly wedged in there, between "The Frown Song" and "Before Cologne" is the disc's sugary lead single "You Don’t Know Me," which might get some limited radio airplay. But featured guest Regina Spektor dominates the song with her breathy soprano vocals as well as her clipped, synthetic production style, and ultimately the song seems to belong on her album rather than Folds'.
Each song represents a different picaresque vision of the world, particularly the ridiculousness of the mundane. In this way, he is a worthy heir to the tradition of Harry Nilsson (without the mania) or Randy Newman (without the depression). On "Way to Normal" he plays mania and depression against each other -- just when he's starting to enjoy himself, he exposes an emotional nerve, and just when he's saying something serious he undercuts it with a joke.
Through it all, Folds is clearly having fun, but is he laughing with us or at us? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. But it’s even harder not to smile.
-----------
