After a long drought, Ben Folds has released a new album! And not a hybrid of pop songs and orchestral pieces like his 2015 record So There — an actual full-length album!
What Matters Most is Folds’ first proper solo release since 2010’s Lonely Avenue, and even there he handed lyric duties over to novelist Nick Hornby. So we’re going back 15 years to 2008’s Way to Normal before we hit a comparable album. This is a big deal.
This week I’ll count down the ten songs on What Matters Most from my least to most favorite. Overall, this album finds Folds almost entirely in the sweet spot I love best… melancholy piano ballads with clever, introspective lyrics. I’ll get the two exceptions out of the way first.
#10. ‘But Wait, There’s More’
What Matters Most was largely written during the pandemic and several of the songs directly reflect current events. This one takes aim at the Trump era, and how things that were good for a laugh (like Rudy Giuliani’s disastrous parking lot press conference) aren’t very funny when you realize we’re in for another two years of this mess.
It’s a clever lyric, but I find the music distractingly weak. At least that’s true for the first half, which sounds almost like a practical joke. The song improves when the horns kick in, but not enough to save it.
This is a head-scratching choice as the leadoff track. Thankfully, it doesn’t reflect — at all — the rest of the album.
#9. ‘Exhausting Lover‘
I featured the album’s second single six weeks ago and found it a little too juvenile. That said, it’s very well constructed musically and lyrically.
Having heard the whole album, I don’t think this song really fits. It doesn’t serve as a change of pace because it comes so early in the track list (track three). Instead it feels more like a throwback to Way to Normal, an album that was a little too heavy with the jokes.
In a perfect world, I would swap these two songs with tunes more in line with the rest of the album.
There’s more
Wait
There’s more
Wait, there’s more
What used to be extreme’s now a bore
That freak show in the landscaping parking lot
Was oh-so-funny then, now it’s not
Enough
But wait, there’s more
Did we really think we’d go back to normal?
Did we really ever think we could cut that cord?
‘Cause look who’s coming back, coming back for more
But wait, there’s more
More, more, more
Do you still believe in the good of humankind?
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
(Wait)
Time that you won’t get back
(There’s more)
All the places you’ll never be
(Wait)
Books that you might have read
(There’s more)
Klan moms you can’t unsee
But wait, there’s more
More, more, more
Do you still believe in the good of humankind?
I do
I do
I do
I do
I do
But wait, there’s more
Not sure that we can take too much more
Pray that there’s a bottom somewhere in sight
Brothers and sisters, hold tight
Meet Me In Montauk 
I’ve now heard the new album about four times through, and I am really loving it!
I too would probably put the opening track at or near the bottom, but still find it to be good and interesting. Much of this album has the feel of a musical and, when viewed from that perspective, “But Wait” is actually a perfect opener.
Meanwhile, “Exhausting Lover” has grown on me exponentially. Within the context of the theme of the album, particularly when heard like a musical (which the video of course leans into), the song feels like a funny story one might recount on any one of hundreds of long days and nights in the midst of the pandemic, recalling the good old light hearted days of normal times, which for Ben was being on tour and having this kind of trivial encounter.
I really enjoyed this album the first listen through – and I’m looking forward to closer listens and lyric deep dives.
I’m a huge fan of “Exhausting Lover,” I can see what you mean in terms of the pacing feeling out of place with the rest of the album. This one clicked in very well as a single and the accompanying music video is so much fun.
Very well said! I’d likely have a similar rating for these two tracks in terms of what I return to most although the horns on “Exhausted Lover” are seriously killer. I think the opening track here is so tongue in cheek in the best way for an artist who has gone so long without releasing music! I love it when Ben Folds kinda leans into that a little bit in an intellectual and somewhat sophisticated way. Great stuff!