I’m taking a short break from theme weeks and using the next five days to feature songs from new or upcoming albums. Wait, I guess that makes this a theme week after all. Oh well.
First up is the second single from Ben Folds’ upcoming album What Matters Most, due out on June 2. On January 4, in a post about new releases expected this year, I wrote “How about a new Ben Folds album, if the universe is taking suggestions?” Apparently the universe was listening.
Today’s random track appeared on Ben Folds’ 2004 EP Super D, one of a trio of EPs Folds released between his first two solo albums.
The song is a tribute to Adelaide, South Australia, where Folds lived from 1999 to 2006 after marrying native Aussie Frally Hynes. Hynes was Folds’ third wife and is the mother of his twin son and daughter. Since their split, he has married twice more.
It’s been five years since Ben Folds’ last album release, and that one (2015’s So There) was a collaboration with a chamber orchestra, with half of its running time dedicated to an instrumental suite.
That makes it a full decade since his last full-length release, 2010’s Lonely Avenue, and on that album he handed the lyrical reins to novelist Nic Hornby. Which makes it 12 years since Folds released an album of his own material. That was 2008’s Way to Normal, a decent collection but one that too often found Folds relying on sophomoric humor.
Always nice to hear new music from Ben Folds, whose last album (a half-instrumental collaboration with chamber ensemble yMusic) came out five years ago, and whose last traditional album was released five years before that.
Folds’ new song, ‘2020,’ was inspired (if that’s the right word) by the crazy combination of disasters visited upon the United States this year. Here’s hoping he has more new material on the way.
Ben Folds, one of my favorite artists, had a very lean decade. His last solo release was 2015’s So There, an album recorded with the chamber ensemble yMusic that featured a handful of songs plus an orchestral piece. Before that, you have to go all the way back to 2010.
But that 2010 album was a doozy. Written in collaboration with novelist/screenwriter Nick Hornby, Lonely Avenue is possibly Folds’ best work outside of Ben Folds Five (and speaking of that trio, 2012 did see a very good reunion album by the band titled The Sound of the Life of the Mind).
Meet Me In Montauk 