Before the release of his 2008 album, Way to Normal, Ben Folds decided to have some fun with his fans.
Because all albums inevitably leak onto the Internet weeks before their release, Folds figured he’d embrace that fact and leak it himself. Only he didn’t leak the actual album, but instead recorded joke version of six album tracks and put those out alongside a couple of “real” songs.
I was all set to write that another previous weekend artist was showing up on Random Weekends, but then I realized Ben Folds hasn’t gotten the weekend treatment (yet).
I guess I just assumed he had because I’ve featured so many of his songs on the blog, including the entirety of his first album with Ben Folds Five.
Best Songwriters – #3 – Ben Folds
Ben Folds could easily have been #1 on this list. It’s only his relative youth compared to the two songwriters to come that slipped him to the third spot. Twenty or thirty years from now, if he continues to produce the sort of music he has thus far, he’ll be pretty much unbeatable.
In 1995, Ben Folds Five released their self-titled debut, an album that I have often called my favorite of all-time, and to date the only record I’ve ever covered in its entirety on this blog. That album alone earned Folds a spot on this list.
And so I begin my next 1,000 songs.
‘Evaporated’ is the final track on Ben Folds Five’s sophomore album, Whatever and Ever Amen. It’s slow and angsty and one of the best examples in Ben Folds’ whole catalog of him being introspective.
Folds is so fast and funny so often than he really earns his more somber and thoughtful moments. For a guy so steeped in irony, an earned tear is a rare and lovely thing. He shares that quality with one of his idols, Randy Newman, who has written his own share of songs like this one.
Today is the 5th birthday of my younger daughter, Fiona. Yes, she was born on Valentine’s Day… cue all the comments about how sweet that is.
I figured it was appropriate to pull out the mack-daddy of father/daughter songs today. I have a few others I love (and I promise to feature one on June 20, my other daughter’s birthday) but ‘Gracie’ by Ben Folds is the one song to rule them all.
Appearing on Folds’ Songs for Silverman, this is one of the songs that caused fair-weather fans to dismiss him as soft. Those morons hadn’t been paying much attention to the rest of his career.
Meet Me In Montauk 