On Wednesday morning, CNN’s top headline in the entertainment section read “Ben Folds hears new voices.” About an hour after I saw it, it read “‘Brick’ hitmaker hears new voices.”
A sad revision, I feel.
I have seen Ben Folds in concert more than any other artist. This was due to a near unhealthy obsession with the mastermind musician in high school and college, even pulling off the hat trick: seeing him in Houston, Austin and Dallas for one tour. Singling him out for “Brick” is like talking about Radiohead as the one-hit wonders behind “Creep” (well, at least Ben doesn’t HATE “Brick” like Yorke hates “Creep”).
In Dallas, at what used to be The Red Jacket on the Greenville strip, my friend (and talented pianist), Tim, wore a black t-shirt which he threw on stage as Ben sang the line “and give me back my black t-shirt” in “Song For The Dumped”. Ben stopped playing, let the band improv for a bit as he calmly walked over to the black t-shirt, unbuttoned his plaid shirt (before plaid was cool) and donned Tim’s shirt. He played the rest of the set in this shirt and we were more than happy to hang out in the back afterward talking to Ben to retrieve said article of clothing. Good times.
But since moving to California, I’ve noticed Ben’s tours never really come here. Almost like he was avoiding the state. Who knows why? I’ll be sure to ask him soon, though, because he’s actually COMING to the Palladium on May 20th. I would say it’s a tour for his new album, but unless he’s carrying roughly 100+ college students with him, I’m not comfortable labeling it that way.
Released this past Tuesday the 28th, the creation of the latest album titled “Ben Folds Presents: University a Cappella!” was a kind of happy accident (in a Suri Cruise way) after Ben stumbled across YouTube videos of groups doing complete vocal arrangements of his hits. Some of them are impressive, some are meh, but he picked the best, traveled around the country recording and has an interesting release now available.
Is it preferable to an entirely new Ben Folds album?
No.
Is it better than some tenth anniversary remastered greatest hits thing?
Yeah…
Sometimes the album is reminiscent of an ivy-leauge douchy circle jerk, or elicits the annoying antics of Andy from The Office… but also at times, I think it’s really cool and amazing how some of the groups did it. You might approach the piece at the beginning thinking about how the voices mimic the instruments, and then you start to wonder if the instruments weren’t made a long time ago to mimic the voices…
I’ll post a couple of the worthiest songs here and one video I think is cool from the original submissions Ben got for the contest for the album. You decide. Regardless of this album, however, everyone who can SHOULD see the show on May 20th, because seeing him live might just make you as obsessed as me. And I’ll bet money he’s bringing musical instruments to this one.
The University of Chicago: Voices In Your Head – “Magic”
The University of Rochester: Midnight Ramblers – “Army”
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Comments ( 2 )
Jo Wishart added these pithy words on May 02 09 at 1:41 pmI read your headline, then walked away for some ice cream the whole time thinking “Brick? What a shiteous headline.” Then I came back and read the rest of the story and remembered our brains live in the same dimension….
