New Ben Folds Album NOT About Ben Folds!

I had all but given up on Ben Folds. I came to expect Ben seeking to treat fans to Ultimate Repackaging of the same handfuls of hits (through symphonies, college acapella groups, etc.), while letting his own new creative work trickle out-- through unfortunately banal collections as "Back to Normal" and "Songs for Silverman." A few chestnuts reside on each, but neither album had more than a few examples of Ben working hard: the words, it seems, MUST be truly personal, for Ben to be able to even think of an appropriate chord structure and melody, matching the similarly-valuable message.

I don't fault Ben for this-- my own songwriting career feels plagued by the same reluctance to 'get into the hard stuff' of life, tending towards the goofy and the general over the personal and confessional. Three divorces, kids, and a big relocation to Australia, and Ben still hadn't achieved a lyrical ability to speak generally, honestly, and without tongue in cheek, about his life-- in the same way that one of his obvious heroes, Randy Newman, achieved in the early 1970s, certainly within his first three albums. I wish Ben would have challenged himself to some different extent over this near-decade of ego: perhaps covering Newman's "It's Money I Love" over arranging "Brick" for perennial symphony, acapella and solo piano engagements. Because the message would have been the same.

This is why his best album was still (until recently, perhaps) the final effort by Ben Folds Five, "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner." Running with liberties made of his seizing another's identity (that of the name and photo found on Folds' adolescent fake ID), those songs held an intrinsic connection between words and the music that was somehow more earnest, forthright.

All those days are over now for Ben: with "Lonely Avenue," he's become as empowered as Elton John, and as separate from the meaning of his songs. His Bernie Taupin is Nick Hornsby, and the lyricist and Ben have done a yeoman's job of delineating their relationship, and the evolution of such, via Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and all manner of New Media. It's all very lovely, and worth your reading.

What this means for this music is that Ben is relieved of half of his duties, and that's not a bad thing. The first song, "A Working Day," is Ben at his best, and most clear, at the helm of everything in the studio: if Stevie Wonder set the bar back in the day, for performing all instruments in the multi-track environment, Ben uses "Lonely Avenue" to explore his own abilities to literally build in his own drum fills, making every choice imaginable-- except the lyrics. That whole collaboration with William Shatner, with Captain Kirk reading his poetry and Ben jamming out doesn't count in this genre-- that was spoken word, and weird performance, and "Lonely Avenue" is seeking (again) the pop song, with attach-yourself-to-'em lyrics.

And those are good, too-- most notably, "Levi Johnston's Blues" and "Claire's Ninth." Whether or not "Lonely Avenue" reaches heights of piano-power-pop set by songs like Elton John/Bernie Taupin's "Tiny Dancer," or even achieves standards set by Ben himself decades ago ("Alice Childress," "Eddie Walker") remains to be seen: I need more listening time. I hope to find the same reasons to pound the dash and sing loud while driving, as found back in the day myself. At the very least: props to Ben for trying something new.