SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS/NICK HORNBY-Lonely Avenue (2010).
As the cover of this album notes: “Ben Folds adds music and melody to Nick Hornby’s words.” And that is true. The only surprising thing about this combination is that Folds is quite a good lyricist himself, so it’s surprising that he would sacrifice his words. But regardless, the fit is a good one.
Sometimes it seems like Hornby is challenging Folds to come up with melodies for some of his more difficult lyrics which Folds lives up to). But they have such similar sensibilities that (aside from occasional references to British things) the words could have come from Folds himself (although, Hornby’s a better writer, so Folds wouldn’t have written exactly the same things).
The big surprise is the diversity of musical styles on the disc. Folds of course does play lots of different types of music on his previous discs, but I guess since the cohesion is Hornby’s words so Folds can really let loose.
The opener, “A Working Day” is a keyboard pop confection, a surprisingly 80s sounding synth song with some wry lyrics about being a writer/performer (“some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know, he’s got his own blog”). “Picture Window” is a beautiful downer, a string-filled song that seems like a companion to Folds’ “Brick” (“You know what hope is, hope is a bastard”). It’s just as sad but the melody is gorgeous.
“Levi Johnson’s Blues” is a strangely topical song (in fact, it took me a minute to remember who he was when I first listened to the song. Anyhow, it’s a silly song about what happened to the father of Sarah Palin’s grandchild. And yet, despite the novelty of it, it’s actually a somewhat sympathetic portrait of the guy (sure he’s a redneck, but he’s just a normal guy thrust into a ridiculous spotlight–the liner notes say the chorus came from Levis (redacted) Facebook page).
“Doc Pomus” feels like a classic piano song. While “Young Dogs: is a fast romper (with great vocals) and more keyboards. “Practical Amanda” is a slow ballad (and Hornby says it’s not autobiographical at all). While “Claire’s Ninth” is a story about a young girl of divorced parents who hates having two birthdays. (With sweeping choruses!) Hornby states that this was his first accepted short story (modified for the song, of course) but the magazine that accepted it stopped publishing before his appeared. D’oh!
“Password” is a wonderful song which only makes sense when you know the name of it (which I didn’t at first, as I usually don’t look at titles right away). Throughout the song Ben spells words which leads to a cool conclusion–it’s wonderfully clever writing and it’s done in a fascinating R&B-lite style.
“From Above” is a jaunty rocker about people who never meet, although their paths cross quite often. “Saskia Hamilton” is the “single” from the record. It’s another great 80’s keyboard fueled romp. Since I have a friend named Saskia (hi, Saskia) I’m fond of this song–her name is fun to say. They have a bunch of fun in the recording too.
The final track, “Belinda” is designed like a classic 70s piano ballad (there’s a lengthy email printed in the notes that explains the construction of the song–reading that makes the song even more impressive).
It’s a great Ben Folds album. It’s not as tidy as some of his other ones–but all of that experimentation leads to some new avenues of melody. It’s a risk that paid off.
[READ: May 10, 2011] Five Dials Number 7
This issue of Five Dials was primarily about Memoir. Typically, I don’t like memoirs, but I’m finding (and this coincides with what one of the memoirs below states), that I just don’t like celebrity memoirs. Or perhaps I just like three page accounts of an incident in someone’s life (which these are).
Each of the writers below is given an introduction in which they summarize WHY they write memoirs. It’s interesting to see that many of them do, in fact, take other people’s feeling into consideration (not as seriously as Mark Twain who waited 100 years for the publication of his), but they try to do something or other to spare people’s feelings. I was intrigued also that several of the writers also talk about finding themselves through writing. One or two of them make the exercise of writing memoir sound obnoxiously solipsistic (which of course it is), but it’s nice to read ones that are interesting and not too self-centered.
CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: “On Audio Detective Work and Memoir”
This letter explains the extent of the audio detective work that went into the interview (presented later) between Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming. Since I love playing with audio software, this was of especial interest to me. And it made me really look forward to the interview. (more…)
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SOUNDTRACK: BASIA BULAT-“In the Night” (2008).
I recently came across Basia Bulat via NPR. She played a Tiny Desk concert and I discovered that she had several other entries in the NPR canon.
I Just Read About That... 