Today is music from one of my favorite artists. I love his work as a composer and as a performer. I really feel like Ben Folds is one of the most talented musicians in the world. He seems to be a student of music as well as a master of the piano. I do not have all of his library by any means. I would like to get it all at some point but I have three solo albums and two Ben Folds Five albums. I love them pretty much all equally.
Some songs touch me on a more emotional level and can just leave me gutted but others are just really, really well crafted songs and are incredibly nice to listen to. As a result it is going to be hard for me to narrow this down. So I am not sure what I am going to do. I think I may just do one from each of the albums I have. But I would encourage all of you to go out and to track down any and all Ben Folds that you can find. He really is amazing.
This first one is from the album WHATEVER AND EVER AMEN from 1997 and is called "Battle of Who Could Care Less". This is an amazing song and it gets bonus points for mention the Rockford Files.
The second album is THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF REINHOLD MESSNER from 1999 and is truly an amazing album. I do not think there is a bad song on it. There are truly 11 shining diamonds on this album starting with "Narcolepsy" and finishing with "Lullabye" all the songs are amazing. I am not sure where to be begin honestly.
I had to go with "Mess". It says so much.
I had to add another. I just couldn't help myself. This is a lovely, lovely song and the musical arrangement in it is just beautiful. It is called "Magic"
From there we move into Bens' first solo album from 2001 called ROCKIN' THE SUBURBS. I like this album almost as much as I like the last one. I think it is an underrated album but radio play has never been a hallmark of his success. I think Ben plays music for himself and we fans are lucky enough to get to enjoy it. What he writes is not your typical pop music crafted for the masses in some studio for the teen demographic. It isn't that I dislike that type of music but what Ben Folds does is nothing like it.
I am going to have to do three songs from this one. So, So, good.
"Gone" This song pretty much speaks for itself and anyone who knows me in real life knows exactly what I am talking about.
"Fred Jones, Pt. 2". This one is just really a sad and touching story of a retired newspaper man. It really is a lovely song.
"The Ascent of Stan". The piano in this. So amazing. No words for how good this song is. It is a song with some real truth in it.
The next album is from 2008 and is called WAY TO NORMAL and while there are some good songs on it. I do not feel it compares to the last two I just played. But there is one song that I have played here repeatedly and I am going to do so again today.
"You Don't Know Me" with Regina Spektor. Not much to say that I haven't said in the multiple times that I have already highlighted this song. Just listen to it.
The last album I have which as I look at it may not be a real album at all but may very well be a total bootleg is Ben Fold with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra from 2005.
This is called "The Luckiest"
I hope you all enjoyed Ben Folds and that this encouraged you to get some more of his music.
No comments:
Post a Comment