Honesty\u2014visceral, poignant, engrossing honesty\u2014is the characteristic that comes through loud and clear on the first all-encompassing retrospective of Ben Folds\u2019 long and varied career.\u00a0 Whether he\u2019s talking about the tumultuous events surrounding a girlfriend\u2019s abortion (\u201cBrick\u201d) or pushing the plunger to implode the final remaining shell of a relationship gone bad (\u201cYou Don\u2019t Know Me\u201d), he zeroes in on the molten emotional core of any situation and plumbs it fearlessly.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The three-disc \u201cExpanded Edition\u201d of The Best Imitation Of Myself<\/i>\u2014named for the earliest track found here, a 1992 demo\u2014is divided neatly into one disc of studio recordings, a second featuring live cuts, and a third featuring rarities.\u00a0 Each mixes and matches cuts from throughout Folds\u2019 career, placing his solo work alongside cuts recorded with Ben Folds Five, the original piano-bass-drums power trio comprised of Folds, Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee.\u00a0 Discs two and three consist primarily of unreleased material.<\/p>\n
If all that wasn\u2019t enough to intrigue the average Folds fan, Best Imitation<\/i> also features the debut of three newly recorded tracks by Ben Folds Five (BFF), the first new material the group has released in more than a decade.\u00a0 (Keep in mind that the single-disc edition consists of disc one only, which means no live tracks, no rarities, and only one of the three new BFF recordings.)<\/p>\n
Disc one is the titular \u201cgreatest hits\u201d collection, but even here the choices are not necessarily the obvious ones.\u00a0 Yes, the best-known hits and notable album tracks like \u201cOne Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces\u201d and \u201cThere\u2019s Always Someone Cooler Than You\u201d are here, but solo single \u201cLanded\u201d is represented by the alternate string version, deep album track \u201cSmoke\u201d shows up in the version Folds recorded with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and \u201cStill Fighting It\u201d is an unreleased extended version.\u00a0 What\u2019s most notable in the end is the way the track selection underscores the distance between the two poles of Folds\u2019 musical personality, the potty-mouthed anarchist and the sentimental romantic.\u00a0 He is (and is not) both of these characters, over and over.<\/p>\n
Disc two is a major treat\u201421 live tracks, only four of them previously released.\u00a0 It begins with a 1997 taste of the reeling musical chaos that is \u201cJulianne,\u201d with the BFF at the height of their \u201cpunk rock for sissies\u201d brilliance.\u00a0 It\u2019s followed two tracks later by a truly epic rendition, complete with piano-strings-strummed-with-microphone, of the savagely funny \u201cSong For The Dumped.\u201d\u00a0 Another highlight is a stunning take on the touching \u201cFred Jones Part 2\u201d with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra providing superb backing, though its artistic flipside might be a surreal duet with Rufus Wainwright on Wham\u2019s semi-immortal \u201cCareless Whisper\u201d\u2026 a truly bizarre, indisputably Folds-ian moment.\u00a0 Sometimes things are unique simply because no one else would think to do them.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a terrific take on \u201cAll You Can Eat,\u201d Folds\u2019 brutal critique of modern American materialist \u201cculture,\u201d if you can call it that.\u00a0 It\u2019s followed immediately by a riotous solo-piano-and-vocals takedown of Lyle Lovett\u2019s \u201cLong Tall Texan,\u201d another example of Folds taking on another artist\u2019s work in a manner that\u2019s simultaneously self-deprecating and remarkably skillful, neither parody nor homage, simply Folds cutting loose and having fun as only a truly gifted musical artist can.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Back on his own work, Folds and the Five deliver the brilliant live 2008 MySpace reunion version of \u201cArmy,\u201d a musical home run in every respect, with Sledge\u2019s bass raging through the middle section and the crowd singing along at the top of their lungs throughout.\u00a0 More surprising, perhaps, are moments like \u201cEffington,\u201d a deep track from Way To Normal<\/i> that seemed like a one-note joke in the studio version, but comes alive with energy and invention in its live incarnation here.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
And the wonderful moments keep coming.\u00a0 The Nick Hornby\/Folds collaboration \u201cPicture Window\u201d is the highlight of Lonely Avenue<\/i> and a highlight here as well. It\u2019s nice to be reminded that \u201cSentimental Guy\u201d has an absolutely gorgeous melody, and with his current touring band he\u2019s got four supporting musicians (finally a true Ben Folds Five!), so he has the luxury of including a French horn live.\u00a0 Closing out disc two is \u201cNot The Same,\u201d featuring Folds turning his audience into a choir to sing three-part harmony with him\u2014and they do a hell of a job.<\/p>\n
Disc three offers rare nuggets such as the studio version of \u201cJulianne,\u201d the only song that doubles up in this 61-track collection, a snappy, upbeat breakup song, and the original demo of \u201cEvaporated.\u201d\u00a0 The latter, as Folds suggests in the liner notes, is a superior performance to the version that ended up on Whatever And Ever Amen<\/i>; it\u2019s both quieter and more emotional.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
For its part, \u201cBest Imitation of Myself\u201d reveals itself as the perfect title for this collection in that the song describes how we wear different masks at different times for different purposes in our lives\u2014which is exactly what Ben Folds does as a songwriter.\u00a0 Of the many demos here, though, my favorite is probably the faintly hilarious mid-life-crisis narrative \u201cHiro\u2019s Song.\u201d\u00a0 Finally, \u201coddities\u201d would be a better word than rarities for cuts like Folds\u2019 covers of Kesha\u2019s \u201cSleazy\u201d and Public Enemy\u2019s \u201cBitches Ain\u2019t Shit,\u201d and the all-star mash-up \u201cBecause the Origami\u201d\u2026 funny the first time, maybe, but hardly shining moments.<\/p>\n
As for the new Ben Folds Five material\u2014one track on disc one and two on disc three\u2014let\u2019s state it plainly: it\u2019s really good.\u00a0 Disc one\u2019s \u201cHouse\u201d is a big, cinematic number where, interestingly, the melody is carried by an orchestra, but when they go for the big crescendos in the fourth minute, Sledge and Jessee power to the front of the mix.\u00a0 \u201cTell Me What I Did,\u201d written by Sledge, is a one of the highlights of disc three, representing everything that was so much fun about BFF the first time around, including major attitude, childhood revenge fantasies and hyperactive musical accompaniment.\u00a0 The set closes with Jessee\u2019s \u201cStumbling Home Winter Blues,\u201d a nicely Folds-ified re-recording of a tune originated by the group Jessee has fronted since Folds went solo, Hotel Lights.\u00a0 (Rumor has it<\/a> that the BFF will return to the studio this December for another go at recording\u2026 let\u2019s hope so!)<\/p>\n The final bonus for those interested in Folds\u2019 creative process is the liner notes.\u00a0 Folds offers both an introductory essay and wonderfully entertaining track annotations explaining the genesis of, or some interesting anecdote about, each and every one of these 61 tracks.<\/p>\n \u201cPunk rock for sissies\u201d is what Ben Folds has called the self-invented genre he occupied with Ben Folds Five and subsequently explored further in his solo outings, and the invented label is a good one in the sense that punk rock involves an atavistic release of unedited emotion, the id set loose to do what it will.\u00a0 But in Folds\u2019 hands, which is to say in the hands of a guy who grew up idolizing Elton John, it becomes visceral piano music, at times hard-rocking, at times mellifluous verging on gorgeous.\u00a0 The common thread is honesty, and that Folds has consistently delivered for twenty years now, whether he\u2019s been writing personal songs related to his own life, or exploring the lives of characters he writes about with the sort of fearless honesty and deft craftsmanship normally reserved for novelists (for example\u2026 Nick Hornby).<\/p>\n We already knew that Ben Folds is one of the most gifted songwriters and performers of his generation\u2014The Best Imitation Of Myself<\/i> just proves it all over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7015],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-42435","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ben-folds","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42435"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}