AAW: Whatever and Ever Amen

(Originally posted 21 January 2022)

This is a nice album. The music sounds good, it’s got clever and skillful instrumentation, and the songs are fun to listen to. However. I get horrendous vibes from Ben Folds. After a quick reminder that I do absolutely zero background research on these albums before, during, or after reviewing them, I’ll say he seems really pretentious and not very fun to spend time with. He seems like he thinks he’s cool because he smokes cigarettes and fetishizes mental illness. He seems like he a terrible boyfriend and a worse friend, an experience whose misfortune is second only to meeting him at a party. I can’t tell if he’d be a jazz elitist or he’d have some weird, definitely-racist-but-you-can’t-tell-how anti-jazz stance that he’d co-opt to sell records despite having what is functionally an emo jazz quintet. He seems pretentious enough to have an album review blog and expect people to read it.

While none or all of these characterizations of Folds may be true, I stand by my “Emo Jazz Quintet” statement; And golly, these kids are good. If I didn’t viscerally hate how pretty much every one of these songs treats women, I would probably listen to this album all the time. I do not think I’ve really heard jazz instrumentation be combined so effectively with lyrics to tell a story… ever. The flow of the music is really well thought out, and they incorporate some punky guitar riffs just to shake things up, swelling to a grumpy, grimy crescendo. They’ve incorporated heavy basslines, some fairly nasty guitar, in with a jazzy piano and drum combo, punctuated with the occasional bell, strings, and of course… everything is centered on Ben Folds’ voice. As if we hadn’t heard enough of what he has to say. It’s a fine album,  you should listen to it, but I cannot find myself enthused about this man and four of his friends. Best song is Evaporated, I suppose.

Next week: One More Bullet by The Toasters. God, finally some ska.