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Ben Folds

Way To Normal  Hear it Now

RS: 2.5of 5 Stars

2009

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Call it "Revenge of the Nerds, Part 7." On Folds' seventh studio album, the keyboard-banging singer-songwriter remains one of pop's angriest men — an übergeek in a permanent state of high dudgeon. When he's not "Flipping off the asshole/Who pulled into my lane" ("Free Coffee"), he's railing against "the bitch" who "called me cunt" ("Bitch Went Nuts"). Then there's "Effington," a tirade about the banality of small-town life: "Are they effing in their yards/Effing in their cars/Effing in the trailers and the back roads/And the parking lots of Effington." Folds has a gift for melody — nearly every song comes with a memorable hook — but his imagination as an arranger remains limited. He buries his best tunes (including "You Don't Know Me," a catchy duet with Regina Spektor) in the same rackety, monochrome piano pop he's been churning out since 1995. And Folds still drips disdain for everyone and everything around him: Connecticut adulteresses, online psychics, New Age-y suburbanites who are "fucking the guru," and a dozen other easy targets. If he's not careful, he'll become one himself.



JODY ROSEN

(Posted: Oct 2, 2008)

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