Rockin' The Suburbs Essex Junction VT

Rockin' The Suburbs

Ben Folds

Epic Records, 2001

http://www.benfoldsfive.com

REVIEW BY: Jason Warburg

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 05/12/2004

It will come as no surprise to longtime readers of the DailyVault -- not to mention my wonderful, long-suffering spouse -- thatI can be a moron sometimes. Case in point: I didn't pick up BenFolds' 2001 disc Rockin' The Suburbs until earlier this year.

I've been a Folds fan since the first time I heard "Brick," theachingly beautiful crisis-and-aftermath ballad off the Ben FoldsFive's Whatever And Ever Amen album. After the Five's third discappeared in 1999, however, Folds more or less simultaneouslydissolved the group, got married and moved to Australia.

Rockin' The Suburbs is therefore Folds' unofficial solodebut (although his 1998 side project, Fear Of Pop, was basically asolo album). And as much as I enjoyed the frenetic energy that theFive's Robert Sledge-Darren Jessee rhythm section brought to themusic, I can't imagine Ben Folds making a better album at thispoint in his career than RTS. With all due respect to Joe Jackson and Randy Newman --clearly both influences of Folds' -- there hasn't been album ofpiano-based rock this good since Elton John's early '70sheyday.

Rippling melodies and sharp-eyed lyrical detail populate thisalbum with hummable, memorable cuts. Folds' piano playing is soinstinctively rhythmic on tracks like "Annie Waits" and "Fired"that it makes me want to go back even farther and invoke the nameof the Great One, Jerry Lee Lewis. Yet he also pulls off restrainedand gorgeous on ballads like "Still Fighting It" and the soaring,touching "The Luckiest." And superbly arranged harmonies? Let'sjust say Brian Wilson would be very proud of "Zak And Sara."