Music Review: Ben Folds - Way to Normal - Page 2

I don't really hear "cathartic and expressive" on Way to Normal. I hear "slightly vengeful" and "angry."

The lead single, "You Don't Know Me," explores the great divide between two people who once were familiar and have since lost each other completely. "We're damned by the existential moment when/we saw the couple in the coma and/it was we who were the cliche/but we carried on anyway," Folds sings, then "You don't know me/at all," as guest vocalist Regina Spektor hisses the "at all" in the background with vicious accuracy.

On the surface, the opening track, "Hiroshima" is just a wacky tale of Ben taking a head-long dive off a stage in Japan and suffering a concussion. Chop out chunks of the words, and you hear the anger of a guy feeling the nakedness of confessional writing that cuts a little too close to the bone: "They're watching me, watching me, watching me fall... do you wanna know what's in my head?"

There's more; listen close and you'll hear the detritus of the divorce rattling and clanging all over the record. But don't forget: The divorce doesn't matter! That's why the label wanted you to know about it! Because it doesn't matter!

It does beg the question: When (if ever) should an artist's personal life have any impact on how an audience perceives his art? Should I be listening to Way to Normal as the product of a newly-gay divorcee, or should I just be hearing it as a collection of melodies and lyrics, and let the music and words dictate my reactions?

I'll say this: I don't think I wanted to know about the divorce before hearing Way to Normal. In fact, I think it may get in the way. I want to evaluate the record from a stance of relative purity, and yet instead I'm just dragging these tidbits of the personal into a public expression.

Article Author: Matt Springer

Matt Springer should probably trim his toenails more often. Instead, he spends far too much time thinking and writing about pop culture ephemera, at Alert Nerd (for geek stuff) and Pop Geek (for everything else). …

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