Music Review: Ben Folds - Way to Normal - Page 3

Or maybe it's just me being petty — maybe I'd like to believe the best of my pop idols, and I used Folds' "The Luckiest" as my wedding song, and now I'm a little disappointed. Or at the very least, disoriented. Absolutely unfair, but possibly true.

To add an extra layer of reflection, Way To Normal was notoriously preceded by a "fake" version of the album, leaked to fans by Folds' camp and featuring songs recorded basically in one night by Folds and his band in Dublin, Ireland. Many of these songs share the same names as their counterparts on the "real" release, so even as you're trying to disentangle your thoughts about the actual Way To Normal from the miasma of Folds' divorce, you're also thinking in the back of your head, "Is this 'Frown Song' as good as the other 'Frown Song'? I kinda like the fake 'Bitch Went Nuts' better than the real one."

It's all cobwebs, thick and dusty cobwebs, tangling in the air between me and the album. They don't keep me from the goods, but they do get in the way.

Again: Way to Normal is a great pop record, full of spittle and hooks. It just takes a little more work than it should to reach it.

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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