A Ben Folds Apology

After all that ranting from last time, it turns out that the new Ben Folds CD is really, really good. I still think it's asinine that you can't play the damn thing, but the CD itself is very well done.

Ben Folds in general gets a whole bunch of allowances anyway with me, so it wasn't like I was going to pan the album in the first place, but, yeah, it's excellent.

A quick recap of all the bonus points he gets (Fametracker style, natch) from me:

• A body of work that includes Brick, Magic, Underground, and Philosophy. [For making a whole bunch of awesome songs, that generally only have one word in the title for easy remember-ability: +5]
• His shows are completely and totally awesome live. [For not sucking without a recording studio and playing the piano at the same time: +3]
• He is sort-of cute, in a very, very dorky way. [For shallowness: +1]
• He has covered both Dr. Dre's Bitches Ain't Shit and George Michael's Careless Whisper and he did them both with a completely straight face. [For taking songs that I already liked when I was younger and making them completely awesome: +2]
• He produced William Shatner's latest album. [For making what I seriously think is the best album of 2004 (Hey, shut up, have you listened to it? You don't EVEN KNOW.) happen: +3]
• Song for the Dumped. [Approx: + 1,000,000 but to make everything even: +1]

And a runthrough of his detracting points:

• Physically impossible to play his new CD. [For inciting my white hot rage of late with yet another annoyance: -1]
• He (okay, mutually) dissolved the Five. [For both losing a cool name and seeming snooty, no matter how it actually went down: -2]

So he's already at a +12 overall.

And the CD really is excellent. Nothing too showy and maybe not as insanely listenable as Rocking the Suburbs, but every song is solid and nice and exactly what I want from a Ben Folds CD. Trusted is easily my favorite song on here, because it is exactly the right amount of old sounding Ben Folds Five and newer completely orchestrated piano rocking out.

I don't know, don't talk to me about music. If you thought I couldn't adequately explain my movie reviews, it's an entirely different level when talking about music.

It's good stuff. I'd totally recommend it, if I thought that once you bought it you would be able to listen to it.

(Also: Gracie should not make me as sad as it does, but it does, and awww.)