BEN FOLDS FIVE: WHATEVER AND EVER AMEN (1997)
1) One Angry Dwarf And 200
Solemn Faces; 2) Fair; 3) Brick; 4) Song For The Dumped; 5) Selfless, Cold, And
Composed; 6) Kate; 7) Smoke; 8) Cigarette; 9) Steven's Last Night In Town; 10)
Battle Of Who Could Care Less; 11) Missing The War; 12) Evaporated.
Ben Folds Five's second album does not do much
except tightening the screws on an already well-built formula, but who's
complaining? The songs make a little more sense, the choruses are a little
catchier, the atmosphere occasionally gets a little wilder, and, above
everything else, the first album never contained any hidden promises of future
self-reinvention. As long as Ben Folds can come up with another bunch of
lightly melancholic or lightly humorous vignettes and keep on recombining those
music hall and rock'n'roll chords, he should be okay by any standards.
The fourth single from the album (ʽBrickʼ)
actually caused some controversy: it broke the band into the charts, getting
plenty of airplay and almost elevating them to «mainstream» status, which
naturally upset their «underground» fanbase, jealous of losing the monopoly on
the merry piano man and his companions. The fanbase had its own truth, of
course, since ʽBrickʼ is really one of the weakest numbers on here — its piano
melody is scattered and generic, its mood predictably sentimental, and only the
vocal structure of the chorus merits special attention. But, as Ben said
himself, it is an honest, well-meaning song (about waiting for his girlfriend
while she is having an abortion), and the honesty, along with its
mass-audience-palatable «alt-pop» arrangement, helped sell the song and gain
the band some extra notability.
The real meat'n'potatoes of the record are the
fast-moving numbers, regardless of whether they are based on pre-war dance
rhythms (ʽSteve's Last Night In Townʼ), post-war jazz grooves (ʽOne Angry Dwarf
And 200 Solemn Facesʼ), or rock'n'roll variations (ʽKateʼ, which borrows its
rhythmic skeleton from Bo Diddley's ʽRoadrunnerʼ). This stuff is expectedly
eccentric, hilarious, and exciting — ʽOne Angry Dwarfʼ is a frenetic
psychodrama where Ben's piano parts, mostly jazz chords played with punkish
energy, accompany a bitter story of one man's petty revenge against his
childhood traumas (loosely referring to an artistic career but could just as
easily be applied to some political figures we know all too well); ʽKateʼ is the
only love song I know where the protagonist wants to become his love interest rather than mate with her, and setting
this idea to the formerly ultra-macho melody of ʽRoadrunnerʼ is a super-ironic
gesture; and ʽSteven's Last Night In Townʼ simply has a great clarinet part,
giving it some nice hot speakeasy attitude as Ben pokes friendly fun at one of
his friends for excessive socializing.
It helps to pay attention to the lyrics,
because the average Ben Folds song is almost always a little concrete vignette,
not exactly or necessarily plot-oriented, but representing a particular point
of view or recounting a particular moment of experience — ʽMissing The Warʼ, which
is not about a real war but rather about a turbulent relationship; ʽCigaretteʼ,
a brief chamber-pop piece on a guy divorcing his wife because she had cancer; ʽSong
For The Dumpedʼ, where the protagonist rails at his ex for leaving him
penniless, etc. etc. It's not as if the album provides any radically new insights
into the human relations area, but Ben has a modestly good way with words and
always finds the right music to go along with them.
There are occasional dubious decisions — for
instance, continuous bass feedback on the first half of ʽFairʼ that gives me a
headache and frankly does not do much good to the unfurling of the story, before
it finally gets some rhythm and becomes a straightforward catchy power pop
tune. ʽSelfless, Cold And Composedʼ is a moody old-style jazz waltz that is a
bit offset with some offkey singing and runs about two minutes longer than it
should. The silly parody on the «hidden track» gimmick is also... silly. But
worth waiting for just once, just to see how silly one can get. Anyway, it's
all just minor nitpicking. A major nitpick is that there may be a slight
overdose of ballads — and it's not just about ʽBrickʼ, it's about the fact that
Ben has a bit of a trouble with his «heartbroken» avatar, so that a potentially
beautiful chorus like the one on ʽEvaporatedʼ comes out shakey, and a
potentially devastating "God, what have I done!.." generates some
tepid sympathy and that's about it. Subjective judgement, of course, but there
is no denying that Ben's voice simply does not live up to the demands of the tricky
vocal melodies he comes up with. Although the same cannot be said about the trio's
vocal harmonies — on ʽFairʼ, for instance, they revel in falsetto like the next
incarnation of classic ELO.
On the whole, though, the record is an
unquestionable success: no doubts about a thumbs up, and a big load of exuberant enjoyment is
freely guaranteed. The special CD edition adds a bunch of bonus tracks,
including clever reinventions of the Buggles' ʽVideo Killed The Radio Starʼ and
the Flaming Lips' ʽShe Don't Use Jellyʼ, and is also recommendable.
Check "Whatever And Ever Amen" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Whatever And Ever Amen" (MP3) on Amazon
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