Ben Folds
Rockin' the Suburbs
[Epic; 2001]
Rating: 6.3
I grew up in the suburbs. We lived about 30 minutes outside of fabulous
downtown Hartford, Connecticut, in a little burg crisscrossed by the
interstate and assailed by fast food restaurants dying to get a piece of
property in our little town. I lived in the part of town where all the
farms were slowly being conquered by developments, a pretty lengthy bike
ride from anything of interest.
Overall, growing up there wasn't bad. We were comfortable, the schools were
decent, if underfunded, and crime was nearly nonexistent. Of course, growing
up in this environment also meant long sessions spent in the blistering hell
of boredom. This forced us to devise our own methods of entertainment, which
by high school, often involved what Ben Folds calls "rockin' the suburbs."
My town was full of kids who had quite a bit of money, but didn't have a clue
what to do with it (IRA? What's that?). This led to a war of car stereos,
many of which were suped up to epic proportions for maximum suburb-rocking
capabilities. I'll never forget playing a Beethoven CD on my friend Dan's
30-megaton sub-woofers-- it didn't exactly rock, but it sure sounded messed
up. More often, it was the strains of Pearl Jam or Sir Mix-a-Lot wafting
across parking lots and shaking the paint off of nearby houses.
I can imagine Ben Folds approving of our stereo wars. After all, he knows as
well as any of us just how much boredom the suburbs can generate on a given
day, and he seems to know his place as a suburban musical phenomenon. He
even hired Ben Grosse of Filter and Fuel fame to produce his first solo
album. "I got the quintessential suburb-rocking producer to work for me.
He knows all the sliders and knobs that denote the rocking of suburbs," says
Folds of his choice.
Largely, his choice seems to have paid off, as his new album is a pretty
enjoyable romp that will almost certainly be rocking the suburbs for at least
a few months. Rockin' the Suburbs finds Folds largely backing off
from the dramatic chamber-pop that characterized his last outing with Ben
Folds Five, instead bringing in former Beck cohort DJ Swamp to provide beats
for a few tracks, and playing most of the instruments himself (he's actually
not a bad drummer or bassist). John Mark Painter's string arrangements can
still be found on a few songs here, including a couple of the best ones, but
they're decidedly downplayed.
"Annie Waits" opens the album on an upbeat note, with a Swamp-provided beat
and rolling Steinway. Folds intones in his trademark "I'm not a singer, but
I'm singing anyway" voice, inaugurating the first tale of suburban alienation,
loneliness, and, of course, boredom. If there's one thing Folds has developed
over the years, it's an extremely distinctive melodic sense, and there's not
a song here that fails to hook you at least somewhere.
The highlight of the album comes at about the midpoint, with the quietly
waltzing "Fred Jones Part 2," a remarkably mature portrait of a man who
loses his job at a newspaper to a young go-getter after years of faithful
service. It's one of his finest ballads and it demonstrates admirably the
effect that simple words can have. One of the things I've always liked about
Folds' more serious songs was that he rarely reaches for poetry, opting
usually to just lay his thoughts out for you in plain sight.
This approach serves him well on songs like "The Ascent of Stan," about an
aging hippy who became The Man he once spoke out against. Then there's "Not
the Same," a bizarre tale of a stoner who becomes born again after a drug
experience. It helps, naturally, that both of these songs possess great
melodies and interesting music to back them up. But elsewhere, the music is
merely serviceable, and the stories are predictable, such as on "Zak and
Sara," which tells the vague tale of a bored girlfriend sitting around while
her boyfriend buys a guitar.
And then, of course, there's the single and title track, "Rockin' the
Suburbs," which attempts to do to the modern rock mainstream what
"Underground" did to the indie rock scene all those years ago. About half
of it succeeds, with hilarious exchanges like, "I got shit running through my
brain/ So intense that I can't explain/ All alone in my white boy pain/ Shake
your booty while the band complains," squaring off against weak lines about
driving to the store for some Preparation H.
Folds obviously sees right through the false rage of bands like Limp Bizkit
and Papa Roach, but he ends up leveling his guns on himself with lines like,
"You better watch out because I'm gonna say fuck." Does anyone remember
"Army?" Or how about the song that immediately follows, "Fired?" It ends
with a big, harmonized choir of Ben Foldses shouting "Motherfucker!" It's
hard to understand why Folds still feels like he has to include this kind of
thing on his albums, when most of his songwriting points to the fact that he
could easily move beyond it. At any rate, the irony is thicker than
cheesecake.
Rockin' the Suburbs ends with "The Luckiest," a sappy ballad about
watching the birth of his child, but after the debacle of the two previous
songs, I don't so much mind. At least Folds is being honest when he sings
about loving his wife and child. I'm just waiting for the day when Folds
finally stops trying to be a novelty.
When and if that day comes, he may yet make an album that lives up to the
promise of the Five's debut, while demonstrating the maturity he's acquired
over the years to full effect. For now, you've got Rockin' the Suburbs,
a worthy, but occasionally frustrating album that's fairly good for what its
title suggests. Hell, it's probably being wielded in some stereo war back
home right now. For that, at least, it beats the shit out of Beethoven.
-Joe Tangari, September 17th, 2001