ben folds + bon iver

I've been listening to the new Ben Folds album, Way to Normal, for the past week or so and I'm pretty sure I actually like it. I think it took me a while because it's laced with even more of his biting sarcasm than usual and there are a couple of songs (The Frown Song, Errant Dog and Free Coffee) that I just skip over altogether because the amount of gratuitous invective. However, I think that has more to do with the fact that there just isn't a good melody in any of those tracks. That being said, I bet those 3 songs are a blast to pound out on the keyboard.

This isn't to say that it's a bad album. Quite the contrary in fact. Cologne is one of his strongest and most beautiful songs ever (he unbelievably manages to work Lisa Marie Nowak's story into it) and his duet with Regina Spektor, You Don't Know Me, is a perfect piece of music in any genre. If you're a Folds fan you know all of this and probably own it but, if you're not, you should sample a few of these tracks before spending the $10 on iTunes.



Also, if you haven't read about what he did to stop the Internets from getting a leaked version of it you should read this article. It's creatively ingenious. I can't believe someone else didn't think of this first.

A friend recently gave me Bon Iver's album For Emma, Forever Ago and I think I just found one of my all-time favorite albums. "Bon Iver" is Justin Vernon's current nom de plume and, apparently, he just trucked a bunch of recording equipment out to his father's cabin in the northern Wisconsin woods and stayed for the winter (the name is actually the French translation of "good winter"). He wrote and recorded the entire thing by himself over the course of three months and it is absolutely amazing. I can't put my finger on it yet but I love this album. "Flume" and "The Wolves (Act I And II)" are absolute masterpieces. This guy might be the new reigning king of the slow, compelling crescendo.