Listening to "The Sound of the Life of the Mind"

Context! Yesterday (for Australians, or anyone else in my time-zone) Ben Folds Five released a downloadable version of their new album, "The Sound of the Life of the Mind" (TSOTLOTM from here on in for the sake of my sanity) for people who pledged to their PledgeMusic campaign.

In doing this post, I had several ideas. I think a blog post with no spaces, so as to mimic the feverish squealing of a fan-boy is a concept ahead of it's time, and I don't want to scare you all off,so I'll do a regular post.

If this was any other form of media, I'd actually feel a little bit guilty for spoilers, but I don't think that's a really big problem here. I'm not going to actually review this album until I receive the physical copy of the CD (if ever), but I do want to discuss several parts of the album.

Firstly, let's have a look at the weakest tracks. Only two tracks really fit into this category: "Do It Anyway" and "Thank You For Breaking My Heart". I won't go into "Do It Anyway" (as I have already done so in a 3 Songs post), but I think the main reason I'm over that song is over-saturation. It is the only Ben Folds song I've heard outside of my personal play-lists and album collection for months.

"Thank You For Breaking My Heart" is the worst parts of "Boxing", the final track from "Ben Folds Five" and "The Luckiest", the final track from "Rockin' The Suburbs". Unsurprisingly, "Thank You For Breaking My Heart" is the final track. The main difference is I enjoyed "Boxing", and could respect "The Luckiest". TYFBMH is just sort of lacklustre.

I'm not going to even touch on any songs I feel are mediocre or just ordinary. Let's go straight to the fucking awesome stuff.

The title track is pure legend. I have not a single complaint about it. As with "Lonely Avenue", this song is penned by Nick Hornby (and a literary mind is certainly present in the story that song tells). Folds presents a perfectly timed, perfectly delivered sound to accompany the words, giving a true sense of reality to the story. Half of this song is the lyrics, which you can find (bar one) here. For the music, grab the album September 18th, wherever you can.

This is not the only good song, but it is certainly the very best of the album.All the other songs I'll look at from here haven't been ranked in any way, but they are all worth listening to.

"On Being Frank" is just a fantastic song, which is strongest in the vocal area, but is well structured in relation to the music and lyrics. I think that the name is actually in reference to Frank Sinatra, as he is mentioned in the lyrics.

"Erase Me", the first track off of the album, is probably one of the two strongest songs musically (with "Draw A Crowd", which I'll get to). Someone hearing this song said it sounds like Queen, and I really can't find a better comparison. I sure as hell doesn't sound like BFF. In a good way.

"Draw A Crowd" is my prediction for a second single after "Do It Anyway", although I'd like to see the title track have that honour. "Draw A Crowd" is the liveliest SOB of a song I can recall coming from the mind of Ben Folds. The chorus is certainly the most memorable part of the song, with the immortal line "If you're feeling small, and you can't draw a crowd, draw dicks on the walls". Anyone think I should replace my Ben Folds quote at the top of the page with this? I just might. 'Cause I'm that kind of stupid.

Finally, "Michael Praytor, Five Years Later". I couldn't wait to find out what characters Folds would create in this album, but I'm afraid Praytor is all we get. He's not a bad character, but there's only one of him. The song is interesting in every capacity, and that's the best I can say.

To conclude my discussion of the album, it has both a really obvious upside and a downside. The best part of this album is how it shows the BFF maturing and developing (as demonstrated with the "draw dicks on the walls" lyric). I already can't wait for the next album in 2015, give or take.

The obvious downside is that it is so damn short. I don't mean that in the "this book is so good I wish it was longer" way (well, I do, but in another way as well), but at only 10 songs, I feel that this is barely an album. Some people really like short albums, apparently, but I feel completely the opposite, especially with someone who has confessed to having "over 40 solid ideas" in an interview. The shortness of this album isn't just a shame, it's a glaring inadequacy, especially compared to other BF or BFF albums, which always at least make it over 10 songs. Even one more would have been perfect.

I'm done... for now.

Feedback welcome, as usual.

H. Rourke