Collaboration albums tend to be hit or miss with ratings and reviews, and this collaboration is no exception. Sure, there are some albums, like Alisson Krauss and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand that are wonderful, not to mention collaborative projects like The Liquid Tension Experiment that are musical genius, but pairings like Eminem and Elton John make most audiophiles cringe. Lonely Avenue is a great collaboration between Ben Folds and Nick Hornby and is definitely one of the best collaborations I have ever stumbled across.
Ben Folds is known for both his solo work and the work of Ben Folds Five, the band that started out of nothing and topped indie music charts for a good chunk of the mid-to-late 90’s. After breaking up, Folds pursued a solo career, touring the country and charming audiences multiple times over. Nick Hornby is a British author who is famous for his groundbreaking novels, such as High Fidelity and About a Boy. Combine these two great artists and you have an album that just screams for attention, attention it deserves to the highest degree. Filled with both complex lyrics and breathtaking music, the entirely of Lonely Avenue is a masterpiece from start to finish. It doesn’t pull punches and leaves you gasping for air, for the very meaning of everything and anything, and leaves you wanting for more.
The lyrics are completely Hornby through and through- reminiscing on life, touching on sports, love, being a guy and everything that entails. Captivating as his literature and screenplays, the songs bloom with the kind of down-to-earth and heart-wrenching passion that many aficionados have come to expect from his novels. There’s a little something for everyone and singing along to the addictive tunes is not a challenge at all, as the hooks are definitely there in spades. Not at all unlike Folds’ previous lyrics, they still hold a lot of the raw emotion that his lyrics tend to convey, just a with a twist that is all Hornsby.
Couple this with the legendary genius of singer-songwriter Benjamin Scott Folds, Ben to the rest of the world, and you have one hell of an album. Heavy on piano and other more orchestral sounds, it piggybacks on the sound that Folds’ has been building for years- indie alternative rock with a tiny bit of old school jazz (no doubt leftover from his musical education at University of Miami’s Frost’s School of Music) and some seriously classical structure. Beautiful tunes spill forth to entice you in a time when things weren’t so good but they weren’t so bad either- the times when all of us were young and thought we knew how to conquer the world. From dance songs about young love to the bittersweet ballads of heartbreak, the album is perfect from start to finish.
From wonderful lyrics to the signature sound that accompanies the name Ben Folds on an album, this is a perfect fall release to grab. Pick it up tomorrow, September 28th and check out the entire album streaming live at http://www.myspace.com/benfolds
Track Listing:
1. “Working Day”
2. “Picture Window”
3. “Levi Johnston’s Blues”
4. “Doc Pomus”
5. “Your Dogs”
6. “Practical Amanda”
7. “Claire’s Ninth”
8. “Password”
9. “From Above”
10. “Saskia Hamilton”
11. “Belinda”
Website: http://benfolds.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/benfolds
