Revisiting: Ben Folds' Rockin' the Suburbs

 

Rockin' the Suburbs by Ben Folds

Release year: 2001

Last Time I Listened to it: I vividly remember listening to this on one of my long country drives to Craters of the Moon. And I was driving my current vehicle. So it's been within the past five years.

Confession time: I went through a phase in film school where I wasn't listening to any new metal bands. That was before I stumbled across Shadows Fall in a guitar magazine and did a full-on deep dive into the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. I was listening to, among other things, a lot of Weezer and I was constantly in search of bands that sounded like them. One day I was hanging out with a film school buddy who liked a lot of the same guitar pop I was digging back then. He told me "This might not be your thing, but give it a try." Then he popped Rockin' the Suburbs into his CD player.

Apart from the title track, there wasn't really anything on Suburbs that really hooked me. I could appreciate Ben Folds' musical talent (he plays most of the instruments on the record) and songwriting skills. I didn't listen to Folds' work with the Ben Folds Five. In fact, I avoided them because I thought the band name was stupid. Like, Ben folds five of what? I was pretty embarrassed when it was explained to me. (...getting sidetracked here...)

Anyway, Suburbs didn't do much for me at first. But it grew on me. I was taken in by the melodies. The album's also full of infectious hooks and even a metal-loving degenerate like myself was soon singing along. This became the perfect album for when I was sick of loud guitars and just wanted something pretty to hum along with.

The Verdict: Revisiting this album has brought a couple things to my attention that I haven't considered before. First off, this record is lousy with one of my favorite emotions to feel: bittersweetness. Most of these tunes sport cheery, major-key song structures but the melodies and the lyrics are ever so sad. Carrying Cathy is about the most cheerful song about suicide I've ever heard. I can't be sure, but I think Sara in Zak and Sara might have some kind of mental disorder, but the song tackles it in a way that makes sound kind of fun. Even the gorgeous album closer, The Luckiest, carries the nostalgic sting felt by someone looking back on life and realizing that their time is running out. I'm a total sucker for that happy/sad shit.

The second thing that stood out this time is how good Folds is at writing slice-of-life stories about normal folks in normal situations. He writes about relationships ending, job loss, and a life-altering experience at a party and imbues with enough sense of importance that you understand why these stories need to be told.

And then there's the title track. A perfect skewering of the ultra-masculine rap-metal manly men with no talent who were making music back then, this song is hilarious and enraging at the same time. But it WILL get stuck in your head, you WILL sing along and you might even get a good laugh while you're at it.

All in all, Rockin' the Suburbs is better than I remember. However, even then, I find that really only about half the songs here really hook and get me to engage with the music. The rest of these songs are pleasant-sounding background noise for nights when I don't feel like death metal.

Best Songs: Zak and Sara, Not the Same, Rockin' the Suburbs, The Luckiest