Ben Folds - Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP (2006)

1) In Between Days; 2) All U Can Eat; 3) Songs of Love; 4) There’s Always Someone Cooler than You; 5) Learn to Live With What You Are; 6) Bitches Ain’t Shit; 7) Adelaide; 8) Rent a Cop; 9) Get Your Hands Off My Woman (feat. Corn Mo); 10) Bruised; 11) Dog; 12) Still; 13) Bitches Ain’t Shit (Reprise) [hidden track]

Folds has always had a sense of humour, and out of all his albums it's this collection of odds, sods and alternate takes that really highlights it in his discography. 

Key tracks: "In Between Days", "Bruised", "Still"

Ben Folds was incredibly prolific between his first two solo albums, but you probably had no idea. After Rockin’ the Suburbs and presumably all the expectations that came with it, Folds wanted to return to the idea of simply writing and recordings songs for the sake it, with sharing them becoming a secondary concern. Between 2003-2004 he kept himself occupied in his own private studio, recording stylistic experiments, choice covers, old castaways and ideas for his next album and releasing them hap-hazardly in small batches as internet-only EPs: Speed Graphic, Sunny 16 and Super D under his own name and The Bens with other two Bens, Lee and Kweller.

Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP was released shortly after Songs for Silverman as both a nod to fans as well as a way for Folds to canonise some of his favourite cuts from the eclectic EP sessions by bringing them together into a ‘real’ release – and to sweeten the deal further, a few other non-album cuts from around the time that deserved better than to be forgotten in obscurity were added into the tracklist. Supersunnyspeedgraphic isn’t an all-encompassing catalogue of the sessions and due to its brevity it’s presented more like an album than a b-side compilation, even if stylistically it’s obviously all over the place: it’s happy to chuck in comedic covers and quirky goofball jams right next to sincere ballads and earnest anthems, but it does it in an appropriately Foldsian fashion that arguably describes him better than either the studio slickness of Rockin’ the Suburbs or the sombreness of Songs of Silverman alone could. The sound, too, is appropriately like the missing link between the two releases, keeping the playful nature of the former but moving towards the arrangements of the latter. The unique ingredient is the sheer fun of it all – Folds is clearly having a blast writing off-kilter character studies and fusing them with bouncy piano melodies, enjoying the relaxed nature of the sessions that produced the songs.

The centre-piece, the attention-hogger and likely the only reason this album ever made ripples outside the fanbase is undoubtedly the already-infamous version of “Bitches Ain’t Shit”, which did the whole sincere pop cover of a rap song thing way before it became a thing. The most miraculous thing about it is that it completely avoids the pitfall of being a novelty song that wears off really thin really fast. The arrangement is absolutely superb – all lush and moody – and best of all the performance takes itself completely seriously. There’s no “winky-winky look how funny and subversive we are” ethos behind it – it’s full of pathos instead, with a lot of surprisingly heartfelt delivery that at least attempts to pay respect to the original despite the inherent ludicrousness of it all. The version doesn’t rely just on the humorous absurdity of pale white guys reciting gangster rap lyrics with a serious face, and it ends up being actually quite brilliant with a lot of longevity to it.

As great as “Bitches Ain’t Shit” is, Supersunnyspeedgraphic is also much more and turns out to be a pretty fun album in itself. The other covers include a brilliantly rollicking take on The Cure’s “In Between Days” that threatens to be near-essential, The Divine Comedy’s “Songs of Love” that could have easily come from Folds’ own writing pen and a trash-the-piano, shout-duet version of The Darkness’ “Get Your Hands Off My Woman” that says ‘screw it’ at the delicacy of the other covers and just goes crazy. The Folds originals are largely a quirky mix of snarky commentary and curious humour, keeping the mood pretty light throughout. “All U Can Eat”, “Adelaide”, “Rent a Cop” and “There’s Always Someone Cooler than You” all compete on which could be the most sarcastically bitchy, while marrying the sentiments to various degrees of bouncy piano rock – only “All U Can Eat” goes for a subtler approach in its music but its expletive-laden lyrics sound just the more vicious for it.

There’s a few earnest parts scattered throughout the album in a way that juts out completely, and they end up being among its best. “Bruised” off The Bens EP (“the extended version!”) is a shining spotlight of arrangement and performance with its vocal harmonies and a killer chorus melody that the song builds up as it goes along. “Still”, taken off the Over the Hedge soundtrack (where Folds’ half of the score was the best thing about the film) takes the build-up angle and makes it the point, growing from a lightly arranged, hauntingly introspective ballad into a wall of sound in a dramatic, emotional fashion that really doesn’t befit the film it came from. Here, it sounds far more in place and gives the fantastic song a chance to become the solid part of Folds’ oeuvre it deserves. The promotional single “Learn to Live With What You Are” is a little too alike to Folds’ other string-laden torchlight anthems to truly leave a mark into his full discography, but here it represents that side largely on its own and its loveliness gets to shine for its duration.

When “Still” has finished, the notion that Supersunnyspeedgraphic is a collection of odds and sods has become easy to forget. Only the slightly half-baked “Dog” sounds like a typical off-cut – its ideas not supporting its length as much as it could - but the rest act as testament’s to Folds’ writing as well as his proper albums.  As an album it’s obviously an erratic little beast that goes all over the place, both because it’s a compilation as well as due to the “anything goes” nature of the sessions in the first place, but to Folds’ credit he’s curated the right material to be included and managed to make it into a consistent ride. One of the best compliments you can give to a b-side compilation (which is what this sort of is) is that it holds up strongly against the artist’s actual albums on its own and doesn’t feel like just a product for obsessive fans, and it’s a compliment that Supersunnyspeedgraphic easily deserves.

Rating: 7/10

Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman (2005)

1) Bastard; 2) You to Thank; 3) Jesusland; 4) Landed; 5) Gracie; 6) Trusted; 7) Give Judy My Notice; 8) Late; 9) Sentimental Guy; 10) Time; 11) Prison Food

With a new supporting band actively in tow, Folds' second solo album is both a livelier and more somber effort, playing out its graytone moods with bursting arrangements.

Key tracks: "Jesusland", "Give Judy My Notice", "Time"

In the behind the scenes documentary for Songs for Silverman, Ben Folds' second solo album, Folds admits that there's a particular musical language he prefers to use and struggles to stray away from - namely the piano-bass-drums trifecta that's been his sound from the beginning. The first solo release Rockin' the Suburbs was Folds moving away from that sound to establish another: the album's instrumentation was far more extensive (even going as far as using a guitar) and mostly played by Folds himself, and his first tour was a literal solo tour with just him and his piano making rounds. For Silverman Folds brought in a new bassist and a drummer: flip to the back cover of the album and you can even see them, officially presented in artwork as a sign of Folds effectively creating a second band operating under his own name.

Folds' new wingmen - Jared Reynolds on bass and Lindsay Jamieson on drums - have a clear presence on the album and a direct effect on its sound. Its core is that of a band playing together in the same room, most songs heavily focusing on the three-piece and eschewing from anything additional - the hit-tastic lead single "Landed" originally featured a big symphony orchestra, which was subsequently removed because it didn't suit the new group's ethos of keeping things tied to the trio. The album's loopy and formless closer "Prison Food" is based on an honest jam session, while the previously piano-only "Give Judy My Notice" from the Speed Graphic EP has been given a new band arrangement in honour of the new creative team. Even the vocal harmonies that Folds has always been in love with are now largely sung by Jamieson and Reynolds. Calling Silverman a solo album is almost a lie - out of Folds' solo releases, this is most clearly the band album. 

Besides showing Folds' new bandmates, the cover artwork is also indicative of another change in sound. Silverman's liner art is all grayscale and serious, with little in the way of the happy-go-luckiness Folds is normally associated with. So is Silverman in general, favouring a more somber sound and a contemplative mood. Occasionally it bursts in fits of built-up energy and sound, most notably in the bitter "You to Thank" and the already mentioned and still brilliant "Prison Food", which break the otherwise steady supply of bittersweet moods and sentimental melodies. Where Rockin' the Suburbs masked its serious lyrical matters under bright and perky pop tunes, Silverman gives them the appropriate guise. Folds still holds melody as the most important thing in songwriting and the songs come across as beautiful rather than straight-up melancholy, lush instead of wallowing. Parts like the frolicking piano melody of "Jesusland", the effortless grace of the new version of "Give Judy My Notice" and the wistfulness of "Time" are among the loveliest Folds has committed to tape, and that's not even counting the sublime background vocals on each of those songs. Possibly once again inspired by Reynolds and Jamieson's vocal capabilities, Songs for Silverman offers some of Folds' greatest backing vocal arrangements, which grace every single song apart from "Gracie". "Gracie", an ode to Folds' daughter, in general is an outlier on the album - a sweet, innocent and thoroughly upbeat little bouncer that's a major contrast from everything else around it. It's adorable admittedly, but probably the weakest cut on the disc when put in a serious competition against the others, with not much to give beyond its cuteness.

Elsewhere Silverman is - and I say this with the most positive way possible - of the standard you've come to expect and want from Folds. Roughly half of the album is spectacularly sublime and comfortably places on the higher tiers of the man's back catalogue: "Jesusland", "Landed", Judy", "Time" and "Prison Food" to be specific. The rest have nothing to worry about beside them either, the grump-rocker "Bastard" used to be among my favourites,  "You to Thank" seems to get better as years go by and some of the melodic passages in "Late" are among the album's most charming. While there's a sense of newness thanks to the fresh band and the difference it creates from Rockin' the Suburbs, in its core Silverman is familiar territory to Folds and one he's already proven he's mastered.

Not that Silverman's new band angle lasted very long (spoiler alert). While Reynolds and Jamieson continued to work beside Folds, new fancies and approaches would guide his subsequent albums, and eventually the Ben Folds Five reunion would take care of the need to jam around with a band. In a way Silverman is almost like a subdued precursor to the band reunion material years later - the vibe and the connecting dots are there even though it's far more mid-tempo and grayscale than Ben Folds Five's whimsy would ever allow. But there's a brief flash of it in Silverman, hiding underneath and possibly powering the things that most make it noteworthy: the lush, beautiful harmonies and melodies that beat through its somber body and makes it such a rich listening experience.

Rating: 8/10