Lonely Avenue

Music review time. I recently acquired the new collaboration between Ben Folds and Nick Hornby, an album called Lonely Avenue. It has a different feel than previous BF releases, but that's a given as it's a collab. Still absolutely worth a listen.

I'm assuming most readers know who Ben Folds is. He has been releasing records for the last fifteen years, some under the moniker Ben Folds Five and later on a few solo albums. He has gained a niche among college-aged and young adults with his heinously catchy melodies and heartbreaking lyrics. And he is a whirlwind live performer. If you ever have the chance to see him, TAKE IT. It will be one hell of a show.

Nick Hornby is an artist not generally corollated with writing music. He has written about music his entire career as a writer, but this is his first instance of actually collaborating on a musical album. He is most well known for writing several popular novels, including High Fidelity, About A Boy, and Juliet, Naked, as well as the screenplay for the 2009 movie An Education, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. So the dude's got chops. I am not in love with every single thing he's ever done, but on the other hand some of his work is the best written material I've ever read. This guy knows how to pierce your heart through writing about normal people with real problems. He can capture dialogue so incredibly well and make you feel heartache you've never had.

So how do these two collaborate on an album of music? Hornby writes words, Folds writes lyrics. Sounds weird but potentially awesome. And in my opinion, it turns out to be mostly awesome. The interesting part is that it clearly sounds like a Ben Folds album, but the disconnect happens as he starts to sing. The lyrics are not Ben Folds lyrics, and you can tell. It feels more like a Nick Hornby book than a Ben Folds album. And on some songs that's amazing, some it doesn't completely work. I don't think Hornby has his complete songwriting chops down yet, like on songs like Your Dogs and Picture Window. The songs have great feelings communicated but they don't feel natural to me. And that's just me. The majority of the album works great. And I think the biggest reason it's great is because they chose the perfect pairing of artists. Nobody could've pulled this album off but Ben Folds. His music is the ideal vehicle for Horby's writing. Hornby writes in such a familiar way, with stories about real people, and that's how Ben Folds has always written his music. It doesn't feel totally like a Ben Folds album, but it's as close as you can get. And the off-kilter feeling you get isn't bad, it's just not totally Ben Folds.

One of the best examples is the song Password. It uses a really unique songwriting device, spelling of words, and at first listen it seems a little cheesy, but after a few listens and the songs sinks in, holy cow it just rips you apart. You stop listening to the spelling of the words and you feel the pain in the narrator. That is unique and weird songwriting. But it's awesome. The song changes gradually the more you listen to it.

Final verdict? Great album. Not the best Ben Folds album ever but that's because it's not purebred Ben Folds. What it is is a great listen for fans of either artist.

-Jon

P.S. The album comes with killer liner notes. A quick blurb written by Hornby about each song, and then four different short stories written by him as well. Super great. Cool photos too.

Juliet, Naked

I just finished the latest novel by Nick Hornby, called Juliet, Naked. Where to even begin with this one. Definitely worth the read. Hornby has such an incredible way with dialogue and metaphor. He communicates his ideas in such unique ways through his prose; everything he has written is informed with this very intelligent yet accessible use of words.

My favorite Nick Hornby book is still, and probably always will be, High Fidelity. It had the perfect voice of a messed up guy just trying to figure out his relationships, connecting everything in his life with music. The book speaks to me more directly than any other novel I've ever read. And while I liked that one more than Juliet, Naked, this was definitely the most entertaining of all his novels behind High Fidelity, probably because it's much along the same lines. The book is about an English couple who lead mediocre lives. The guy is Duncan, obsessed with the music of Tucker Crowe, a reclusive American musician whose last release (entitled Juliet) came out twenty years ago. Since Duncan is the regarded as the foremost authority on all things Tucker Crowe (he is basically in charge of the Tucker Crowe online forum/message board), he is sent an advanced copy of Juliet, Naked, an album of the demo tracks that eventually would become the tracks of Juliet. He writes a review of this new demo album, and this review is the impetus that sets a whole string of events in motion. That was maybe too long of a synopsis.

There are a lot of reasons why I liked this book. And one big one why I didn't. Let's get the negative out of the way. I didn't like the ending. Done. Now to the good stuff. It read better for me than any of his other books (with the exception of High Fidelity, of course). A big part of that is probably due to the musical nature of the content, which I really enjoyed. Hornby has this intimate knowledge of music, and just as important, he knows how to translate that knowledge to the page. It's incredible. And to hear his observations on music from different viewpoints was very cool. You've got the musician himself, the obsessed fan, and the non-obsessed fan, all with thoughts on the same album. Even cooler, it's not just a normal album, but demos from a critically-acclaimed, classic break-up album. There is an important and intriguing relationship between the recorded album versions of songs by an artist and the demos of those songs. Hornby explores that musical relationship to very interesting depths. And the voice of each main character seems right on. I obviously don't know what it's like to be a famous and successful music artist but it sounds right to me. I do, however, know a lot of how the obsessed and non-obsessed fans think and feel towards the music of their idol and towards the idols themselves, and Hornby has nailed exactly how these fans think and feel and talk.

One thing that I especially loved in this book is how Hornby breaks down the relationship between the fan, the art, and the artist. One of my favorite passages of the whole book is when Duncan's girlfriend Annie reads his review of the newly released Juliet, Naked (the demo album) and finally sees Duncan in a new light. It's such a brilliant exposition of fans versus their idols and the art they create and to be honest, it got me super worried about myself. I'm not an artist. I don't write songs that people listen to and enjoy. I don't write novels that people read and enjoy. Et cetera. Yet I'd say the majority of my blogs are my review of something, an album, a book, a TV show, whatever. And Annie's thoughts on Duncan's review are scathing, because while he writes thinking he is an expert on the music of Tucker Crowe and able to expound on his music with more authority than anyone else, she realizes that really he's just a pompous ass who reviews other people's work with a smug authority because he can't actually create anything of real value himself. As soon as I finished that passage, the passage where Annie realizes what Duncan's review actually says about Duncan as a person, I immediately read it again and then thought about how I write. It's a tad distressing to think that the writing you've spent a fair amount of time and energy on might just be a lot of hot air. It will, at the very least, make me think as I continue to write about things I'm into, or things I'm not into.

Back to the book. So there's lots of cool thoughts on fans, artists, art, etc. Also covered in great lengths is divorce and the relationship between spouses, exes, and parents and children, some close to home, some estranged. Hornby doesn't tread lightly around taboos, and it makes for very thoughtful writing. He challenges societal conventions, but not in a "let's tear the system down" type of way, in a rather subtle way. For example, he touches on the subject of the differing of parental love toward different children. And he handles the subject gracefully and makes sense in the way he writes. That's what I love about Hornby's writing. It makes sense. Even if you don't agree with him, you've never seen the idea presented from quite such a unique angle and it makes you think hard through what he's saying.

This is a great book; Hornby's written another gem. But don't take my word for it! (Dun nuh dun!)

-Jon