Product Description

Boldly hacking his way through the muck-infested swamplandsof post-Nirvana alternative rock, Ben Folds comes to save the day with an album of pure pop delights that provide a welcome alternative to "alternative". Despite the name, the BenFolds Five is a trio consisting of Folds on piano and vocals, a bassist and a drummer. There are echoes of everything from vintage Todd Rundgren and Joe Jackson to Hoboken-based popsters like the dB's and Freedy Johnston in the band's frothy compositions. And there are no guitars.
Bassist RobertSledge is on a one-man mission to bring back the fuzz-bass,utilising the '60s bass technique to fill out the sound of the trio, and sometimes sounding more like a guitarist or keyboardist. Folds is an accomplished pianist, and has no qualms about giving the instrument the rock and roll spotlight that it's often denied. Ignore the knee-jerk Elton John comparisons. Folds may be equally influenced by show tunes and the Beatles, but WHATEVER rocks more convincingly than a gaggle of guitar-worshipping grunge puppies.

Track Listing

1. One angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces
2. Brick
3. Song for the dumped
4. Selfless cold and composed
5. Kate
6. Cigarette
7. Steven's last night in town
8. Battle of who could care less
9. Missing the war
10. Evaporated

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13726 in Music
• Released on: 2000-08-21
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ben Folds' Five's Whatever and Ever Amen is a fantastic collection of songs from a band beginning to believe in itself as something more than a novelty act. Having excised much of their regrettable tendency to flippancy with their first album, the three members of Ben Folds Five delivered a classic follow-up: the single "The Battle of Who Could Care Less" is a witheringly witty character study of middle-class wasters that could be thought of as an American companion piece to Pulp's "Common People". Angry and articulate, Whatever and Ever Amen is a rewarding exploration of the hitherto virgin territory between Elvis Costello and Jerry Lee Lewis. It also contained the instant live favourite "Song for the Dumped", which in one transcendentally splendid moment--Folds' exuberant yelp of "Well, fuck you, too / Give me my money back, you bitch"--managed to make the rest of rock's vast canon of unrequited affection feel somewhat redundant. --Andrew Mueller

From Amazon.com
Think of Ben Folds as Billy Joel minus the Tin Pan Alley heritage and armed with a sweet, wry, slacker ethos. In a guitar-free trio setting, the Chapel Hill smart guy pounds the ivories with gusto while singing a tremendous batch of funny ("Kate"), poignant ("Brick," "Evaporated"), pissed-off ("Song for the Dumped"), and hugely refreshing (all 12 tunes here) songs. --Jeff Bateman

Customer Reviews

Best of a Very Fine Bunch !
A friend lent me 'Songs for Silverman' not having heard much of him before only the odd song on radio 2. Piano based music has never been my favorite ,but I was soon hooked on the quality of playing & song writing. So much so that I bought the other 4 studio albums, Of which 'Whatever' is my favorite of a very fine bunch. Songs such as 'Brick''Fair''Missing The War' are outstanding.
Buy this one first and you'll end up buying the others for sure.

Remastered and completely refreshed. Ahhh...
Some albums benefit from a remaster. 'Graceland' by Paul Simon was one.

Some, however, don't. Chungking's ruining of their album "We Travel Fast" only a year after its first release was nothing short of scandalous.

"Whatever And Ever Amen" thankfully falls squarely in the former category I'm happy to say.

Before we get into this, I'm not going to talk about the extra tracks, I'm afraid. Mostly because I haven't listened to them properly yet. So why, I hear you ask, am I bothering at all? Well, the reason is this - I first bought this back in 2000, after a friend of mine played me "Fair" or - as she called it - the one where they sound like chickens. Let's just say it's had to compete with 1000+ CDs in my collection, and has rarely been back in the rack. It's taken me through every stage of my difficult early twenties since then, the sad times (especially "Evaporated"), the happy times ("One Angry Dwarf", "Fair") and the Go Away I Hate Everyone times ("Song For The Dumped").

So why, then, am I bothering to review an album I've already heard literally hundreds of times before? Well, the remastering and remixing (don't be alarmed - there's no Armand Van Helden here) of this album is so good, it's breathed completely new life into the recording. You'll have to trust me. Yes, I know it's hard to believe that new life could be breathed into a CD barely out of short trousers (it was originally released in '97, I think), but every instrument has been beautifully extracted, polished with a bit of Brasso and reassembled with such care that what we're left with is a CD which will take you back to the very moment you first heard it. Every hi hat on "Fair" splashes and sparkles, the piano on "Brick" resonates like never before and "Song For The Dumped" reveals more angry off-tempo notes than you ever thought possible in a single chorus. Yet none of this ever ruins the wonderful intimacy of this great album.

Check out the non-remastered version for loads of reviews on how fine the songs are, and hopefully others will write up the bonus tracks here, but I hope I've coerced the on-the-fence audiophile saddos like me into spending a few quid they won't regret.

I like this..still
Basically, Elton John should listen to this and weep. He should weep anyway. And commit suicide in a spectacularly messy fashion in contrition for his assorted musical/hissy-fit crimes, but I digress. This is a really talented pianist/singer, which people who listen to the aforementioned schlock-merchant should be forced to buy. Or their carer can for them if they're too mentally incapacitated. Ben Folds was one of the most dementedly excellent people to come out of the scene for ages. Still is. I hadn't heard this album for years and I got it the other week. It's still totally amazing. Not bad considering I was a callow student when I last heard it. His range of songwriting is an absolute masterclass. He can write love songs that are witty, sad as hell, but never, ever, saccharine, dippy mush. And that's an achievement, of sorts. Alright, 'Steven's last night' is admittedly a bit fratty, but hell..
Buy it, brand new if you can, I think he needs the cash. There's no justice. There is only death, taxes and Elton John.