This is an amazing album. While I expected it to be an extrapolation on Shatners cameo on Fear of Pop Volume 1, I was wonderfully surprised to find it goes much deeper than that. The team of Ben Folds and Shatner turned out amazing. Toss in talent like Henry Rollins, Flemming McWilliams, Sebastian Steinberg and John Painter, not to mention other amzing guest spots that I'm sadly not too familiar with, and you've got gold.
It's a wonderfuly personal album. From the inlet, which sums up the album very well:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ben Folds
bill had homework for this album: to write thoughts and stories of his life in short pieces that we could make into songs. there ws more than enough material for several albums, and it was my job to make them musical. he threw new verses at me daily. i edited and sent him back to the drawing board sometimes, and sometimes he pushed me to make the music more part of the lyric. in that way we're a good writing team, and the process was damn natural. most of the album was written and recorded in a period of two weeks, as we set up camp in my studio in nashville with the musicians on call when inspeiration struck.
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It is an intensely collabrative work, in a time where such things are increasingly rare. It's not for everyone, but if you enjoyed Fear of Pop, or enjoy a quality experiment into music, you should definately pick this one up.