Ben Folds, we love you, plesae be happy.
“I’m going to do things that are really more about the music for me and less about the hype,” says Folds. “Because I’m on a major label, there is no escaping the way that we have to do business when I release an album — everybody wants the ‘Album of the Year’ Rolling Stone bullshit where you get two-stars in the review and your face is all over the front. The way to bypass that for me is just to not go through the normal channels. And if I put out an EP, nobody can take it seriously.”
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“This way, I don’t have to kowtow to the big-ass record chains and then in order to get a certain number of records shipped, I don’t have to kiss radio people’s asses,” says Folds. “And in turn, I don’t have to do TV in order to get the radio slots and do certain kinds of press that I don’t want to do. It’s all kind of nice and the record business right now is going, ‘Okay, any way you want to do it is totally fine because we’re just barely getting by.’ So, they are not arguing about that. [Epic] is pretty well aware that I’m not going to be competing with Shakira. It’s a really nice musical way for me to do it. I just go into the studio, there is no ‘How does this fit in with anything?’ I just do five songs. It’s music. People who know my music and know who I am can find it, and that’s great.” (full story)
New Ben Folds material is good for the world.