Yesterday marked the release of Ben Folds and Nick Hornby's Lonely Avenue, about which the Huffington Post opines: "If only all music was so smart and hummable." Music OMH gives the album four stars and says the Folds/Hornby partnership "works like a marriage made in heaven." The Atlantic calls it "an adventure in genre-crossing and a testament to an artistic friendship. It's also a collection of 11 rich and unusual songs." Today, the video for the song "From Above" premieres on AOL, which calls it "priceless ... all you could ask for from a music video."
Yesterday marked the release of Lonely Avenue, the new album featuring music by American singer-songwriter Ben Folds and lyrics by English novelist Nick Hornby. The Huffington Post's Shawn Amos opines: "If only all music was so smart and hummable." Today, the official video for the album track "From Above" premieres on AOL.
AOL Spinner's Benjy Eisen says that, setting Hornby's words to music, Folds has crafted "one of the sharpest albums of his career."
The video for "From Above," created by director and animator Julius Preite (The Simpsons) and designer Justin Owens, is "priceless," says Eisen, "all you could ask for from a music video."
Watch the video and decide for yourself here:
Read more at spinner.com.
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Music OMH gives the album four stars and says the Folds/Hornby partnership "works like a marriage made in heaven." Reviewer John Murphy says: "It adds up to Folds' finest record yet, and while nobody would dare suggest that Nick Hornby would give up his day job, a sequel to this fascinating collaboration would be more than welcome." Read the full review at musicomh.com.
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The songwriting partners spoke with The Atlantic about the new album. Considering the special pairing, it's perhaps no surprise that, "for the most part, Lonely Avenue breaks the rules rather than following them," writes The Atlantic's Jennie Rothenberg Gritz. "The lyrics don't sound like lyrics so much as a novelist's character sketches. But Folds brings out their musicality—he croons, he shouts, he syncopates and draws out the words."
Rothenberg Gritz goes on to explain: "With Lonely Avenue, both artists took new kinds of risks. Folds relished the challenge of working with a novelist who had no idea how to write lyrics. And Hornby, who emailed lyrics as they came to him, was eager to see what Folds would do with them. The result is an adventure in genre-crossing and a testament to an artistic friendship. It's also a collection of 11 rich and unusual songs."
To read more and hear what Folds and Hornby have to say, visit theatlantic.com.
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Folds also spoke with PopMatters' Crispin Kott, who writes of Lonely Avenue: "This unique album saw Folds write music around the e-mailed lyrics of Hornby. The end result—which took 18 months from conception to completion—is terrific pop music, with the co-conspirators’ fondness for cleverness very much at the fore." You'll find the interview at popmatters.com.
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The Denver Post's Greg Stieber wonders, "What more could a music fan ask for than pairing the wildly entertaining Ben Folds with a top-notch writer like Nick Hornby ... Collaborations like these rarely live up to their hype, but Lonely Avenue truly works as Hornby and Folds seamlessly accent one another." Read the album review at denverpost.com.
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