Ben Folds Five To Release 30th-Anniversary Special Edition Of Debut
The new, remastered reissue includes a previously-unheard, shelved first version of the album, which Folds rediscovered a cassette of recently.
Ben Folds Five are marking 30 years of their debut album with an expanded reissue. Ben Folds Five (30th Anniversary) arrives September 4, putting the 1995 original side-by-side with a previously-unreleased recording: Ben Folds Five’s abandoned first attempt of the record.
That shelved version, produced by Dave “Stiff” Johnson, was recorded during a three-week studio session in Philadelphia before the band ultimately scrapped it. Folds only just recently uncovered the sessions on a cassette in his personal archives. The reissue includes early, alternate takes of seven songs from the finished album, an early rendition of “Evaporated” that would later resurface on 1997’s Whatever and Ever Amen, and three outtakes that never made the original tracklist: “Emaline,” “Dick Holster,” and “Eddie Walker.” A lead single, “Underground (Shelved First Attempt),” is out today.
Released in 1995 amid a surge of demand for grunge and pop-punk, Ben Folds Five stood out for their commitment to piano-driven power-pop. Tracks like “Jackson Cannery,” “Philosophy,” and “Underground” helped the trio build a devoted following and a distinct point of view.
“Here’s my 59-year-old self’s take on the album we made when I was 28: Overall, it’s good!” Folds writes in the anniversary editions liner notes. “It’s NOT the kind of record you’d hear produced these days. It’s pretty rough and tumble, mostly in a good way. And it’s emphatically unique. It’s from an era when you could still identify a band by the instrumentalists, before you’d even hear the vocalist. I don’t think that’s been a thing since computers allowed us to get things just right.” (Speaking directly to the shelved version, he added: “We had taken the time we needed, and the advice of the very competent producer, but it resulted in an album that didn’t feel like us.”)
Beyond the reissue, the band’s original lineup — Folds on piano and vocals, Robert Sledge on bass, and Darren Jessee on drums — will reunite for their first live shows together in more than 13 years soon. Further details are yet to be announced.
