Songoftheday 3/14/21 - 6:00am day after Christmas I throw some clothes on in the dark, the smell of cold car seat is freezing the world is sleeping I am numb...

 

 

"Brick" - Ben Folds Five

from the album Whatever and Ever Amen (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #19 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 15

 

Today's song of the day comes from the Ben Folds Five, named for its leader, pianist/singer/songwriter Ben Folds. Along with drummer Darren Jessee and bass player Robert Sledge, the trio (there were never five) came together in the college town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the early 1990s. Releasing their eponymous debut album in 1995, they scored their first minor hit in the UK the following year with "Where's Summer B?", which went to #76.  That was followed by "Underground", which made the British top-40 at #37. It made sense, since Folds and his band's music and delivery were very similar to post-punker Joe Jackson and the like.

The Five returned in 1997 with their sophomore effort, Whatever and Ever Amen. The lead single from the set, "Battle Of Who Could Care Less", finally gave the group an audience in America, reaching #22 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart, while scoring a second top-40 hit in Britain at #26. The second release, "Kate", again made the British top-40 at #39, but was passed by American stations, as was their third try, "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces". 

But then radio got a hold on a track from the album that I'm sure the record company had no idea would gather such a popular following. "Brick", written by Folds and Jessee, painfully documented the most heartbreaking event that could happen in a teenager's life. Ben and his girlfriend had gotten pregnant and chose to have an abortion, and the song relays the isolation, fear, and regret that go along with the maligned process, with such picturesque touches as the drive to pick her up to Ben trying to get flowers for her. In the end, it leaves them both empty and separated even from each other emotionally during the time they need each other the most. The "Brick" is the guilt that is weighing him down, and it truly is a spectacle of naked emotion told plainly without any literary flourish. The mantra of the word "alone" repeated at the end is especially jarring...

Since "Brick" wasn't released as a commercially available single in the U.S., it wasn't able to place on Billboard's official Hot 100 pop chart. But the track got enough radio love to make the top 20 on the airplay component of that tally in February of 1998. The song almost made the top ten on Billboard's Adult Top-40 radio chart at #11, while peaking at #6 on the Alternative Rock format list, spending a half of a year on the chart. Internationally, the single was a top-40 hit in Canada (#12), Australia (#13), and the UK (#26). The Whatever and Ever Amen album, released the previous March, missed the top-40 on the Billboard 200 sales chart at #42, but the set sold over a million copies. 

A final single from the record, "Song For The Dumped", rose to #23 on the Alternative Rock chart. The following year, after a live release called Naked Baby Photos that made the top half of the albums chart at #94, the trio returned for a third go-around, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, The album made the Billboard 200 top-40 at #35, and lead single "Army" got to #17 at Alternative Rock radio (and #28 in the UK), but mainstream radio was too enamored with the teen-pop of Britney and Backstreet by then. The group split, with Jessee and Sledge joining other band, while Folds headed out solo. His first solo release, Rockin' The Suburbs, came out in September of 2001, and again just missed the album chart top-40 at #42. First single and title track "Rockin' The Suburbs" went to #28 at Alternative Rock radio, and was a minor hit in the UK at #53. Another another live set a year later, Folds returned in 2005 with Songs For Silverman, which barely missed the top ten at #13. From that disc "Landed" brought him back to the Adult Top-40 format for a week at #40, and also to the Hot 100 at #77. And also, a vinyl-only track on the set, a remake of Snoop Dogg's "Bitches Ain't Shit", landed on the Hot 100 at #71, his most recent appearance there. Three years later, Folds' released his third solo studio disc, Way To Normal, which again just missed the top ten on the Billboard 200 at #11. A collaboration with Regina Spektor, "You Don't Know Me", picked up airplay at the Triple A (Adult Album Alternative) rock radio format, and peaked at #28. 

In 2009, Ben started to appear on what would truly be the best singing competition show to ever come to pass, The Sing-off, as a judge. The show lasted for four seasons, and not only did Folds' profile benefit from the exposure, his affiliation with acappella groups (that was the basis of the show) grew, with his next record a joint effort called University A Cappella! that reached the top half of the Billboard 200. A collaborative album with British writer Nick Hornby (About a Boy), Lonely Avenue, made the American albums top-40 at #36. After a one-off show together in 2008, Folds, Jessee, and Sledge reunited in 2011 for a tour and another album, The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind, which would be Folds' highest charting set at #10. His most recent solo release, So There, came out in 2015, spending a week at #44 on the albums sales chart. From it single "Phone In A Pool" rose to #28 on Billboard's Triple-A format chart. 

(10/10)

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Here's the trio performing on MTV in 1997...

Next up, live at the Sessions on West 54th in 2001...

and finally, in concert with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth in 2005...

Up tomorrow: This Celtic Canadian regales some Philadelphians, perhaps?