Ben Folds

His songs may be stuffed with so many contemporary pop culture references that they have the shelf life of a French cruller, but Ben Folds has always known how to needle, even when it devolves into lowbrow yucks. There's plenty of examples of biting wit on Way To Normal, a record that goes unhinged with (sometimes corny) jokes and (sometimes grating) production choices with a far weaker result than Folds' other solo LPs. Even so, the deep-grooving duet with Regina Spektor hits brings out the best of both of them on "You Don't Know Me," the LP's coolest track.

Call it "Revenge of the Nerds, Part 7." On Folds' seventh studio album, the keyboard-banging
singer-songwriter remains one of pop's angriest men — an übergeek in a permanent state of
high dudgeon. When he's not "Flipping off the asshole/Who pulled into my lane" ("Free
Coffee"), he's railing against "the bitch" who "called me cunt" ("Bitch Went Nuts"). Then
there's "Effington," a tirade about the banality of small-town life: "Are they effing... More >