So I’m a new-ish fan of Ben Folds (also of the dearly departed [DEL]Three[/DEL] Five), and I’ve just cottoned on to “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner.” Two questions:
-
Are we positive that the album has nothing to do with the mountain climber? Wiki says not, as does the album jacket, but I’m doubtful. Any thoughts?
-
Is there meant to be an overarching theme to the album? I must confess that it feels overproduced to me and I can’t bring myself to listen to all of the tracks, but the ones I do listen to seem to indicate this. Example: “Army” has a line about “my redneck past”, which is the title of another song on the album, and “Army” and “Regrets” feel like two halves of the same song. What say you?
I’ve never heard anything to contradict the fake-ID story the band tells. As for the overarching theme - I don’t think it’s meant to be a concept album or anything, but the band did seem to be trying to be a bit more ambitious (hence the overproduction) and I think the repeating musical and lyrical themes spring more from a desire to produce a grand, unified Album than to highlight any specific connections between songs. tUBoRM seems to me to be one of those albums that was meant to cement a bands legacy but instead sacrificed so many of the things that made the band great in the first place. It was an odd meeting of BF5’s desire to mature and their underlying smart-assed nature. It seems like they deliver the “red neck past” line in Army with a bit of a wink, and I always feel they should be saying “psyche!” after the “Army part II” intro to “Regrets.”
Like you, I rarely listen to all the tracks, which is a shame, because there are some really great ones on there. The “Don’t Change Your Plans,” “Mess,” and “Magic,” suite is great, and “Army” and “Redneck Past” have more of an old school BF5 vibe to them. And even the other songs aren’t bad per se, it’s just that when you put all together in one album, it is all very unaffecting.