Fear Of Pop: Volume 1

Regardless of what you think of Ben Folds' music, it's hard to deny that the singer, pianist, and Ben Folds Five frontman knows how to write a catchy pop song in the tradition of Billy Joel and Joe Jackson. His penchant for showmanship and tunesmithery is unquestioned, so, as if to prove he can also write tuneless, wanky mush, here's Folds' new side project, Fear Of Pop. Dominated by instrumentals, with vocals occasionally buried in the background noise, Volume 1 at first seems like his answer to Barry Black, the instrumental Archers Of Loaf side project to which Folds has contributed. But the album never duplicates Barry Black's shambling, unpredictable charms, instead plodding along with the longest song ever to consist of little more than a bassline and an insipid "ba-ba-ba" chorus (the six-minute "Avery M. Powers Memorial Beltway"). Then there's "Kops," a pastiche of listless funk, samples, and canned beats, and "In Love," with a guest vocal by William Shatner that's undermined by a lack of hooks. It's unclear why this forgettable vanity project even exists, when everything here sounds like the sort of playful but tiresome filler relegated to the hidden tracks at the end of CDs. If Folds really wanted this stuff to be heard, that's how he should have released it.