Listening Booth — Ben Folds Five (w/ Fraggle Rock), “Do It Anyway”
How do you make a Ben Folds Five reunion more awesome than it already is? Why, you add a beloved childhood TV icon – the cast of Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock! So that’s what we have in the official video for “Do It Anyway,” the first single from The Sound of the Life of the Mind.
Yeah, this kicks ass. Not only is the video — also starring Rob Corddry, Anna Kendrick, and Chris Hardwick — clever and fun, but the song is great too. The classic BF5 sound is back, baby. Jazz-pop with that distinctive Robert Sledge fuzz bass. I don’t think I’m letting nostalgia could my judgment when I say this crackles with the Five energy of old. It’s certainly more upbeat than just about anything from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (save “Army” perhaps), an admittedly fantastic record.
We shall see what the rest of the album has in store, as it comes out tomorrow.