The Laptop Sessions Cover Songs & Original Music Video Blog » Ben Folds Five Songs

The BEST COLLABORATIONS of 2011 (The Year-End Awards)

Chris Moore — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:26 +0000

By Chris Moore:

The following artists are being recognized for their notable collaborations. Had they not worked together, their tracks and, in some cases, albums would not have been nearly as successfully rendered. Wanda Jackson and Jack White have to earn the top mention for the comeback release of the year. Jackson was once a hitmaker, a notable player in the rockabilly scene (dating Elvis Presley for a time), but I certainly hadn’t heard of her before this year. With White’s electric leads and the fitting arrangements that walk the line between classic and modern, The Party Ain’t Over makes good on the claim in its title.

Beyond this collaboration, the others on this list are more traditional. 8in8 was a cool idea: get together to write, record, and release eight tracks in eight hours as a way of showing just how much the music industry has changed in even the past several years. Gillian Welch’s role, dueting on the Decemberists’ The King is Dead, was a vital one, just as Norah Jones and Jack White added their vocals to a couple tracks and elevated the Rome soundtrack. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out and praise the (brief) reunion of Ben Folds Five, just as much as if I didn’t note that some of the tracks on The King is Dead have a strongly R.E.M.-esque vibe to them at least in part because Peter Buck is playing on them.

1) Wanda Jackson and Jack White (The Party Ain’t Over)

2) Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman, and Damian Kulash (8in8)

3) The Decemberists and Gillian Welch (various tracks on The King is Dead)

4) Danger Mouse, Daniele Luppi, Norah Jones, and Jack White (Rome: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

5) Ben Folds, Darren Jesse, and Robert Sledge (as Ben Folds Five for three new recordings)

6) Norah Jones and Hank Williams (“How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart”)

7) The Decemberists and Peter Buck (various tracks on The King is Dead)

8) Bob Dylan and Hank Williams (“The Love That Faded”)

9) Kevin Hearn and Garth Hudson (“The House of Invention”)

10) Lupe Fiasco and Matt Mahaffey (“State Run Radio”)

The BEST COMPILATIONS of 2011 (The Year-End Awards)

Chris Moore — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:00:16 +0000

By Chris Moore:

Every year, there are a wide variety of compilations, best of’s, essentials, greatest hits, and retrospectives that are released. I usually only buy one here or there. This year, there were three outstanding compilations, which are recognized below. In each case, the packaging is excellent, notable if only for the excellent attention to liner notes that provide further context and insight into the tracks. Even though all three were of high quality, Ben Folds’ reasonably-priced, beautifully packaged, well-selected Best Imitation of Myself takes the prize without debate.

1) The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective – Ben Folds

2) Twenty – Pearl Jam

3) Outside Society – Patti Smith

“Jane” (Ben Folds Five Acoustic Rock Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions

Jeff Copperthite — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:00:10 +0000

Originally posted 2008-02-29 18:18:12.

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your Fabulous Friday edition of The Laptop Sessions, and I am proud to bring you a session that I’ve been waiting to do for a while.

This session is “Jane” from Ben Folds Five’s last album “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner”. I last did a song from this band as my 2nd Laptop Session – “Emaline”. That session is close to 1,000 views, so I thought this would be a good time to do another from Ben Folds Five.

Not only that, but for this video I kept my guitar on the stand, and performed it on my keyboard.

I think this version came out quite well, although I did have a bit of a “crack” in the chorus as I changed to falsetto. Ben Folds has an incredible vocal range that is just slightly out of reach to my voice. Other than that, I think that this video is a great one (it better be after 23 takes).

Oh, and I should break 4K views over the weekend! Thank you everyone for making the Laptop Sessions so popular!

I hope you enjoy “Jane”!

“Emaline” (Ben Folds Five Acoustic Rock Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions

Jeff Copperthite — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:41:08 +0000

Originally posted 2007-10-30 16:19:47.

By Jeff Copperthite:

My 2nd installment for fusco-moore.com’s “Laptop Sessions”. This time we’ll get a bit more obscure.

This song is from Ben Folds Five, and was a song that was intended for their album “Whatever and Ever Amen” – a great album – but Ben Folds decided to not put this song on because it had guitar, and would take away from the piano-rock theme they were trying to promote.

This is such a great song, and I love hearing it at his shows. I hope you enjoy it as well.

“Smoke” (Ben Folds Five Acoustic Rock Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions

Jeff Copperthite — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:49:59 +0000

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to another terrific edition of Thumpin’ Thursday! It’s Jeff Copperthite today bringing you another great song for http://www.laptopsessions.com.

Going to a band that has treated me well in terms of getting viewers, I bring you another song by Ben Folds Five called “Smoke”. It is from their album “Whatever and Ever Amen”, which I have yet to draw from. I loved this song ever since I first heard it, and would most often be the track I just kept repeating from the entire album.

I love the piano-string strumming that Ben does when this song is performed. Consequently, I only have a keyboard. Therefore, I decided to do a guitar rendition of this song. I hope you like it!

I just crossed 11K views – in only 8 days since I crossed 10K. Thank you so much! We are nearing the halfway point of session-a-day. Can you believe it? We’ll keep posting – you keep coming back to http://www.laptopsessions.com !

Be sure to check out Jim’s latest session tomorrow!