Nonesuch Records

I really couldn’t feel more mixed about an album, a singer and a writer. Lonely Avenue is rooted in a cool concept: singer/piano man Ben Folds takes the words of Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) and makes them into songs. Easy enough, right? Well, no. Not at all.

There are times when the difficulty of transforming a narrative – a clump of words with no rhyme or chorus – shows here. The power and humor of Hornby’s writing, sadly, gets lost under Folds’ supervision. For the most part, the prose-to-song process only seems to produce long, meandering, tough-to-follow songs whose weaknesses are shellacked in glittering keyboards and thick bass lines. Essentially: lots of polished turds here.

But in the confusing thicket, a few songs stick out – the simple, quiet and beautiful “Practical Amanda,” especially. And, of course, “Levi Johnston’s Blues”: a hilarious ditty about the dork who knocked up Sarah Palin’s daughter. – Leah Sottile

Recommended download: “Levi Johnston’s Blues”

This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2010.

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Ben Folds/ Nick Hornby: Lonely Avenue

by Source Weekly, The Source - Bend, Oregon
November 10, 2010

<h1>Ben Folds/ Nick Hornby: Lonely Avenue</h1> <p class="byline">by Source Weekly, The Source - Bend, Oregon <br />November 10, 2010</p> <p> </p> <p>Nonesuch Records</p> <p />I really couldn&apos;t feel more mixed about an album, a singer and a writer. <em>Lonely Avenue </em>is rooted in a cool concept: singer/piano man Ben Folds takes the words of Nick Hornby (<em>High Fidelity</em>, <em>About a Boy</em>) and makes them into songs. Easy enough, right? Well, no. Not at all.<br /> </p> <p>There are times when the difficulty of transforming a narrative - a clump of words with no rhyme or chorus - shows here. The power and humor of Hornby&apos;s writing, sadly, gets lost under Folds&apos; supervision. For the most part, the prose-to-song process only seems to produce long, meandering, tough-to-follow songs whose weaknesses are shellacked in glittering keyboards and thick bass lines. Essentially: lots of polished turds here.</p> <p>But in the confusing thicket, a few songs stick out - the simple, quiet and beautiful "Practical Amanda," especially. And, of course, "Levi Johnston&apos;s Blues": a hilarious ditty about the dork who knocked up Sarah Palin&apos;s daughter. <em> - Leah Sottile</em></p> <p><strong>Recommended download: </strong><em>"Levi Johnston&apos;s Blues"</em></p></p> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.bendsource.com/music/ben-folds-nick-hornby-lonely-avenue-2136532/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://www.bendsource.com&quot;&gt;The Source - Bend, Oregon&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/www.bendsource.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/cropped-Untitled-design-4.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p> &lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://www.bendsource.com/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=17917&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://www.bendsource.com/music/ben-folds-nick-hornby-lonely-avenue-2136532/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/bendsource.com/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

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