Jen Girdish

I watch NBC’s Hit Show The Sing-Off with my husband, a lot of wine, and a finger on the fast-forward button in case someone breaks out in a fit of “rap-apella.”

I started watching The Sing-Off two years ago as a semi-hilarious obligation to host Ben Folds because I have had a complicated, stand-by-my-man relationship with Folds since high school. I spent a lot of 1997 with my Discman jerry-rigged to the cassette player in my hand-me-down Oldsmobile. Back when listening to CDs in the car required some dedication, I kept Whatever And Ever Amen on repeat. An older friend in college, who also introduced me to the X-Files and the idea of watching movies ironically, sent me the Whatever CD as a late birthday present with a note, “I thought you had to have this.” She was always right about these things.[1]

There are a lot of things about The Sing-Off that don’t work: the H&M sponsored wardrobes, gimmicky themes, and lack of tension between contestants. There are some moments that are really delightful.

I have also discovered lately that I like television shows in which people are nice to each other—the worst criticism on The Sing-Off is “that sounded a little pitchy.” I wonder if this is a symptom of getting older.

The Sing-Off is also great for a giggle, or a general WTF.

In the penultimate episode of Season Three, each remaining group paired off with one of the three judges (or host Nick Lachey) and sang one of their “hit” songs (or Una Noche). Judge Sara Bareilles[2] performed her new single.

“It’s going to be that one other song. Not Army,” I said out loud, speculating about what the Ben Folds number might be. The more wine I drink, the less specific I become.

When Ben Folds’ signature band, Ben Folds Five, broke up, he started a solo tour and asked the audience to fill the gaps left by his former bandmates Robert Sledge and Darren Jesse. As his career wore on, he winnowed the audience participation down to two songs. In Army, he splits the audience into competing horn sections, with one side calling a few notes, and the other responding. In “the other song,” he asks the audience to sing along in harmony to the swelling “aaaah-ahhhhhhs” in the chorus. In Army, the audience becomes part of the arrangement. In Not the Same, the effect is closer to a lumbering zombie choir.

Two things are different when you watch this trick performed on national television. Not a single fan boy whooped and hollered when Folds arrived at the lyric name-dropping former Five bassist Robert Sledge[3], and the camera provided you the opportunity to see how the audience—AKA, me five, seven and ten years ago—looks like when they sing along.

It’s not pretty.

My long-term relationship with Folds has led to many great things. As the discovery of one band always begets another—especially when you’re young—Ben Folds Five was the tip of the iceberg that led me below the icy surface of pop music.[4] Five led towards a prolonged affair with The Replacements, and the community I discovered around Folds’ music pointed me towards the Dismemberment Plan, Death Cab For Cutie, Sleater-Kinney, Pavement, which all led me to whatever I’m listening to now. (It’s Robyn.)

Ben Folds was the starting point, and to repay that, I’ve driven myself into several cultural ditches. I am now intimately familiar with Nick Lachey’s robotic hosting cadence.

The Sing-Off wasn’t the first dead end I headed into just to “support” Folds. (Whatever that means.) For instance, I paid $30 to hear him talk about an album that I couldn’t listen to all the way through. Sitting next to superfans at shows that play imaginary piano with their fingers[5]—something that I would like to go on the record as having never done. Or standing in a will call line with 14-year-olds at 28. Or buying Whatever after it was remastered.[6] Or buying any of his albums after Sunny Speed Graphic. Okay, since Rockin’ the Suburbs. Okay, okay, Reinhold Messner.

I started watching this weird little reality show because of Folds, and I found myself staring at the giddy sing-along audience, who delighted in something I used to delight in, and I got mad.

Let put this in a more alarming way, I found myself getting genuinely upset over a reality show about a capellea music, hosted by Nick Lachey.

When this whole thing started in 1997 in my Oldsmobile, Ben Folds was 30, and I was 17. I was just embarking on my musical adventure, as his was (arguably) going to peak in a few years. There’s no mistake that Folds was on a careerist path when he signed with a Sony imprint in 1995. There’s nothing wrong about being on a career path (even though we were still having that argument in 1997). I just didn’t expect that path would lead to being a judge on a reality show, peddling a ten-year-old trick to a national television audience.[7]

It’s hard to spend 14 years with a musician and feel satisfied by old tricks, especially when they don’t seem to understand what made those tricks good in the first place. In a review of Folds’ last solo release Way to Normal, Pitchfork summed it up as, “He does the whiny white boy thing he’s always done yet again. It’s just that, as he and we age, that coy condescension bullshit gets less charming than wearisome.” It also makes him seem stuck in a Blink 182-esque state of arrested development (see: Bitch Went Nuts).[8] How was this the same guy who wrote Evaporated?

I’m admittedly jealous of my husband’s 14-year relationship with Ryan Adams. Adams, who we just saw perform this week, has had a similarly adult contemporary career path as Folds—guests on his last few albums include Sheryl Crow and Norah Jones. But Adams has gone down some weird paths—my husband rolls his eyes whenever he talks about Adams’ sci-fi metal concept album or his fake Smiths detour—he just released an album that critics have acclaimed and called a “return to form.” Folds also released an album this year—but it’s a retrospective.

I wish that Folds was still collaborating with William Shatner, or making a metal album, or teaming up with Metallica. Some aging artists seek collaborations outside their comfort zone, but Folds teams up with Nick Hornby—the vanilla Metallica. These creative reaches and missteps seem far superior to stagnancy.

Maybe I see this all as some sort of warning sign. Now that I’m staring down the barrel of my thirties, I understand that “careers” lead to places that are unexpected and unimaginable when you are 17. The lure of comfort and job stability is hard to resist, especially when you have a family.[9] I went through a career crisis two months ago, and anguished over my job prospects. I didn’t expect to end up writing communications documentation for a living, and I fight the urge every night to sit on the couch and drink wine instead of working on a book. Some nights I’m great at it, some nights I end up getting upset over The Sing-Off, and worrying what I’m going to be like in my 40s.

And that’s why, Mr. Folds, I can’t do this anymore. When you voted off Afro Blue, and when you called that performance of Footloose “rock and roll,” I realized that maybe we didn’t have anything left in common. The last fourteen years have been lovely, I owe you my whole playlist.[10] I can still remember how exciting One Angry Dwarf sounded, but I don’t want to be a part of your zombie chorus anymore. It breaks my heart.

I love you, goodbye.

 

 

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[1] Ben Folds Five sounded so exciting because I played piano for 11 years, and I wrote (really) short ditties about hating to practice, how much I loved my cat and Keanu Reeves, and you see where this is going.

[2] Sarah Bareilles replaced Nicole Scherzinger as a judge this season. Bareilles is less annoying than Scherzinger because she doesn’t hump the judge’s table, but Bareilles still remains the weak-link judge. She never offers critical feedback on a performance, everyone gets an “Oh my gawd, that was amazing!” There is a lot of a capella that is not amazing.

[3] I think there’s significance to this. Fan boys cheer for Robert Sledge because they recognize that Sledge and Jesse had a significant contribution to the whole Five sound. I mean, Darren Jesse composition’s in Magic makes it an incredible song. Sledge’s reveb-fuzz bass was integral to the BFF albums—it was their punkiest element. Plus, Sledge is a pretty cool last name.

[4] There’s no way I’m going to make an Underground joke here. Plus, I totally handed over my nose ring three years ago.

[5] I am, however, one of those assholes who sings the harmony during the choruses of Whatever. I can’t tell you why I think that’s less annoying than the air piano, but I do.

[6] When Whatever was remastered, they erased a lot of the charm. The original release was recorded in Folds’ and Sledge’s apartment, in a ramshackle, one-take method, and it has some pretty famous background noises (the phone ring in Steven’s Last Night in Town; crickets in the background of Cigarette).

[7]  “We gave you everything, you could’ve done anything,” etc.

[8] Before Way to Normal was released, Folds’ released fake tracks bearing the same titles as the real tracks. I remember thinking in 2008, why didn’t he put all that effort into writing better, less misogynistic songs that aren’t about kicking puppies?

[9] And two alimonies.

[10] I’m probably going to still be the kind of person who serenades—at the top of my lungs with my arms flung wide—my cats whenever they fall asleep with Narcolepsy. I guess that’s my one trick.