Album: Rockin' The Suburbs
Artist: Ben Folds
Release Date:

Track List:

  1. Annie Waits
  2. Zak & Sara
  3. Still Fighting It
  4. Gone
  5. Fred Jones Pt. 2
  6. The Ascent of Stan
  7. Losing Lisa
  8. Carrying Cathy
  9. Not the Same
  10. Rockin' the Suburbs
  11. Fired
  12. The Luckiest

The Singles:

    Australian Single
  1. Rockin' The Suburbs
  2. One Down
  3. The Secret Life of Morgan Davis

    UK Single (Part 1)
  1. Rockin' The Suburbs (radio edit)
  2. Girl
  3. Make Me Mommy
  4. Rockin' The Suburbs (Enhanced CD music video "clean" version)

    UK Single (Part 2)
  1. Rockin' The Suburbs
  2. One Down
  3. The Secret Life of Morgan Davis
  4. Rockin' The Suburbs (Enhanced CD music video full version)

Music Videos:

  • Rockin' the Suburbs (July 2001)
  • Still Fighting It (November 2001)



Rockin' The Suburbs is Ben Folds's first released album since Ben Folds Five broke up last October. Since then, Ben Folds fans have been anxiously waiting for some fresh music from the Piano Master. Rockin' The Suburbs does not disappoint. Ben Folds has pumped out 12 new exciting tracks. The most impressive thing may be that Mr. Folds actually played most of the instruments himself and the majority of the album was recorded in an old church in Adelaide, Australia. Long-time fans may feel relieved that this is definitely not anything like Ben Folds previous solo "album", Fear of Pop. They may, however, be disappointed to hear that this album strays quite far away from the sounds of Ben Folds Five. (Although, you still can hear the elements of BFF sometimes. Actually, the track Carrying Cathy was first meant for TUBORM.) Ben Folds's piano poundings will once again swing you into a wide variety of strong emotions. Only about one track does not include what has made Folds famous for, piano. You're sure to enjoy this album no matter if you're a rookie or veteran to Ben Folds music.



Rockin' The Suburbs is also the name of one of the tracks on the album:
Lyrics: zipppt! gone. ;)

Ben Folds introduces the song on piano: Cold Live at the Chapel, December 23, 2001:
This song was written for guitar and drum machine and, uh, ProTools. ProTools is the computer that everyone uses to make records on now. And I've never really tried it on the piano. It sounds like a gospel song on the piano, but it's the current radio single, so I have to play it. But it's probably going to be really good. You can clap on two and four if you want to, that's the off beats. And one and three are the downbeats, you don't have to clap on those.

After the song:
Nice two and four. If I closed my eyes I would have never known; you're all white people.

Ben Folds introduces the song on piano: Roseland Ballroom, June 13, 2002:
Thank you. Thank you. This song was originally entitled "Korn Sucks". audience laughs The reason isn't because the band sucks, they're probably great. audience laughs We played a show with this band, Korn, somewhere in Japan. And apparently, they were heckling us. I don't actually remember hearing anybody, but this is what they said. And so, a couple of years ago, I saw Spin Magazine on the shelf at a grocery store, and it had "Korn" on the front and it said "Korn takes on the wusses." And I thought "Oh, cool," so I bought it. audience laughs And I open it up and there's this picture of Johnathan What-his-name and there's this big quote that says "Ben Folds Five are fucking pussies." audience laughs even harder I thought it was cool! It was good publicity. It's probably the last time you'll see my name in Spin Magazine, anyway. So I'll just take what I could get.


The Rockin' the Suburbs music video, which premiered on MTV2 in August, really augments the experience of the song. The video features a whole band of Bens, each playing an instrument of their own. It is very well put together with scenes featuring Ben dressed as Fred Durst and an angry white rapper (complete with doo-rag and sunglasses!) The music video is topped off with the Ben band playing on the set stright from KoRn's music video for Freak on a Leash. And in the last few seconds of the video there is a subliminal message: "KORN SUCKS!" (see erevapisces's writeup below.)

Folds originally wanted Fred Durst to direct the video. For money issues, that plan fell through. However this was not that much of a loss, as one of the best satire musicians, Weird Al, was finally selected to direct.

If you'd like you can download the video in either AVI format (3 MB) or MPEG format (41 MB very high quality) from Kyle's FTP server (which is open to all fans):


Host Address:  24.124.73.243
Port:          21
User ID:       benfolds
Password:      Piano
(Perhaps defunct?)

Complete piano transcriptions:
http://www.benfolds.ws (Shut down by Hal Leonard, rights owner to Ben Folds transcriptions.)