Some album covers generated as much talk as the music featured inside the sleeve. The lightning bolt across David Bowie’s face on the cover of 1973’s “Aladdin Sane” became instantly iconic.
The photo of Prince on a motorcycle graces 1984’s “Purple Rain” and captures one of rock’s greatest enigmas as he is about to race off into the mainstream and the critical and commercial stratosphere.
And then there is the most legendary cover art, The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The art, the Fabs on the cover with 58 different people, with luminaries ranging from Marilyn Monroe to W.C. Fields, made almost as much noise as the material on the Beatles’ mind-bending album, which altered the state of music and pop culture in 1967.
Album art is almost an afterthought in the digital age. But there are some recording artists who grew up on vinyl and appreciate what listeners see before what they hear. Ben Folds came of age during the ’70s and loves album cover art. That’s evident with the stunning cover of his latest album, “What Matters Most,” which was released in 2023.
The cover features the work of Sensetus, an acclaimed young digital artist from Spain. It features an elderly couple on a cloud with a butterfly on the tip of the man’s finger. Sensetus, who has a burgeoning audience of fans courtesy of his unique and provocative art, created an image that is curious, stunning and ethereal.
“I saw the image while I was breezing through Instagram,” Folds said while calling from Nashville. “I’m a big fan of what he (Sensetus) does. The album was going to be called ‘But Wait, There’s More.’ But that had a cynical feeling. When the album became ‘What Matters Most,’ I was like, ‘OK, I feel this title more.’ I searched for a real earnest look and when I saw the old couple with the butterfly on the end of the finger. I was like, ‘That’s neat.’”
Folds takes an old-school approach and is detail-oriented when it comes to an album’s presentation and the songs that grace the record.
“What Matters Most” is a love letter to the album format in the age in which EPs, with a single and four songs that sound like the featured track, rule. “What Matters Most” is built like an album from Folds’ childhood. It’s obvious that the sequencing matters as there is an undeniable arc to the story Folds delivers.
The singer-songwriter-pianist is a classic storyteller, who has been an adept sonic yarns-inner since his 1995 eponymous debut with the Ben Folds Five dropped.
Folds impresses with his latest batch of tunes, such as the amusing “Exhausting Lover” and the moving “Winslow Gardens.”
There will always be an audience for sonic narratives. “I agree,” Folds said. “Songs can go anywhere from straight-up folk songs telling a story, like ‘Folsom Prison.’ And then there is a song like ‘Free Fallin.’” Tom Petty tells a story that’s implied. We’re not hearing all of the details. Then there are songs like Coldplay’s ‘Yellow,’ which is really abstract.”
Folds, the first artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., is an obvious student of song. During the 15-minute chat, Folds detailed how instrumental music, such as electronic and dubstep tunes, is also a story by sounding out the rhythms.
There is the intellectual side to Folds and the fun zone. The latter is evident via the humor in his songs. Who didn’t crack up after consuming his hilarious nu-metal parody with the infectious tune “Rockin’ the Suburbs” at the turn of the century?
“Let me tell y’all what it’s like/Being male, middle-class and white/It’s a (expletive), if you don’t believe/Listen up to my new CD.”
And then there are Folds concerts. Folds, who performs Tuesday, Sept. 17, is on his “Paper Airplane Request” tour. The event is just like it sounds. Fans can write a song on a sheet of paper and fold it into a paper plane and fire it at the stage and perhaps Folds will take the request.
“I don’t have to think about a set list on this tour,” Folds said. “Fans write down the title of the song they want to hear and the airplanes land on the stage, like snow. I just pick up the paper airplanes.”
Folds is open to playing whatever. “But if I don’t know the song a fan requests, that’s out,” Folds said. “I also won’t play a song I played earlier in the show but otherwise, it’s all good.”
It’s a welcome concept for Folds because, like fellow vocalist-pianists Tori Amos and Regina Spector, fans often bellow out requests.
“It’s a good alternative to everyone screaming like we’re in a town hall meeting,” Folds said. “The paper airplanes are aesthetically pretty and neat. It’s like getting mail onstage.”
