The band has released the video for Sky High, taken from last year’s album The Sound of the Life of the Mind. The track also appears on the recent live compilation, Ben Folds Five Live.
TSOTLOTM
Number Ten (with a bullet)
The long-awaited return of Ben Folds Five in recorded form, The Sound of the Life of the Mind, made a successful launch this week, scoring a number-10 placement on the Billboard 200 chart, listing the top-selling albums of the week in physical and virtual units. TSOLOTM moved roughly 30,000 units, and the tenth-place ranking was the highest for any Ben Folds with-or-without Five album ever, even during the Brick days. Looks like all the advance buzz from the “Dam VPs” paid off!
Ben Fraggles Five?
Chris Hardwick, also known as The Nerdist, has put together a special video version of Do It Anyway from the upcoming album The Sound of the Life of the Mind, featuring The Fraggles, from Jim Henson’s 1980s-era childrens’ show Fraggle Rock. The video, with Chris as the hapless audio engineer, also features Rob Corddry and Anna Kendrick as well as a Fraggle cast of thousands (well, not quite thousands). Fraggles are seen down in their cave as the ceiling starts to crumble from the pounding on the floor above, only to find it’s Robert’s jumping around and Darren’s drumming that’s causing the collapse. Saved by a stray mic cord that falls down the hole in the floor, the Fraggles emerge from underground and join the band, popping up from behind the drums and joining Ben at the keys. For anyone who grew up on Henson’s lovably silly creatures, this is a nostalgic look with a wickedly contemporary twist. And one wonders, with the band back together, whether a Fraggles version of Underground is in the works?
You’ll recall that we debuted Do It Anyway as a free download here on the Armchair back in May.
Track three: “Sky High” (and subsequent previews)
Editor’s note: As each individual track from The Sound of the Life of the Mind is released, we’ll update this post with the latest links instead of creating a new post for each song.
The third track, Sky High, is out and available for preview at AOL Spinner. The mellow ballad written by Darren Jessee is nicely mixed and produced with the piano dominant in the foreground. Robert’s raucuos bass lines take a gentler turn in this apologetic story, the latest to become available from The Sound of the Life of the Mind, due out September 18.
Update: The title track, The Sound of the Life of the Mind,  is available from Fuse. (10 September)
Update:Â On Being Frank is available from Idolator. It’s not about me; it’s another Frank he’s singing about. (11 September)
Update: Â Draw a Crowd is now available via Rolling Stone. (12 September)
Update: Hold That Thought is now available via Paste Magazine. (13 September)
Update:Â Away When You Were Here is now available via Yahoo Music. (14 September)
Update: Thank You For Breaking My Heart is now available via MSN Music. (17 September)
Second preview track out
The second preview track from The Sound of the Life of the Mind is out, hosted at Conan O’Brien’s TeamCoCo.com. It’s Michael Praytor, Five Years Later and showcases the familiar harmonies of the trio.
