If you wrote me off, I'd understand it...

Ben Folds has a new album in stores in April, and the first single ("Landed") is out now.

Ben Folds is one of a handful of musical artists that has meant a lot to me over the last ten years. Without Ben Folds, Counting Crows, Tori Amos, REM, The Cure, and Live, who the hell knows where I would be. Working in a dingy family restaurant kitchen, perhaps, fuming over missing that promotion that would put me in an office and out of a kitchen. Actually, that's one of the more pleasant possibilities.

Unlike certain other artists on that list, Ben has consistently succeeded in moving me over the years. Whatever modicum of success he enjoys, his music still has that tinkling neo-Elton John sound and the often wistful, occasionally winsome lyrics that never fail to punch me right in the gut.

I can't wait.

ADDENDUM: On my second reading, it seems odd that I would relish a punch in the gut, but there it is.