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Truth and Rumors with Ben Folds Five – US promo / interview CD

BSK 41993

It’s been some time since I’ve been blogging consistently, and an even longer time since I covered any releases related to ‘The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner’!

This Ben Folds Five release is particularly unique in that it is a combines a traditional album sampler with a band interview. This promotional CD would have been sent to US radio stations and playlist makers around March 1999, a month before the release of ‘Messner’.

As with all previously covered promos, the intention here was to capture the ears and attention of the radio tastemakers and encourage them to broadcast tracks from the upcoming album.

The intention with the interview tracks is less clear, but we can take a good guess. The interview was originally recorded and broadcast by WXPN / Philadelphia. I’m assuming that the Bruce Warren led interview was only broadcast in the Philadelphia area and wouldn’t be widely heard elsewhere.

Each question and answer on this disc is a separate track on the CD. This could lead us to assume that local radio stations were free to broadcast snippets of the interview to their respective areas. They could even go so far as to record their own DJs asking the questions, then splicing in the responses from Ben, Darren and Robert. If you trawl eBay and Discogs, you’ll find many similar interview CDs from bands around this time.

Either way, it is an interesting promotional tactic that was only used this one time. If you’d like to hear the interview, I’ve uploaded it to YouTube for you listening delight!

Interesting tidbits

  • This interview was also released more widely as a second bonus CD on the Australian release of ‘Messner’. The interview questions and answers were merged together as combined CD tracks for the public release.
  • The interview clocks in at 10 minutes, and would be enjoyed by anyone interested in the development of the third studio album by Ben Folds Five. The band provide some interesting anecdotes about how they arrived at the title for the album, the recording process and the evolution of the music.
  • It was during this original interview that Ben Folds Five discovered the Reinhold Messner was actually a real person. The band were unaware up to this point. We can assume that this revelation led to the ‘About the title’ text that was added to the liner notes for ‘The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner’. That text also appears on this release.
  • Some time was clearly spent considering the artwork for this promo CD. The overall look and feel matches the album. Ben, Darren and Robert also pose in business suits to align with the aesthetic of the album’s vintage photography. They were also known to wear suits for live performances around this time.
  • From a promotional aspect, the CD contains album versions of all the ‘big songs’ that would have been of interest to radio stations at that time. These tracks all come from the first two thirds of the album.
  • If you’re interested in owning this little piece of history, there are many copies listed for sale on Discogs at a reasonable price.