Ben Folds

Rating: NNN

If you’ve ever wondered how a Ben Folds album is made, now’s your chance to find out! This DVD, packaged with his new Songs For Silverman CD, lets you in on everything from how Folds hooked up with his current band to what the songs on Songs For Silverman are all about and whether they were hard or easy to write. And as if that weren’t enough, there are long shots of Ben sitting at his piano and tinkering with the keys while looking alternately ponderous and amused. Also hilarious footage of some guy standing on his shoulders! And an orangutan doing cute stuff, which looks like it might be the making-of for a video, but if that’s on here I couldn’t find it, thanks to the lack of menu selection. As far as I can tell, the making-of expos&eacute is all there is. William Shatner also appears, along with some little kid. The album, of course, is pleasingly geeky, capricious piano pop, but you knew that already.