Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Lonely Avenue is musical nirvana for lovers of the deft balance of sassy snark and sincere sentiment.
-
Lonely Avenue's two knights of music nerd-dom use their disarming pop smarts to wryly sympathize with the hapless Playgirl cover boy. The empathy and humor run throughout.
-
It has to be said that, considering how Nick Hornby is credited with writing all of the lyrics here, the usual Ben Folds key words are present and there's only so much 'bastard', 'shit' and 'fucking' I can take. Despite this concern, as well as being Folds' most musically accomplished outing since going solo, it does feature the magnificent phrase, "some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know; he's got his own blog."
-
More sweet than cynical on this outing, Folds and Hornby are perfectly complementary as a pair of smart-asses with sentimental sides.
-
It adds up to Folds' finest record yet, and while nobody would dare suggest that Nick Hornby would give up his day job, a sequel to this fascinating collaboration would be more than welcome.
-
Lonely Avenue definitively exfoliates its ersatz-'70s, one-off joint-effort stance; more than anything, it's proof that pop can push back against middle-class maturity woes with both rhetorical and diatonic thickness.
-
This is an affecting and intelligent record: neither Folds nor Hornby should be shy about suggesting a sequel.
-
Lonely Avenue has to be considered a big success for both artists.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 6 out of 9
-
Mixed: 3 out of 9
-
Negative: 0 out of 9
-
Aug 15, 2012
-
Oct 14, 2010
-
Oct 6, 2010