Ben Folds Goes Back to College, Sans Piano

Posted on Apr 16th 2009 12:00PM by Benjy Eisen
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While you were in your dorm room sleeping off last night's hangover, there's a good chance the kid down the hall was singing Ben Folds songs a cappella in a college-sponsored club. There are more than 1,200 a cappella groups on our nation's campuses, many of which -- surprisingly -- cover Ben Folds. When Folds found this out, he started a contest: he invited college a cappella groups to submit these covers via YouTube for review. He traveled to the winners' colleges to record their versions on-site for the new album, 'Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella.'

So, now that Folds returned to campus life, did he learn anything new? "I learned that it's a complete social scene," Folds tells Spinner, regarding a cappella culture. "I learned that they don't usually get class credit for what they do, and I'm even more impressed at the size of the movement, given that it's all self-motivated."

Oh, because the chance to be on a Ben Folds album isn't motivation enough, right?

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