Ben Folds is likely anathema to most who live in the American suburbs. As we rolled into Sioux Falls, South Dakota last night, where burgers at the newest establishment in town go for $4.39 and your neighbour's house is never less than 50m away from yours, I got my first real taste of middle-of-nowhere America. Sioux Falls is the biggest town in South Dakota but something like the 128th biggest in America and the transition from large, sprawling metropolises like Chicago and Philadelphia to large, sprawling collections of strip malls, drive-thru fast food chains and entire counties of prefabricated homes is a jarring one. Even the suburbs, linked by four-lane highways and as isolated from major commercial hubs as they come, feel different. Where suburbs elsewhere may be places you live before commuting to the bright lights for work, suburbs in Sioux Falls are places so far removed from bright lights that it appears fairly easy to set up shop in them and forget that anything else actually exists. In a way, Ben Folds' sensational 'Rockin The Suburbs' is an ode to these suburbs, distant and strange, quiet and perfect as they are. (more...)