FORGET JOY TO THE WORLD. Ben Folds has declared WAR on Christmas cheer, unleashing a DARK and PROFANE holiday tour that weaponizes the season’s forced sentimentality to expose our DEEPEST anxieties and family tensions. His album “Sleigher” is not a gift—it’s a BRUTAL AUDIT of the most “bullying” holiday, forcing fans to confront abortion, loneliness, and political rage INSTEAD of silent nights.
This is NO jolly cash grab. Folds’ shocking blueprint weaponizes his own classic “Brick”—a ballad about a post-Christmas abortion—as the CORNERSTONE of a holiday set. He then DOUBLES DOWN with songs like the explosively titled “Bitch Went Nutz,” depicting a Christmas party devolving into political warfare, and “Picture Window,” which brands hope itself “a bastard, a liar, a cheat and a tease.” This is Christmas music CUT WITH ACID, deliberately shattering the fragile ornaments of tradition to reveal the broken family and societal shards underneath.
CRITICS are asking: is this a courageous artistic reclamation or a CYNICAL PLOY to monetize millennial disillusionment? By framing Christmas as the “same shit every year,” Folds isn’t just writing songs—he’s conducting a SOCIAL EXPERIMENT on willing, paying audiences. He lures them in with piano man familiarity before ambushing them with narratives of bankruptcy, isolation, and a dog named Maurice digging escape tunnels through the snow. This tour proves the holidays are no longer a sacred refuge, but a BATTLEGROUND for our collective psyche.
The DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE truth Folds exposes is that our forced festive gatherings are often theaters of quiet desperation, and his music is the soundtrack. He sells out venues not with cheer, but with a grim mirror held up to the season. As families prepare their façades of unity, Folds’ “Sleigher” tour asks a HARROWING QUESTION: what if the ghost of Christmas present isn’t jolly at all, but a sardonic pianist chronicling our collective decay? The tinsel is off the tree, and what remains is a chilling reflection of a nation unraveling, one dysfunctional holiday at a time.
Edited for Kayitsi.com
Author: Kayitsi.com
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