Through his enormous collection of genre-bending music, Ben Folds has earned his reputation as one of the major music influencers of his generation. Folds first rose to fame in the mid ‘90s with the Ben Folds Five, whose acerbic take on piano pop helped define an entire era of alternative rock.

His songs are bittersweet and, at times, hilarious, but often laced with a quiet sense of longing and dread: a text message goes unanswered; an old classmate descends into the dark depths of internet conspiracies; a relationship unravels in the middle of a lake. And yet, taken as a whole, his body of work represents an undeniable joy that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it.

Folds is also an Emmy-nominated composer, a New York Times Best Selling author, podcast host, and frequent guest star in film and TV.