[Cover photo courtesy of The Alan Wolmark Archive]

Ben Folds is celebrating three decades of music with an anniversary edition of Ben Folds Five, the debut album from his Alt-Rock trio. Ben Folds Five (30th Anniversary), which, technically speaking, arrives 31 years after its original August 8, 1995 release, sees the original LP newly remastered and joined by the un-vaulting of the band’s mythical shelved first attempt, only recently rediscovered on digital audio tape by Folds in his own personal archives and specially remastered for this release. 

The Shelved First Attempt is being previewed with the track “Underground (Shelved First Attempt),” out now.

Ben Folds Five (30th Anniversary) will be released September 4, 2026, via Capitol/UMe on 2CD and 2LP on 180-gram black vinyl, while the remaster of the original album as well as the Shelved First Attempt will both be available to stream and download. A limited amount of 1,000 copies of the vinyl signed by all three band members will be available exclusively at uDiscoverMusic.com.

This first try of the album, produced by Dave “Stiff” Johnson, includes early, alternate versions of seven tracks from the album, a performance of the song “Evaporated,” which would ultimately be re-recorded for the band’s 1997 sophomore album, Whatever And Ever Amen, plus three rare outtakes that didn’t make the eponymous debut (“Emaline,” “Dick Holster” and “Eddie Walker”).

Ben Folds writes in the album’s liner notes:

Here’s my 59-year-old self’s take on the album we made when I was 28: Overall, it’s good! It’s NOT the kind of record you’d hear produced these days. It’s pretty rough and tumble, mostly in a good way. And it’s emphatically unique. It’s from an era when you could still identify a band by the instrumentalists, before you’d even hear the vocalist. I don’t think that’s been a thing since computers allowed us to get things just right.

This first Ben Folds Five record doesn’t even TRY to do the things most might aspire to, with or without the technology, and that’s one of the first things I hear while listening. Many indie rockers of the 90s claimed to be raw and not care. We actually lived that, though it’s just not obvious because it’s based around piano and complex songs, which was an odd combo, for better or worse – wow. I’m hearing a record that really just puts it out there, and I’m glad we did all of that. It also probably stunted the potential for the record in terms of commercial appeal. Who knows? But I’m all for it, at least for this first album… The “and all” that, along with the warts, means it’s a real snapshot of a time period. That’s rare, so I give this album a thumbs up, and now I’ll go back to not listening to my own music.

The original lineup of Ben Folds Five, that is, Ben Folds (piano, vocals), Robert Sledge (bass), and Darren Jessee (drums), will further commemorate the milestone anniversary of Ben Folds Five with a series of live performances, their first run of shows together in more than 13 years. Complete details will be announced soon.