Ad Frank Is the World's Best Ex-Boyfriend

Ad Frank | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 19, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Stop Pop & Roll
• ASIN: B00081U65K
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #594,903 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Five Days We Were Friends

2. The World's Best Ex-Boyfriend

3. Unspeakable

4. If I Find Another One of Your Bobby Pins in My Bed, I'm Coming by ...

5. Lucky

6. Life's Assorted Lessons

7. You Will Never Learn to Play the Cello

8. Pool

9. Cool

10. The Only One I Knew in Jamaica Plain

11. Car Fascist

12. I'll Be Your Project

13. Dating the Hologram

Editorial Reviews

Rochester City Weekly, March 23, 2005

You hope the album's as cool as it looks, it's even better. Frank certainly isn't short on wit or bite.

Product Description

Once Ad Frank read the words, he knew he had the basis for a song, if not an entire new album. "For whatever reason -- exhibitionism or whatever -- my ex-girlfriend gave me permission to read her diary," explains Ad. "As soon as I saw that she had written in there that I was the ‘World’s Best Ex-Boyfriend’ the song pretty much took care of itself." But given Ad’s penchant for over-thinking tangled romance, the story doesn’t end there. "The bit about driving around and hearing a great song on the radio but losing the station’s signal before the DJ has announced it parallels the relationship. Even if I’m never able to hear the song again, I’m still better for having heard it," says Ad, "My life was better for having known some people even if we can’t be friends now." The track is pure, manic heartbreak and the perfect title for a new Ad Frank album.

Ad Frank is the World’s Best Ex-Boyfriend, the follow-up to 2003’s In Girl Trouble, finds Ad back with his band The Fast Easy Women for a tight trip through songs that evoke both asleep-at-the-bar loneliness and cutting wit. Featuring former and current members of Tracy Bonham, Francine, and Garvy J., the band’s glam/new-wave/cabaret epoxy expertly binds together all of Ad’s varying loves and influences, resulting in a punchy, moving, and occasionally danceable album.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not at all pedantic!, May 4, 2005

By 

LISA D. MCCOLGAN - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ad Frank Is the World's Best Ex-Boyfriend (Audio CD)

One of the few artists able to consistently break my heart within the first few bars of any given song, Ad Frank's got a way with them words. Melancholic without being maudlin, soaring without being cloying. I never know whether Ad Frank wants a stiff drink or a swift kick in the ass. Either way, this is gorgeous, funny, and completely devastating -- get it right now, or I'll haunt you when I'm dead. Mean it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Boring buzz band, April 22, 2010

By 

IRate - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ad Frank Is the World's Best Ex-Boyfriend (Audio CD)

If moody alternative pop is your thing you may feel at home with these modest expectations, though anyone but nineties nostalgic's will grow numb to a limited vocabulary.

5.0 out of 5 stars The great rock album of 2005, July 7, 2005

By 

Jonathan B Whitcomb "Emery's Misery" (New Hampshire USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ad Frank Is the World's Best Ex-Boyfriend (Audio CD)

Listening to this album takes me back to pre-disco and punk 70's rock. Touchstones like David Bowie and Lou Reed come to mind. This has all the best elements of great rock: bombastic and huge, occasionally poignant but still gloriously dumb. Frank can't decide whether to be confessional or a wiseass. His lyrics are wonderful and you'll veer between laughter and tears, carried along with his strong melodies and great arrangements. There's a theatrical element in this music as well. "You don't know your right from wrong or your good from bad era Bowie: no wonder you don't know me." Frank's voice is a perfect vehicle for his songs: melodic and slurred. He sounds like he's reporting from the edge, and it lends weight to his songs.

While the heart of Frank's music is in the 70's, he gleefully injects goofy new wave textures and beats which makes it harder to pin down. And really, how can you help but love a guy who writes songs with titles like "If I Find Another One Of Your Bobby Pins In My Bed, I'm Coming To Shove Them Up Your Ass"?

Buy this album!
[...]