45 RPM format. By then, these appeared to be "unusual marketing ideas." "Bitches Ain't Shit" is also on his October 2006 compilation album of covers, Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP. Playing live, rather, "Ben Folds sitting at a piano evokes an old-fashioned crooner or lounge act." Reception In 2007, across June into August, John Mayer toured America with two Grammy Awards for his Continuum as the prior year's best pop album with a best pop song, "Waiting on the World to Change." On that tour, up to 15 000 per arena, an opener was Ben Folds, who, father of twins, age 7, and nearing divorce, had just completed his own tour. Folds admits that he was causing problems on the tour, and that "the biggest problem" was otherwise, or elsewhere, "a very successful single." Mayer's fans reliably booed "Bitches Ain't Shit." Feigning bewilderment by the scorn, as if it had made him lose track, Folds would replay the song till the crowd quieted or, as he urged, sang along. Whereas many cover versions succeed unto themselves, the irony of this one—swapping genres, subcultures, and largely races—partly relies on recognition of the original song, gangsta rap. Folds recalls, however, that the John Mayer crowds, not angered by the word niggas—which the piano ballad renders ostentatious—disdained the curse words and lewdness, especially the fellatio lyrics. Since the demographic was, like his own, whites of middle class, Folds deemed the scorn trivial and felt Fuck 'em. In 2019, stating uncertainty how to explain this, Folds called it "childish," and likened it to chronically pushing on a sore tooth, "something in the human psyche that just doubles down." Some others felt that Folds was belittling a rap classic. In 2019, Folds recalled that the "most compelling argument" he ever saw was between his friend Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide and Michael Doughty of Soul Coughing, two musicians, yet Folds perhaps did not clarify Doughty's complaint in this debate via internet. Questlove, visiting Folds, admired the artistic respect paid to the original. A rock critic calls the rap song, which closes Dr. Dre's 1992 album, "a sumptuous slice of Olympic-level sexism that's almost as memorable as Ben Folds' emotional, piano-ballad version." "When it came out," Folds says, "I remember bouncers—big black dudes with bald heads standing right in front of me while I'm playing—they'd hear the lyrics to Dr. Dre and they're like, 'Yeah!' They thought that