It’s easy to see (or hear) what Folds had in mind when he opted to take the EP route. But in the wake of Rockin’ the Suburbs’ perceived failure, it was still a risky commercial move. "It probably came from the same bad business mind that had the idea to play punk-rock clubs with a piano in the first place. But the music business should also be about music. If you like something but it doesn’t look good on paper, well there has to be some world where that makes good business sense. A German magazine said that if that the EPs had been released as an album, it would be one of the best American albums of the year. This sounds like such an old-dude thing to say, but they actually signed a petition to bring me back to Germany because of those EPs. I played for 3000 people in Berlin."

Although it’s full of songs that detail the growing pains of a guy wrestling with the downside of domestic bliss, Songs for Silverman, on which he’s backed by bassist Jared Reynolds and drummer Lindsay Jamieson, a suppler rhythm section than the Five’s more playful Robert Sledge (bass) and Darren Jessee (drums), has nothing whatsoever to do with the film Saving Silverman, a Jack Black vehicle that deals with some of the same issues. "I found out about the film after I named the album," Folds confirms. "I’m sure I heard of the movie somewhere, but the album is just Songs for ‘somebody else,’ Songs for ‘blah, blah, blah . . . ’ I was going to use a real person’s name, but I was told I couldn’t. So it became Songs for Silverman."

I struggled for years to hear more Elton John than Billy Joel in Folds until I realized there was no need to hear either. Still, it’s heartening to find echoes of "The Sun Went Down on Me" in the rolling piano intro to the disc’s first single, "Landed." The song nails a morning-after hangover that follows an interlude of misguided romantic intoxication to an exuberant chorus and a piano hook Elton would be proud to call his own. The mood ranges from shame to sorrow to liberation, as Folds uses a fragile falsetto to put himself on the line: "And I’m not sorry if you’re not sorry/And you’re not sorry until I make you . . . " He’s no Elton John, and he never will be. Indeed, he goes farther than ever before to define and reveal himself as himself on Songs for Silverman.

And he knows it. "The Ben Folds Five made a big first impression and it became hard for people to see beneath that. We were ‘the piano band that rocks.’ It was something solid you could affix to the band. But as you evolve, it becomes harder to put what you do into one sentence. Now it’s ‘the 38-year-old piano dad who had one hit in the ’90s showing us his fucking diary.’ And we came of age in an era when crafting songs about yourself was considered emotionally lewd and pretty fucking dodgy. Irony was in, and the singer-songwriter was bad news. So we had to make the songs hard and strong because I was emotionally lewd on [1997’s] Whatever & Ever Amen — the hit song’s about my teenage experience with my girlfriend having an abortion. All those songs were as café singer-songwriter as it gets: they just had all kinds of bells and whistles on them to disguise that fact."

Songs for Silverman doesn’t want for bells or whistles, as the pitch-perfect Beach Boys harmonies that adorn "Jesusland" attest. But Folds’s lyrics are more direct. There’s no mistaking the subject of the Elliott Smith eulogy "Late" because, well, the line "Elliott, man, you played a mean guitar" gives it away. "Gracie" is a rockabye ballad about Folds’s daughter; "Sentimental Guy" is unadulterated introspection; "Give Judy My Notice" is a bitter, bruised kiss-off to an ex-lover ("I won’t be your bitch anymore/And follow you around/And open the door"). It’s classic and contemporary at the same time. But if confessional songwriting isn’t your cup of tea, then no amount of cream and sugar will make Folds palatable.

He knows that, too. "I’m a little scared about the way this album is going to hit people. I’m attached to the music world. I don’t live in a cave. I hear all this big fucking shiny-ass shit on the radio. But I don’t have to do that anymore. The thing that disappoints me about mainstream music is that we don’t seem to moving away from that. Everyone still has their shades on. And then I think about my little album trying to sink or swim out there with all this gaudy stuff, I get concerned. I think people are going to think that I sound too serious and tired and boring. I’m bracing for that; I don’t expect it to get great reviews or get on the radio."

I remind him of his discussion 10 years ago with Eric Bachmann. "Yeah, I guess it would be nice to sell 40,000 copies."

Ben Folds headlines this Saturday, May 14, at Avalon, 15 Lansdowne Street in Boston; call (617)228-6000.