blackleatherbookshelf: (Flames)
Head Out On The Highway
3 Out Of 5 Stars

I'm one of the fans of Fountains of Wayne that grew into the band backwards, tricked into loving them by the fact that "Stacy's Mom" was such a ridiculous earworm that I had to have "Welcome Interstate Managers." Then I went to "Traffic and Weather," which I loved just about as much. Then it was time to go to the beginning and get albums one and two. Adam Schlesinger, Chris Collingwood and company have what almost every power pop wannanbe band in the world aspires to, and that is an uncanny ability to craft songs that sound recognizable on the first listen, even if you think it was by somebody else originally.

So why only three stars for "Utopia Parkway?" Well, despite the fact that the debut was classic almost from the first note, here FoW fall victim to the dreaded sophomore slump. You know the one where you have all your life to write the first album and 8 months to come up with the second? That's what "Utopia Parkway" sounds like to me. The influences are just a bit too obvious, the jokes a little too insider, and the songs just short of flawless. They still had more hooks that the proverbial tackle box, but there are themes on "Parkway" that they'd perfect in later albums. "Denise" sounds like it was the blueprint for "Traffic and Weather's" "Someone to Love," and "The Senator's Daughter" a warm-up for "Hackensack."

The band's penchant for checking off ironic references also doesn't make it past the obvious, like mentioning 38 Special in "Red Dragon Tattoo" or a certain contempt for the denizens of "The Valley Of Malls" (even with the killer guitar lick). I think this was the only time I listened to a Fountains Of Wayne album where I didn't instantly fall in love with everything there. Be that as it may, These guys love their pop conventions more than they sneer at them, which makes even the lesser of their records treats for power pop geeks like me. Even the mellow pop groove of "Sky Full Of Holes" 12 years later confirmed at just how brilliant Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood can be even when they coast. ("Sky Full Of Holes" was one of my favorite albums for 2011, I should add.) "Utopia Parkway" was just a minor pothole in a career that has seen more than its share of genius moments.


   
blackleatherbookshelf: (Default)
More Songs about Cars and Girls. And Meteorology
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Fountains of Wayne's Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger are big fans of flipping the big box of Pop Conventions and seeing what tumbles out, and with "Traffic And Weather," they go for those two big standards of pop-tunery, Cars and Girls. You'll find a prominent vehicle or woman in every one of these songs but one (and it happens to be the album's worst), often to great, humorous affect. Be it Seth and Beth is the punchy opener "Someone To Love" or the set of displaced goofballs playing a game of town-to-town hopscotch on "New Routine," it's all about the people and the motion.

If you're willing to extend the metaphor a bit and allow yourself to change "cars" for any form of transport, then the theme still applies. The wistful final song "Seatbacks and Traytables" is about the traveling musician losing track of where he is as the road wears on. While we're at it, there's the weather of the album's title. Just about every song here has some kind of storming moment, like the bucketing rain in "Hotel Majestic" or the country-pop of "Fire in The Canyon's" the rain on the plains. It's the title song itself that works absolutely the best, as the News Anchor finally caves in to his desire for his Co-Anchor and makes his move to a slinky funk track.

However, this is the first FoW album I've bothered skipping tacks on. "Michael and Heather At The Baggage Claim" is too forced of a song to hold up to repeated listening. It sounds like a throwaway from a band that has never done one before. Then there's the "Planet Of Weed." If you're writing a song that sounds like a couple of freshman stoners wrote if after partying too hard, there's a good chance you should leave it off your album. But there it sits, stinking up the CD like week old bong water. It sounds even worse when you compare it to the brilliant "New Routine" that comes right after, which opens with a rhyme of diner to Carl Reiner. Or the line in "I-95" about the fading radio station that now sounds like "a kick-drum filled with static."

That's why I'm willing to forgive "Traffic and Weather" its lone super-dud. Even more so because lazy-radio corporation bean counters couldn't risk giving "Stacy's Mom" the worthy chart follow-up of the title song or "Someone To Love." Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger waited another four years to let out the excellent "Sky Full Of Holes," which pulled back a bit but is just as delightful, and has their most emotional song ever on it, "Cemetery Guns." As an FoW fan, I recommend both.


 

blackleatherbookshelf: (Default)
Back to the 90's.
3 Out Of 5 Stars

If you long for the days of Everything But The Girl's techno moments, or St Etienne's late night whispery cool, you'll probably get a big kick out of Ivy's "All Hours." Husband and wife team Andy Chase and Dominique Durand, along with Fountains of Wayne dude Adam Schlesinger mix the sound of 80's old school synths with the 90's trip-hop and Durand's sweet if somewhat undistinguished voice. As usual, Schlesinger brings his knack for memorable melodies (even though the writing credits are listed as the entire band), and all the songs pop along as expected.

However, Ivy has shown a greater knack for memorable songs that were more up-front than dreamy background. "All Hours" could have easily been titled "After Hours" for all its lack of energy. The muted chill of "All Hours" might have been a treasure; to me it sounds like something that dropped out of a 1997 lockbox.


   

blackleatherbookshelf: (Default)

Wayne Hanson's Smashing Trick 
3 Out Of 5 Stars

A most unlikely supergroup, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger asked pal pop singer Taylor Hanson (who'da thunk?) to team with him and James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins and then hauled in Cheap Trick drummer Bun E Carlos to pound the skins. So you have a multi-generational and multi-stylistic team who cranked out a one shot (so far) album under the moniker "Tinted Windows." Not surprisingly, with Hanson's and Schlesinger's affinity for power-pop and Carlos used to backing the glammy rock of Cheap Trick, the album is a power-popper's dream.

What is so funny about this is just how teen-pop this sounds. Rack up Jonas Brothers' "B-B-Good To Me" with "Kind Of a Girl" and you'll be hard pressed to tell which cut is the Disney act. James Iha is all but a reformed jangle popper this time around, and the whammy he puts into "Messing With My Head" or "Nothing To Me" is going to make you wonder why he didn't ditch Billy Corgan years ago. It's also easy to tell Carlos is having a ball when he digs into "Can't Get a Read on You."

"Tinted Windows" is by no means a brilliant album, at best it will make Dwight Twilley, 20/20 or fans of The Knack get nostalgic for their skinny ties. Or fans of any of TW's respective members (and frankly, there were a couple moments where I found myself wondering what FoW's Chris Collingwood would have done with a few of these. However, for straight-up four-piece power-pop rock with no synths, the Tinted Windows' debut makes me hope for maybe another go-round.



   


blackleatherbookshelf: (Default)
Sky Full of HolesPower Pop has its 2011 winner
4 Out of 5 Stars

Fountains of Wayne have always been a tightrope act, treading the wire between delightfully goofy pop and biting tart lyrical jabs. Songwriters Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger know that they are both pop-masters and satirists, and their "Sky Full Of Holes" both mines that vein and comes off as a surprisingly conformist pop album. Well, at least as conformist as you can get when the first line sung is "She's been afraid of the Cuisinart since 1977."

That song, "The Summer Place," is a darkly funny look at a dysfunctional family and the inverted nostalgia that they have for summer vacations. Then the follow-up is a perversely catchy song about a clueless duo named "Richie and Reuben," who fail at every dopey endeavor they try. That doesn't keep the narrator safe, as Richie and Reuben still managed to sucker him into their crazy schemes. "Sky Full Of Holes" is loaded with these sorts of moments, where the song skips along on an inescapable melody before slipping in the knockout blow.

At the same time, they're writing beautifully sincere songs that should be the rightful hits to follow their top 20 adventure, "Stacy's Mom" in 2004. Both "Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart" and "Hate To See You Like This" should be pop anthems, the kind of songs that Schlesinger drops with scary anonymity into TV and Movie soundtracks. Power Hooks and Killer Choruses in each, and "Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart" is 99% irony free. It's the album's closer that seals the deal, though. "Cemetery Guns" is a touching tribute to a girlfriend's brother lost at war. Arranged with both martial drums and banjo, it's also the source of the album's title, where Adam describes the effect of a 21 Gun Salute. It's a short, sweet song that brings the album to the kind of conclusion that reminds you exactly why Fountains of Wayne are darlings to power pop aficionados, and why this may be my favorite album of 2011.

Fountains of Wayne  Welcome Interstate Managers Utopia Parkway Traffic and Weather Blood/Candy If I Had a Hi-Fi

Profile

blackleatherbookshelf: (Default)
blackleatherbookshelf

September 2015

S M T W T F S
   1 2345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 25th, 2025 07:51 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios