Utopia Parkway
1999
Atlantic Records
Produced by Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood
It's spring, the sun is out, the temperature is in the high 60s, and that means roll down the car windows and turn Fountains of Wayne up on the iPod. Over the course of 12 years and four albums (OK, so they're not very prolific) the duo of Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood ahve proven that they are the Difford and Tilbrook of their generation--indeed, Fountains of Wayne reminds me a bit of classic Squeeze (but with more humor and less drinking). This is tuneful power pop; these guys have a hard time writing a bad song. They get slagged by critics who think their songs should be more earnest, but I think they're fun and funny--and often quite witty. Utopia Parkway is their second album and I think it remains their best (they are best known for the rent-a-Cars-sounding "Stacey's Mom" from 2003). Their characters are often hapless blokes, like the poor guy who's "fit to be dyed" and tries to impress a girl by getting a tattoo in "Red Dragon Tattoo" ("Will you stop pretending I've never been born/Now I look a little more like that guy from Korn"); the unhappy wife in suburban "Amity Gardens" ("If you knew now what you knew then/You wouldn't want to go to Amity Gardens"); the kids from Long Island going to the "Laser Show" at the Hayden Planetarium ("We're gonna make out way across the galaxy/Then we'll head back home on the L.I.E."). And of course, what town doesn't have a "Valley of Malls" ("And god forgive the passengers if we should fail/To find a penny fountain or a half-off sale/I need a merchant/I just started searching for a holy grail"). What can I say--great record.
No comments:
Post a Comment