|
Post by busyboy on Mar 28, 2007 10:03:23 GMT -5
I looked for a thread on them but couldn't found it.
I loved the three previous albums, but I have to agree with the review posted below, the new one is absolutely sub-par.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Mar 28, 2007 10:04:07 GMT -5
Fountains of Wayne Traffic and Weather [Virgin; 2007] Rating: 3.0 At this point, it's no secret that Fountains of Wayne are not the world's best lyricists. I could fill this review with forced, awkward, and downright embarrassing lines from Traffic and Weather, but few people are looking to this band for lyrical wit and insight. Eleven years after releasing their excellent self-titled debut, Fountains of Wayne have found success doing one thing and one thing alone: serving bite-size and easy-to-swallow nuggets of cultural nostalgia. And they have the résumé to prove it; along with the shamelessly Cars-aping mega-hit "Stacy's Mom", primary songwriter Adam Schlesinger famously penned the songs for the Tom Hanks-directed 1996 film That Thing You Do! as well as providing songs for the recent Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore vehicle Music and Lyrics. Somewhere along the line, the band gave up on the slightly ramshackle charm that made their debut so exciting. With the addition of a professional backing band on 1999's Utopia Parkway, Schlesinger and co-songwriter Chris Collingwood no longer needed to strip each song down to its essential hook and mood. Rather than evoking a playful sense of whimsy, the band was free to actually recreate the sound of rock music pasts, giving their subtler songs more muscle but also opening the door to some truly awful genre pastiche. My biggest gripe with "Stacy's Mom" wasn't its obvious nod to "Just What I Needed" or its even more obvious lyrical flaws, but rather that the song's verses seemed like tossed-off filler to kill time before the big chorus. Apparently, they've taken the song's success to heart; at its best, Traffic and Weather sounds like a collection of big-hook choruses strung together with half-hearted chugging build-ups. At its worst... well, it's far and away the most forgettable thing the band has ever released. Opener and leadoff single "Somebody to Love" sets the tale of two lonely young urbanites to crunchy guitars and a big, disco-thumping chorus. It's chock full of cultural references (Coldplay, "The King of Queens"), and succeeds in creating a generic sense of drama between verse and chorus. But, like most of Traffic and Weather, it ultimately comes down to a progression of easy and unmemorable musical choices. Yes, it "works," but only in the way that a crummy sitcom or a slick Hollywood date movie works. That said, "Somebody to Love" is one of the album's high points. "92 Subaru", for instance, sounds like a remake of Adam Sandler's "Piece of Shit Car" minus the novelty. Elsewhere, the band seems to be veering increasingly towards stories and "themes" in their songs, and the results can be pretty nightmarish-- it's all forced structure and no payoff, like a joke stripped of its humor. And don't even get me started on "Planet of Weed". We should expect much, much more from pop music than this kind of bullshit. "Yeah, but it's fun," or "it works for what it is" are merely excuses for mediocrity, which this album has in abundance-- none of these songs hit with the irresistible hook overload of their earliest work, or even of "Stacy's Mom". Fountains of Wayne have proven themselves capable songwriters, both as scrappy underdogs and as pop superstars, but Traffic and Weather finds them treading water in the worst possible way. -Matt LeMay, March 28, 2007 www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/41925-traffic-and-weather
|
|
SHOOTER
Diamond Member
3x Poster Of The Year!!!
Typical of those in power to stay worried about the *wrong* shit.
Joined: April 2006
Posts: 75,117
|
Post by SHOOTER on Mar 29, 2007 0:02:09 GMT -5
I still wanna hear this. I love FOW.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Mar 29, 2007 7:39:04 GMT -5
Metacritic score is 55 based on 5 reviews. Here's AllMusic's (3,5/5) www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hpfexze5ldae~T1Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine Fountains of Wayne finally managed to score that big hit single their fans always knew they had in them when "Stacy's Mom" became a fluke hit a few months after the release of their third album, 2003's Welcome Interstate Mangers. Anybody worried that success had spoiled the power pop quartet shouldn't find their long-awaited fourth album, Traffic and Weather -- its title song a nifty ploy to get drive-time radio plugs, but also fitting right into the Jersey roadside themes of the titles -- a disappointment, nor should it offer much in way of surprises. Perhaps the slight traces of a disco-rock beat on the opening track/lead single, "Someone to Love," shows some evidence of copping to modern trends, but Fountains of Wayne still remain devotees of classic pop -- usually guitar-driven power pop, but they'll spike that with some Bacharach horns or country-rock if the mood strikes them. If the sound is unabashedly, even defiantly classicist, that's balanced by Adam Schlesinger's obsession with chronicling the weird incidental byroads of modern America in his lyrics. He packs odd, telling details into each of his songs, whether it's how the disaffected, lonely photo retoucher in "Someone to Love" spends her Thursdays watching King of Queens or how the jealous narrator in "This Better Be Good" notices the light blue Dockers on the guy who is holding the hand of his girlfriend. Even if they're often used in the service of joke setups or punch lines, such details give the songs weight and help Fountains of Wayne seem contemporary when their music is grounded in the '60s and '70s and could have been released anytime in the last 20 years; the dance beats underpinning the title song sound like new wave, while the synths and phased vocals on the quite wonderful on-the-run-from-loan-sharks tale "Strapped for Cash" brings to mind early-'80s AOR (a fact underscored by the "heart attack-ack-ack-ack" reference to Billy Joel's "Movin' Out"). Such lyrical and musical flourishes keep Traffic and Weather from sounding too similar to previous FOW platters, but there is something missing here: a truly knockout single, along the lines of "Radiation Vibe," "Stacey's Mom," or even "Maureen" from their B-sides comp, Out of State Plates (or for that matter, "Pop Goes My Heart," the Schlesinger-written Wham! homage for Music and Lyrics that was on the charts at the time of the release of Traffic and Weather). It's sturdy, well-written power pop, but it falls prey to some of the faults of craftsmanlike pop -- mainly, it's possible to hear the craft behind the pop instead of just getting sucked into the sugar rush of the melodies. Even so, Traffic and Weather is hardly a bad record, and should satisfy anyone who has loved Fountains of Wayne before, even if it doesn't quite excite them.
|
|
SHOOTER
Diamond Member
3x Poster Of The Year!!!
Typical of those in power to stay worried about the *wrong* shit.
Joined: April 2006
Posts: 75,117
|
Post by SHOOTER on Mar 29, 2007 19:56:02 GMT -5
I'm (somewhat) sold.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Mar 31, 2007 5:29:14 GMT -5
Metascore up, now 59. Here's the LA Times review (3/4 stars).
'Traffic, Weather,' a pitch for radio
HALF of the creative core of New York's Fountains of Wayne, Adam Schlesinger has developed a lucrative sideline writing songs for movies about successful songwriters. Among his accomplishments: the title tune from "That Thing You Do!" and "Way Back Into Love," the glorious piano ballad Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore collaborate on in "Music and Lyrics." Yet with the exception of "Stacy's Mom," their 2003 ode to soccer-mom sexpots, the Fountains haven't really infiltrated the Top 40 terrain so familiar to Schlesinger's on-screen surrogates. Their rich discography is an item of cult worship.
On "Traffic and Weather," FOW's fourth full-length collection, Schlesinger and his partner Chris Collingwood — the Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of power-pop — sound as if they wouldn't mind exchanging a little respect for a bit more fame. "Someone to Love" expertly mimics the dance-rock stomp of the Killers' "Somebody Told Me"; " '92 Subaru" channels Cheap Trick's "Surrender"; the dreamy "I-95" could be the Coldplay track Collingwood goofs on a guy for digging in "Someone to Love."
Record geeks beyond repair, the songwriters still lace the more accessible material here with their trademark wit. But this time they're aiming for both Stacy and her mom.
— Mikael Wood
|
|
SHOOTER
Diamond Member
3x Poster Of The Year!!!
Typical of those in power to stay worried about the *wrong* shit.
Joined: April 2006
Posts: 75,117
|
Post by SHOOTER on Mar 31, 2007 21:59:13 GMT -5
This album's a grower, for sure.
|
|
|
Post by areyoureadytojump on Apr 2, 2007 11:37:00 GMT -5
Billboard:
ARTIST: FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE
ALBUM: TRAFFIC AND WEATHER
The Fountains' 2003 album "Welcome Interstate Managers" may have helped them, somewhat belatedly, acquire a mainstream audience but, bar getting Rachel Hunter to star in the "Stacy's Mom" video, it was actually pretty much business as usual. So it's no surprise to find the inspired songwriting partnership of Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood approach their fourth album in much the same way as the first three. They still write the songs that no one else seems to get round to, about the people that no one else seems to notice. They still pen power-pop tunes so utterly irresistible -- "Someone to Love," "This Better Be Good," "Strapped for Cash" -- that they deserve to be every bit as ubiquitous at radio as the elements of the album's title. Oh, and they're still brilliant. Investigate.
|
|
SHOOTER
Diamond Member
3x Poster Of The Year!!!
Typical of those in power to stay worried about the *wrong* shit.
Joined: April 2006
Posts: 75,117
|
Post by SHOOTER on Apr 2, 2007 13:51:43 GMT -5
We go together like traffic & weather! like traffic & weather!
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 3, 2007 3:34:14 GMT -5
Out today in the US. Even though I won't buy it, I hope they can finally crack the Top 100.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 3, 2007 4:20:05 GMT -5
One good... Fountains of Wayne Traffic and Weather (Virgin) 8/10 by Jeff Vrabel Love, Death, and Stuckey's: Another Night Alone with Fountains of Wayne Fountains of Wayne’s last record, the 2003 starlight mint Welcome Interstate Managers, notched its first casualty before the music even really kicked in: about three seconds into “Mexican Wine”, Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood’s protagonist is ungraciously “killed by a cellular phone explosion”, an event that, come to think of it, doesn’t seem to trouble either of them very much. So it makes sense that on Traffic and Weather, the band’s first disc since and fourth overall, they immediately conjure up two woeful lovebirds, bestow upon them a contrived backstory worthy of a Drew Barrymore flick, have them circle each other in delicious anticipation, give them a soaring chorus about persisting in the quest to find someone to love, and then, in the end, reveal that they end up having absolutely nothing to do with each other—while once again inviting the spectre of death into the tale. There is something seriously sticky and dark sloshing around amongst the taffy-apple melodies in these guys’ brains. Fountains of Wayne have always been tricky like that, though; like the timeless pop songsmiths they stand closer to with nearly every song, they use their impossibly catchy choruses, smirk-worthy wordplay, and a quiver full of fa-la-las and tra-la-las to mask a thorny truth lurking beneath: there are some morbid horrors happening on planet Earth, a lot of people waiting around in rooms lit only by TVs and eating food out of tubs, and even if cotton-candy hooks can dampen loneliness for a few minutes, they will never, ever, ever kill it entirely. cover art As such, Traffic and Weather ups the ante by adding in heavy measure a pile of sheer American boredom—the title track refers to two hack TV newscasters in love, who are reported to belong together “like traffic and weather”, a typically Schlesingerian metaphor that mines magic out of two things that are otherwise really, really boring to talk about. And Traffic and Weather carries throughout a preternatural gift for digging holy truths out of piles of throwaways—this album is full of people watching TV at really weird times, full of junky in-flight catalogs and torn GNR posters, full of scattered hopes and slapdash dreams, full of images that seamlessly marry the kitschy and the beautiful. “Yolanda Hayes” is the name of a simmering angel Schlesinger finds within the beige-painted concrete confines of the DMV (“She’s looking alright / Despite the bright flourescent lights / And I wonder what she’s like when she gets home at night”). “I-95” takes place in what I imagine to be a Stuckey’s, where Schlesinger documents the sacks of soul-sucking crap jammed within it, until he reveals himself to be in the midst of a nine-hour drive to see his squeeze—“And I’ll do it till the day that I die, if I need to / Just to see you”. He lets himself get cinematic and idealistic just long enough to make it more awesome when “a van driven by an older gentleman” cuts in front of him, and squats there for the rest of the trip. Figures. Matters of love and life dominate the album, as they do all great pop, although there’s a sense that the band is more in on the joke this time out. Witness “Planet of Weed”, a rock free of hatred, greed, and anything much really going on. Or “This Better Be Good”, a story about a runaround Sue that takes time to point out that her new paramour wears light-blue Dockers pants. Or the ‘70s-jacking “Strapped for Cash”, a synthy lark (with at least one Billy Joel joke) about a hard-luck chump and his run-ins with unspecified shady characters. Schlesinger’s characters, one gets the sense, are all variations on the same high-school-newspaper dork whose sad, undercooked lot in life is due in equal parts to insecurity and a percolating impulse for subtle self-destruction: forever the underdog, terminally left at the prom, always missing the football, probably a Cubs fan, but the nicest bastard you’ll ever meet. Not that Traffic and Weather is an album only interested in the dark nights of the soul. Schlesinger draws up a sketch near the end called “New Routine”, starring more American shiftlessness, invents a waitress, gives her a suffocating lifestyle, and, in the end, sends her off to Lichtenstein with a kiss. Sure, two verses later, he’s got two old men drawing up a similar scheme and then scuttling it completely, but hey, not everyone can pull off impulsive, half-panicked dreams of escape. Love, passion, and danger live in the same houses with routine and safety, and there aren’t many bands that convey it better. www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/31440/fountains-of-wayne-traffic-and-weather/
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 3, 2007 4:21:18 GMT -5
One very bad... Fountains Of Wayne Traffic and Weather Virgin 2007 D- fountains of Wayne’s last full-length, 2003’s Welcome Interstate Managers, was about twice as long as it needed to be, and if you tuned out before “Hung Up On You” came around, you’re probably not alone. But if that’s the case, you missed out on a true artistic breakthrough for Fountains Of Wayne: they could have long, lucrative careers as pop-country ghostwriters. They’ve already got the wordplay down (“I’m hung up on you since you hung up on me”), and they could continue writing their slice-of-life vignettes where all name-dropping is fair game, no matter how lame it is (Puff Daddy, “that guy from Korn,” High Times, etc.). Most importantly, they’d be free of the constraints of dealing with the rock critics who originally championed them in the mid-’90s, heady times for irony-feted slackers with a tune. But despite being four years in the making, Traffic and Weather finds Fountains Of Wayne offering more of the same and yet decidedly less, working your nerves to the point where you’ll wonder whether you ever truly liked them in the first place. Of course, you have to realize there is such a thing as good Fountains Of Wayne. Traffic and Weather certainly puts its best foot forward with lead single “Someone to Love.” Despite being a Killers tribute that’s about three years behind the times, lyrically it passes muster. Two overworked wage slaves spend nights alone and seem destined to come to a predictable get-together in the last verse. In a cruel twist, the woman cuts her presumed paramour off from a cab and “leaves him for dead.” This sort of snark is dearly missed, since FOW, at their best, sang about nothing at all (“Sink to the Bottom”) or getting a little sad (“A Fine Day for a Parade”). More often than not, Traffic and Weather sounds like it came from the pen of a hopelessly tasteless sitcom writer as opposed to one of pop’s most respected songsmiths. Throughout, Adam Schlesinger breaks rank with his supposed forbearers (They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Richman) by finding inspiration in the laziest comedic tropes: Subarus, The Gap, funny black people names (I’m sure writing a song called “Yolanda Hayes” is its own reward for these guys), the DMV, New Jersey. I’m amazed there isn’t a Fresca gag in here. Traffic and Weather is mostly the result of people gassed on the myth of their own cleverness failing to realize where they’re getting their inspiration. The on-set love affair in the title track probably wouldn’t exist without Anchorman, and once you get to the hook (“We go together like traffic and weather”), the only possible reaction is to never want to hear it again. Other than more cringe-worthy lyrics and weaker melodies, “’92 Subaru” is pretty much the same thing as “Utopia Parkway,” and “Yolanda Hayes” is pretty much the same thing as “Denise.” That’s pretty much all you need to know about Traffic and Weather: it’s exactly like their other albums (including its bloated run time) except worse in every way. Or maybe I’m hearing this all wrong. Despite having some hits of his own, Adam Schlesinger will likely be remembered for penning the theme for That Thing You Do. I only recently found out he also shilled for Music And Lyrics, a movie so fuck-you obvious in its cynical pandering that it actually made me kinda depressed. I think it might have rubbed off on Schlesinger, someone who's made a career out of skewering pop-culture. But in 2007, he's trying to take aim at a moving target, facing the same quandary as the rest of us: what exactly is popular? I'm sure he's seen Fergie on the cover of Rolling Stone's "Hot Issue" despite having no ostensible fans and looking like a cross between Carmen Electra and an ottoman. He's likely read rave reviews of Fall Out Boy that go on about why they should be hated instead of if they're any good. And he probably can't help but find it funny that indie's biggest bands still can't outsell fourth-rate Jodeci ripoffs or pointless greatest-hits albums. It's possible that Schlesinger is just trying to reflect the times and give us what he thinks America wants; and if that's the case, it's his most vicious parody yet. If not, it’s a failure on every level. www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/fountains-of-wayne/traffic-and-weather.htm
|
|
SHOOTER
Diamond Member
3x Poster Of The Year!!!
Typical of those in power to stay worried about the *wrong* shit.
Joined: April 2006
Posts: 75,117
|
Post by SHOOTER on Apr 3, 2007 12:45:09 GMT -5
I wonder if the booklet has lyrics inside.
|
|
|
Post by joker on Apr 3, 2007 13:21:47 GMT -5
I won't be picking this up -- I heard 'Someone to Love' on their MySpace and it didn't do anything for me -- but 'Stacy's Mom' is still a guilty pleasure.
|
|
SHOOTER
Diamond Member
3x Poster Of The Year!!!
Typical of those in power to stay worried about the *wrong* shit.
Joined: April 2006
Posts: 75,117
|
Post by SHOOTER on Apr 3, 2007 16:00:13 GMT -5
My favorites are "Someone To Love", "92 Subaru", "Traffic and Weather", "This Better Be Good", "Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim", "Strapped For Cash", and "New Routine".
I think I'm gonna pick this up.
|
|
|
Post by reception on Apr 3, 2007 16:05:21 GMT -5
|
|
Slinky
6x Platinum Member
Retired
Joined: December 2003
Posts: 6,777
|
Post by Slinky on Apr 4, 2007 13:56:57 GMT -5
As a huge fan of the band, I like this. "Someone To Love" is classic FOW (I don't care if it sounds like they borrowed from the Killers), and it'll probably end up as one of my favorite FOW songs ever. The title track is pretty decent and I also like "Hotel Majestic".
On the other hand, I wouldn't put this up with "Welcome Interstate Managers". I'll give it a chance to grow on me, but it probably is FOW's weakest album to date. It doesn't have the consistency their other three albums have. It does sound like they're trying too hard in parts, and other parts sound like rehashes of their older material. On the other hand, I'll take even subpar FOW over pretty much any other band any day.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 4, 2007 18:05:42 GMT -5
Reviewed by Nathan Rabin April 3rd, 2007 Fountains Of Wayne long ago perfected the art of smuggling satirical truths inside perfect three-minute pop songs. Like the films of Alexander Payne, Fountains Of Wayne's wry, unusually literate power-pop documents the foibles and insecurities of the neurotic middle class in an affectionate but unflinching manner. Overuse has made pop-culture references a degraded currency, but Fountains Of Wayne nails the mundane details that bring characters and stories to life—the television shows, movies, and consumer goods that speak eloquent volumes about the people who embrace them. It's been four years since Welcome Interstate Managers made Fountains Of Wayne unlikely hit-makers—if only because songs as good as "Stacy's Mom" seldom make it to MTV—but thankfully, little has changed: The loveable losers in Traffic And Weather could easily be the cousins or brothers and sisters of the suburban dreamers documented on previous FOW albums. As always, Fountains Of Wayne has a keen ear for the lies people tell themselves and others to keep the desperation of their lives from sinking in. On "Strapped For Cash," a synth-fueled slice of new-wave perfection, a gambling addict running out of excuses keeps telling people he's "just a little strapped for cash," as if those words form a magical mantra that will make his creditors disappear. "Michael And Heather At The Baggage Claim" illustrates Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingswood's genius for indelibly capturing moments in time that are simultaneously unremarkable and freighted with significance. Production-wise, Traffic And Weather is polished to a glistening sheen, but the slickness and neat little musical flourishes never threaten to overpower songs that would sound terrific accompanied by nothing more than an acoustic guitar. Traffic And Weather offers vivid little snapshots of characters and places, but in Schlesinger and Collingswood's hands, a snapshot can tell the whole story. A.V. Club Rating: A www.avclub.com/content/music/fountains_of_wayne
|
|
oscillations.
Diamond Member
Opinion = Fact
I was faced with a choice at a difficult age.
Joined: February 2005
Posts: 10,130
|
Post by oscillations. on Apr 4, 2007 18:14:55 GMT -5
The Onion has been doling out some unlikely reviews lately.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 4, 2007 18:17:58 GMT -5
Yeah, I guess so. Music is subjective, but in this case you can't realistically give this album a full A.
|
|
oscillations.
Diamond Member
Opinion = Fact
I was faced with a choice at a difficult age.
Joined: February 2005
Posts: 10,130
|
Post by oscillations. on Apr 4, 2007 18:21:55 GMT -5
AV Club (not unlike Pitchfork) is becoming notorious for issuing a review that defies popular consensus. Recent examples: Gwen, Air, Clinic, this one.
|
|
Slinky
6x Platinum Member
Retired
Joined: December 2003
Posts: 6,777
|
Post by Slinky on Apr 4, 2007 18:28:10 GMT -5
I don't know if I'd agree that it defies popular consensus. Most of the reviews have this in the "very good" or "very bad" category, which is how it averages out to be around 60 on Metacritic. The Onion's review matches up with USA Today, LA Times, Pop Matters, etc.
I'd rate it about a 7 or 8 out of 10 so far, while the other FOW albums are all 9's and 10's.
|
|
oscillations.
Diamond Member
Opinion = Fact
I was faced with a choice at a difficult age.
Joined: February 2005
Posts: 10,130
|
Post by oscillations. on Apr 4, 2007 18:47:27 GMT -5
In hindsight, this will be viewed as a mediocre record. Therefore, the AV review will be seen as out of step with the critical tide.
|
|
SHOOTER
Diamond Member
3x Poster Of The Year!!!
Typical of those in power to stay worried about the *wrong* shit.
Joined: April 2006
Posts: 75,117
|
Post by SHOOTER on Apr 4, 2007 18:59:21 GMT -5
I was kinda pissed that Target didn't have any copies of this in stock.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 6, 2007 17:24:14 GMT -5
Metascore stabilising, now it's 70, with 5 more reviews...
EVERYDAY PEOPLE Fountains of Wayne turn ordinary life into far-better-than-average songs on Traffic and Weather
B+ By Clark Collis
Question: Which of these subjects receives a mention on Fountains of Wayne's fourth studio album? Costco, Carl Reiner, Coldplay, or a '92 Subaru? Answer: All are featured in the course of Traffic and Weather, which finds the quartet name-checking products and celebrities with almost hip-hop-style enthusiasm.
True, songwriters Adam Schlesinger (who penned much of the soundtrack to the recent Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore rom-com Music and Lyrics) and Chris Collingwood have always peppered the band's classic-pop-inspired guitar rock with cultural minutiae. They relentlessly scrutinize their characters' foibles, travel habits, and occupations (the New Jersey pair are notably obsessed with the white-collar workplace, a legacy of their own pre-fame jobs as office temps). The first song on the Fountains' self-titled 1996 debut included a nod to Playboy, while Christopher Walken, Pink Floyd, and Radio Shack all appeared on their last CD, 2003's Welcome Interstate Managers. But here the references come so fast there are times you wonder if the duo have become less interested in real emotion than in making smart-alecky references to the DMV and ''a worn-out Dell'' (which they do on ''Yolanda Hayes'' and ''Hotel Majestic,'' respectively). Fortunately, on most of this album, the perfectly chosen details actually add emotional depth to the lyrical vignettes, bringing them to vivid life — ironic, given their often mundane nature. There is something truly melancholic, for example, in the fact that the heroine of ''Someone to Love'' is not just at home watching TV when she should be ''out on the scene'' but is watching The King of Queens. This set dressing makes the scenario so recognizable. Similarly, the nine-hour drive separating loved ones in acoustic lament ''I-95'' becomes all the more depressing when the narrator describes being stuck at a truck stop selling ''posters of girls washing cars/And unicorns and stars.''
It is difficult to say whether anything on Traffic and Weather will match the success of the Fountains' most famous song, ''Stacy's Mom,'' given the boost that track received from its lubricious Rachel Hunter-starring video. But ''Someone to Love,'' '''92 Subaru,'' and the Beach Boys-evoking ''This Better Be Good'' all boast mighty, instantly hummable hooks. Meanwhile, ''Strapped for Cash'' features a terrifically swaggering performance from frontman Collingwood as a money-owing ne'er-do-well.
The end product is, on the whole, a simply wonderful CD of songs about love, lust, and loneliness.
Oh, yes, and antilock brakes.
Rating: B+
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 6, 2007 17:25:06 GMT -5
Amazon.com Punctuated by 2005's sprawling compilation of B-sides and outtakes (Out-of-State Plates), a nearly four-year interval between fresh recordings has done nothing to tarnish Fountain of Wayne's pop-drenched songwriting tandem of Chris Collingswood and Adam Schlesinger. This 14-song bash is a late-'60s/early-'70s time warp that exploits every facet of the pop action plan (chiming guitars, infectious choruses, sinful harmonies) and begs for radio play. As usual, the band never takes itself too seriously, crafting melodies around a lively, vigorous cast of characters that practically come to life. There's a DMV attendant who can't shake our attention (the bouncy, piano-boosted "Yolanda Hayes"), an airport-stranded couple waiting impatiently for lost luggage (the folksy "Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim"), and ex-lovers who blame it on the highway ("Fire in the Canyon," which explores the radio country-rock of the Eagles and America). They sing of an old-model Japanese car to get the girl ("'92 Subaru") and Renee seeing you "at the Gap in a baseball cap" ("This Better Be Good"), and any way they shake it, even after a too-long interruption, Collingswood and Schlesinger rarely miss the mark. --Scott Holter www.amazon.com/Traffic-Weather-Fountains-Wayne/dp/B000N4SKFK/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-2402261-2955022?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1175892100&sr=8-1
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 6, 2007 17:28:18 GMT -5
'Traffic And Weather' by Fountains of Wayne Everyday Songs For A Rush-Hour Culture April 5, 2007 By ERIC R. DANTON, The Hartford Courant Much of rock 'n' roll is a working-class passion play about breaking loose from the constraints imposed by menial jobs, limited prospects and the expectations of a buttoned-down society that just doesn't understand the lure of freedom.
Fountains of Wayne inverts the formula, writing waggish power-pop songs about white-collar shlubs trapped in a bewildering workaday existence without enough self-awareness to even yearn for freedom.
They were the hapless protagonists in many of the songs on the band's 2003 album, "Welcome Interstate Managers," and their kind fares no better on Fountains of Wayne's latest, "Traffic and Weather."
The album starts on an inauspicious note with "Someone To Love," a hooky pop song with disco-beat drums about two lonely souls in the Big City who come upon each other in a chance encounter - only for one of them to torpedo the other.
Things brighten up on the bouncy piano tune "Yolanda Hayes," about flirting with the woman behind the counter at the DMV who's "explaining patiently/How she needs to see six forms of ID," and the sultry title track imagines lusty chatter between a pair of TV anchors steaming up the studio during breaking-news segments.
Other topics include a couple waiting in vain at an airport baggage claim and a deadbeat coming up short when it's time to pay back a loan; while the band takes an earnest turn on the countrified life-is-a-journey song "Fire in the Canyon." The everyday-ness of the songs makes them easily relatable, but, like a commute where traffic and weather happen on the 10s, the album starts to feel routine by the end.
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 6, 2007 17:30:07 GMT -5
The big problem with anointing Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger the great standard-bearers of modern pop song is that there's no one else like them. Really, who? Max Martin? John Mayer? The Blur guys when they got along? If Fountains of Wayne resemble anyone, it's Randy Newman, who also escapes contract work with tunefully insouciant albums now and then. Difference is, Newman sounds as sour as he is, while Fountains of Wayne don't let on. Here they fail to provide the elusive novelty follow-up to "Stacy's Mom" but nonetheless invent many dandy new ways not to be in love. Two lonely young professionals don't meet cute (she beats him to a cab in the rain); anchorpersons reveal their undying mutual attraction to fans awaiting the ball scores; a single proves so jaded she'd rather move back to Canada than pursue true romance with a Liechtensteinian in Bowling Green. Wasted potheads, doomed gamblers and, oh yes, touring musicians also make their appointed rounds. On the rare occasions when love does rule, it's nine hours away on I-95 or has just lost its luggage. But with that DMV clerk they might just have a chance. You'll hope so. ROBERT CHRISTGAU 4/5 stars (Posted: Apr 2, 2007) www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/13967089/review/14010851/traffic_and_weather
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 11, 2007 10:03:28 GMT -5
"Traffic And Weather" debutes at #97 on the Billboard 200 with 12,000 copies sold. About time! Congrats!
|
|
|
Post by busyboy on Apr 11, 2007 10:16:16 GMT -5
Prefix MagazineBy: Michael Legat 6.0 out of 10 Let's get this right out of the way: Fountains of Wayne's music hasn't changed at all since the last time you heard it, or the time before that. Traffic and Weather is Welcome Interstate Managers, featuring more of the same teen potheads, cubicle screw-ups and lonely single Jersey girls that we met last time. A critic with less integrity and shame could just plagiarize a review of one of Fountains of Wayne's previous three albums and start substituting song titles. That's not entirely a bad thing, but eventually, regardless of quality, a formula becomes stale, and there is ample evidence of such throughout Traffic and Weather. Some people may consider two songs on one album about dispiriting airport experiences as metaphors for life ("Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim," "Seatbacks and Traytables") a recurring theme. I call it lazy. As expected, though, Traffic and Weather teems with lyrical drollery. Nobody will confuse Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood for Leonard Cohen, but their canon of arrested-development Jersey-story songs provides compelling evidence that they are brilliant songwriters in their own manner. A lyric like "You pretend that you're going to Sea Bright/ for the long weekend, but something don't seem right" from "This Better Be Good" has an awkward grace that would fail in other hands. Still, it doesn't bode well for Fountains of Wayne's looming one-hit-wonder status that there was no successful follow-up single to Welcome Interstate Managers' "Stacy's Mom," especially considering that there were at least a half-dozen songs on that album better than anything here. That's less an indictment of the new album than a praise of its predecessor, but the fact remains that the perfectly pleasant Traffic and Weather is inarguably diminished returns.
|
|