Welcome Interstate Managers
I often find myself baffled by fads in pop music. I mean, I sort of understand how you end up with a million sound-alike bands once one band in a given genre scores a hit, but I can't fathom why the first hair metal band hit it big, or the first "boy band," or that whole disco thing.
Even more puzzling to me, though, is why some albums fail to sell. My favorite example of this would be 1965 by the Afghan Whigs-- that record just kicks ass, and should've sold a billion copies. Why it didn't, I have no idea.
Close behind 1965 in the "How was this not a hit?" category is Utopia Parkway by Fountains of Wayne. It's got everything you could possibly want in a pop record: big hooks, catchy tunes, witty lyrics, and suburban angst. And yet, it sank more or less without a trace, and the band was booted from their label. Go figure.
You've got to give them credit for persistence, though, as Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger (Williams alumni from the mid-80's) are back with Welcome Interstate Managers, which might just as easily be titled Utopia Parkway 2.0. They've updated the themes a little bit-- the angst is still suburban, but it's more a 9-to-5, corporate-tool kind of deal than the last album's Long-Island-mall-rat vibe-- but all the rest of the package is there: the big hooks, the catchy tunes, the witty lyrics ("It may be the whiskey talking/ But the whiskey says I miss you every day."). You can even draw some fairly direct parallels between tracks--"Fire Island" on this record is "Prom Theme" from the last one, "Little Red Light" is "It Must Be Summer," and "Stacy's Mom" is "Denise" re-tooled for the American Pie demographic. And, alas, "Supercollider" is "Go, Hippie." It's almost like they can't believe the last one didn't sell, either, and are putting it out there again.
It still works, too. The songs may be a hair edgier-- "Bright Future in Sales" is probably the catchiest song about self-destructive alcoholism that you'll ever hear-- but they're no less successful as pop songs.
I don't mean to suggest that it's all a re-tread, though. The mid-tempo ballads are a little sweeter-- "Hackensack" is a wonderful loser love song (think Pearl Jam's "Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town," only with harmony), while "Valley Winter Song" is just plain nice-- and a few new sounds pop up unexpectedly. "Hey Julie" is a catchy little acoustic number that sounds like a "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" for the Office Space crowd-- you can picture frustrated cubicle dwellers sitting cross-legged around the copier singing along, passing a joint around the circle, and desperately hoping that there won't be a random drug test on Monday. The biggest surprise is probably "Hung Up On You," a surprisingly straight (and very good) country tune.
In the end, this isn't quite as good as Utopia Parkway-- "Halley's Waitress" and "Supercollider" just aren't very good songs, and some of the others are fairly forgettable-- but it's the best record I've bought in a good while. If you enjoy well-crafted pop songs, and are looking for something new to play while loafing around in the sun this summer, well, go buy this album. And while you're there, grab copies of Utopia Parkway and 1965, too.
(Also posted at Blogcritics, with spiffy links and stuff...)
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