.38 Special, Karate, depressed hippies, Dodge Caravans, hockey
teams, the Long Island Expressway, staple guns, high school proms, Winnebagos, sexy travel
agents, housing projects, bourbon, Laser Floyd, the Jersey Shore, Buicks, asteroids, state
troopers, pianos falling out of windows, Lincoln Town Cars, soccer moms, Bactine, KorN,
Connecticut, love songs...
If anything on this list interests you, then you're sure to find something to enjoy on the
new album "Utopia Parkway" by Fountains Of Wayne. Anchored by the songwriting
team of Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger, the New York-based band released its debut
album in late 1996 and immediately gained worldwide attention for its masterful pop craft.
Filled with instantly
memorable three-minute paeans to bikers, secretaries and Spanish-American stockbrokers,
"Fountains Of Wayne" was hailed as one of the year's best releases by dozens of
publications (including being named #2 Album Of The Year in the Billboard Critics' Poll),
and the irresistible, if
inscrutable, first single "Radiation Vibe" was an international hit. The band
toured for close to a year in support of the album, including a six-week arena run with
the Smashing Pumpkins (F.O.W. graciously agreed to perform first each night), a club tour
with the Lemonheads, several headlining tours, European festival appearances, countless
radio station visits, and an occasional Christmas party.
After taking a break for a few months, the band -- which also includes drummer (and former
Posie) Brian Young and guitarist Jody Porter -- regrouped to record its second full-length
effort. The self-produced, fourteen-song "Utopia Parkway" turned out to be,
according to Collingwood
and Schlesinger, something of an "accidental concept album." When they got back
together and began to sort through the new songs they had each written, they discovered
that certain themes kept resurfacing, despite the fact that they had been writing
separately. For one thing, there seemed to be a lot of cars driving around in many of the
new songs, and a lot of characters inside
them that were searching for something just beyond their grasp. From the aspiring rock
star of the title track "saving for a custom van", to the obsessed shoppers of
"Valley of Malls" who cruise for bargains in RV's, to the high school seniors of
"Prom Theme" in their rented limos, everyone in the
new songs seemed to be on the go, in pursuit of some elusive goal they might never reach.
The result is that the tapestry of characters, cars, pop culture references, and musical
influences found on the new record creates some kind of portrait of life just outside the
Big City -- or, more specifically, in the "Greater Metropolitan Areas" that both
Collingwood and Schlesinger know firsthand from their own formative years. Schlesinger,
who now lives in Manhattan (and often pretends that he always has), actually spent most of
his pre-adult life in suburban New Jersey. For his part, Collingwood grew up in a rural
town an hour outside of Philadelphia, and after stints living in Boston, New Haven,
Brooklyn and Manhattan, recently moved to the slightly slower-paced
town of Northampton, Mass. Many of the inhabitants of "Utopia Parkway" -- in all
their ambition, jealousy, boredom, hope, and regret (and sometimes just plain drunkenness)
-- are set against these and other East Coast backdrops.
The band has also broadened its musical palette significantly on this record. Explains
Collingwood, "The first record was written and recorded in about two weeks...we
didn't slow down to think about things like changing guitars or adding different
instruments." In contrast, the new record frequently breaks away from the
straight-ahead arrangements of the first album, touching on a
wider variety of influences, while still remaining firmly anchored in the tradition of
tightly-crafted pop. There are hints of everything from 60's icons like the Zombies, the
Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel; 70's AOR dinosaurs like Steve Miller and Joe Walsh; early
New Wave stars like Devo and the Cars; LA "singer-songwriter" virtuosos like
Randy Newman -- all of these disparate
elements somehow find their way into the Fountains pop mix.
A first listen through the album reveals a broader use of keyboard textures, lusher
harmony vocals, more acoustic guitars, different types of rhythm and percussion tracks,
and occasionally even strings (on the epic "Prom Theme"). In addition, the
album's tone is more varied. Fans of the first record will no doubt appreciate the
instantly hummable appeal of the planetarium anthem
"Laser Show," the two-and-a-half minute ode to a cold-hearted travel agent named
"Denise," or the stadium-rock jam "Go, Hippie," but other tracks find
the band exploring more pensive ground. "A Fine Day For A Parade" is a
melancholy ballad about suburban alienation, "Troubled Times" is a soaring,
harmony-laden, irony-free love song, and "Amity Gardens" recalls a housing
project where Collingwood lived as a child.
With their debut album, Fountains Of Wayne established themselves as one of the best
four-man bobsled teams in recent memory --- or, at the very least, a major new band with
masterful songwriting skills; "Utopia Parkway" reveals the true range and depth
of their abilities. The group plans to tour the U.S. And Europe in support of the record
beginning in late spring, and a video for
"Denise" featuring gratuitous shots of women being sprayed with water has just
been completed.
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