Release Date : Roy Opochinski
Reviewed By: June 10, 2003

Who do Fountains of Wayne think they are? Do they really believe that they can stroll back into our lives four years after their last release, the brilliant Utopia Parkway, and just expect to recapture that spot in our collective hearts that has been so empty since last we saw them?

Not only do they, but with one spin of their spectacular new album, Welcome Interstate Managers, their absence is immediately forgiven. (If you really insist on being cross, focus your anger on the industry that makes it difficult for this amazing band to find a record deal.)

But here's the rub. Just as you cannot eat just one Lay's potato chip, you cannot expect to be able to listen to this incredible disc just once. In fact, just block out the rest of the month to enjoy this record repeatedly.

(Editor's Note: At some point in this review, even my trusty thesaurus might not provide me with enough superlatives, so please forgive me if I repeat the words "spectacular," "incredible," "brilliant," and "wonderful." And yes, at this point, I am officially gushing. Deal with it.)

With the most clever opening stanza of a record in many a year ("He was killed by a cellular phone explosion/They scattered his ashes across the ocean/The water was used to make baby lotion/The wheels of promotion were set into motion"), the first track, "Mexican Wine" bursts out with a giddy pop energy that is maintained on a number of other tracks on the disc. This funny, clever song immediately highlights the difference between Fountains of Wayne and their power-pop peers: Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood understand intimately how to write a three-minute pop song.

The second track, "Bright Future In Sales," is a return to the band's signature sound, power-pop at its glorious best. It is followed by the group's tribute to MILFs, "Stacy's Mom" (also the first single off the album)--an instant radio classic with a chorus ("Stacy's mom has got it going on/She's all I want and I've waited for so long/Stacy can't you see you're just not the girl for me/I know it might be wrong but I'm in love with Stacy's mom) that makes you want to curse the songwriters because it refuses to leave your head. This single will historically be associated with summer 2003.

Schlesinger and Collingwood also understand that a band that lives exclusively by the three-minute pop song dies by the three-minute pop song. Fortunately, Welcome Interstate Managers is comprised of much more than cheeky pop nuggets. At the point where less-talented bands would ruin their disc by trying to add another power-pop song to the mix, the band downshifts into the hauntingly beautiful and overwhelmingly sad "Hackensack," an acoustic paean to lost love.

"No Better Place" and "Supercollider" both hearken back to the 1960s with their snatches of psychedelic guitar, while the acoustic "Valley Winter Song" is an angelic, melodic track that could easily have been a Simon and Garfunkel track in a previous life. (Like most of the songs on the disc, this song references the Northeastern United States, and, more specifically, the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area.) "Hey Julie" also channels Paul and Art, with its hints of "Cecilia" echoing through the track.

Great songwriters can take an obvious topic and spin it on its head. Fountains of Wayne do this a number of times on Welcome Interstate Managers. With lyrics like "darling don't you know, we miss you when you're gone," an inattentive listener might mistake "Hayley's Waitress" for being a song where the narrator is pining romantically for a waitress. In actuality, the song is about an incompetent coffee server.

"All Kinds of Time" which floats effortless like a well-thrown downfield pass, is the best song ever written about football. This transcendent track seems tailor-made to back a National Football League pre-game show feature about a quarterback like Atlanta Falcons signal caller Michael Vick.

There are so many highlights. "Hung Up On You" (which features a guest appearance from pedal steel genius Robert Randolph) is a traditional country song that veers immediately into the realm of instant classic. Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, or Hank Williams could easily have recorded it in country music's heyday. This song is destined for jukeboxes in honky-tonks throughout the deep South.

"Fire Island" is an elegant song about kids who "don't need no babysitter, we don't need no father or mother" when their parents leave for extended vacations. "Don't you remember, last December, when you went to Steamboat Springs?" they ask. (Notably, they don't neglect the detail that "all the kids from school will be making in the pool while their parents are on Fire Island." Their honest bent is what makes this song the masterpiece that it is.)

And any review of this disc would be delinquent if it failed to mention "Bought For A Song," a great track that could easily have been a cover of an old Replacements song.

Ultimately, Welcome Interstate Managers, which also features guest contributions from singer/songwriter Jen Trynin and former Smashing Pumpkin James Iha, succeeds because it addresses topics with which the songwriters and listeners are intimately familiar. The love that the songwriters have for the tri-state area adds yet another dimension to already incomparable songs.

As is pointed out in their press kit, on Welcome Interstate Managers, Fountains of Wayne sing about "love, work, frustrated commuters, drunken salesmen, retired airline pilots, pressured quarterbacks, bad waitresses, vegan entrepreneurs, clip-on ties, exploding cell phones, lawn mowing, vacations without the kids, New England snowstorms, lousy directions, and, of course, Face The Nation."

(If you are looking for a negative aspect to this disc, there is only one, and it only applies to those whose livelihood depends on listening to 10 to 15 new CDs per week. I speak about music critics. Welcome Interstate Managers is gripping. In good conscience, one cannot replace it with another disc because everything else seems inferior in its wake. In the past month, my job has become infinitely more difficult because I have no desire to listen to anything else.)

A 16-track miracle, Fountains of Wayne's Welcome Interstate Managers is a perfect pop album that should be blaring from every car radio this summer. A radio station that has the guts to take a chance could pull any song from this album and make it a radio hit.

Call off the dogs. It might only be June, but the race is over. The best album of the year hits store shelves on June 10.


Click here to buy Fountains of Wayne's Welcome Interstate Managers