Virgin Records
2007
Traffic And Weather
About This Album
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.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10)

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