When
does simplicity become quite complex? Whenever Fountains of
Wayne releases a new album. Welcome Interstate Managers is
the latest offering from the creative genius of Adam Schlesinger
and Chris Collingwood. These names probably don't ring anyone's
bell but Schlesinger did pen the innocuously mesmeric theme
for the movie That Thing You Do. Clearly we are dealing with
two men who have the capability to make you sing along at
will and later beg to have their songs removed from your head
because they've been stuck their longer than a watermelon
jolly rancher sticks to the underside of your molars.
Welcome
quite honestly is a near perfect pop record. Fountains find
a way to take the mundane and polish it into pop gems. "Hailey's
Waitress" speaks of a man waiting for the waitress to return
with his cup of coffee, "And when she finally appears it's
like she's been away for years/Darling don't you know we miss
you when you're gone". Sung with a Bee Gee's like falsetto
over some instantly identifiable disco-fied chick-a-chick-a
wah, a phantom cup of coffee sounds like the holly grail.
The album runs through the monotony of the 9-5 life on the
ingenious "Bright Future In Sales" (I had a line on a brand
new account/but I can't seem to find where I wrote that number
down/I try to focus, staring at the screen/pretending I know
what all these little flashing lights mean".) and "Hey Julie".
The
album spins yarns of love lost on "Little Red Light" and "Hackensack"
and an ode to another's mother on "Stacy's Mom", with the
soon to be classic line "Ever since your Dad walked out/Your
Mom could use a man like me". Welcome Interstate Managers
is a flawless exercise in pop song writing, good to the point
of being scary. If two men can write an insanely catchy pop
tune about what goes through a quarterback's head as the clock
winds down, "All Kinds of Time", there is probably little
they can't do.
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