Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

Welcome Interstate Managers

Certain Songs #467: Fountains of Wayne – “Little Red Light”

by

Fountains of Wayne Welcome Album: Welcome Interstate Managers
Year: 2003

If my favorite Replacements song is ostensibly about an existential crisis surrounding whether or not to leave a heartfelt message on a now-outdated piece of technology, then my favorite Fountains of Wayne song is the flip side of the dilemma Paul Westerberg spelled out in “Answering Machine.”

In “Little Red Light,” Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collinwood describe an existential crisis surrounding not receiving a heartfelt message on a whole slew of now-outdated pieces of technology!

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #467: Fountains of Wayne – “Little Red Light”

Certain Songs #466: Fountains of Wayne – “No Better Place”

by

Fountains of Wayne Welcome Album: Welcome Interstate Managers
Year: 2003

Here is the list of songs from Welcome Interstate Managers that I almost wrote about: “Bright Future in Sales,” “All Kinds of Time,” “Bought For a Song,” “Supercollider,” and of course the actual hit single, “Stacey’s Mom,” which rode a brilliant Cars rip and a problematic MILF-tastic video to just outside the top 20.

But it always seems like doing that many songs an album is excess, except when it doesn’t. None of which has anything to do with today’s song, “No Better Place.”

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #466: Fountains of Wayne – “No Better Place”

Certain Songs #465: Fountains of Wayne – “Mexican Wine”

by

Fountains of Wayne Welcome Album: Welcome Interstate Managers
Year: 2003

After 1999’s Utopia Parkway, which seemed to be a step back from their debut (though it did feature a song I almost wrote about, the gorgeous “Amity Gardens”), Fountains of Wayne came roaring back in 2003 with the album I consider to their masterpiece, Welcome Interstate Managers.

In my original review of Welcome Interstate Managers for Neumu, I predicted it would “go down as a guitar-pop classic, smack dab in the midst of the pantheon with any Big Star, dBs, Posies, etc. record you might want to name.”

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #465: Fountains of Wayne – “Mexican Wine”