Band: Fountains of Wayne
Album: Utopia Parkway
Released: April 1999
Favourite Track: Denise
Favourite Lyric: “Will you stop pretending I’ve never been born now I look a little more like that guy from KorN”
This is a great pop album with amusing witty lyrics. That is why it is on this list. When you’re a teenager who just listens to rock music with simple and/or depressing lyrics, finding something like this can be a game changer.
Most people will just know the band from Stacy’s Mom which got them their 5 minutes of face but (and this isn’t just long-term fan elitism) it is probably one of their worst songs.
This album is a concept album about life in suburbia and feels very cohesive for this fact.
I only saw the band once but they were great fun and one of my abiding memories of the show is that they explained that the song Hat and Feet which had previously been quite confusing was about a piano falling on a cartoon character, with all you can see being their hat and feet.
Bassist Adam Schlesinger sadly died recently due to COVID-19 and it wasn’t until he did that I realised how much he had done outside of the band including vast amounts of song writing for other artists and films including That Thing You Do and Josie and the Pussycats.