Everybody starts somewhere; New Jersey geek-rock poet laureates Fountains Of Wayne started here.<\/p>\n
Looser, greasier and occasionally heavier than the albums that would follow, the band\u2019s 1996 self-titled debut has a bit of an awkward adolescent vibe to it when compared directly with their later, more polished work, but the essence of the band\u2019s persona\u2014the wry humor, the expert lyrical and melodic hooks, the multi-part harmonies and snarky asides\u2014is all there; it\u2019s just raw sugar as opposed to refined.\u00a0 And while the Chris Collingwood-Adam Schlesinger songwriting partnership (and the complementary playing of bandmates Brian Davis and Jody Porter) would continue to grow, the group\u2019s gift for sharp songcraft and zesty musicianship is already apparent here.<\/p>\n
The narratives of tunes like \u201cRadiation Vibe\u201d and \u201cSink To The Bottom\u201d don\u2019t feel fully realized, but the grooves are sweet and the sharp edges to the band\u2019s power-pop sound are there, just fuzzed out a bit by the looser approach taken here.\u00a0 Early highlight \u201cShe\u2019s Got A Problem\u201d delivers a virtual topic sentence for not just this album, but Fountains Of Wayne\u2019s entire songbook, in perfect deadpan: \u201cShe\u2019s got a problem \/ And she\u2019s gonna do something dumb.\u201d \u00a0That\u2019s what characters in FOW songs do, more often than not; something like half their songs are about confused and\/or immature people making bad choices, and what happens next. <\/p>\n
Tracks like \u201cJoe Rey,\u201d \u201cSurvival Car\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ve Got A Flair\u201d have a playful core, full of thrashy, crashy drums and crunchy guitars, even if the lyrics sometimes feel underdeveloped compared to the laser precision of later compositions. It\u2019s with tunes like the languid, dreamy \u201cSick Day\u201d and the spot-on semi-classic \u201cLeave The Biker\u201d that you can feel the band hitting its stride; here the lyrics nail their mark and the arrangements complement them perfectly.<\/p>\n
The closing trio of \u201cYou Curse At Girls,\u201d \u201cPlease Don\u2019t Rock Me Tonight\u201d and \u201cEverything\u2019s Ruined\u201d are little more than sketches\u2014pleasant and clever enough, they just feel somewhat unfinished when you compare them to the sort of masterful lyrics and arrangements the band would grow into.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s interesting about perspective, though. The shortcomings of Fountains Of Wayne<\/i> seem clear in retrospect, looking back from the wake of remarkable albums like Welcome Interstate Managers<\/i> and Traffic And Weather<\/i>\u2014but in the context of grunge-hangover, alt-rock-heavy 1996, this album must have felt remarkably fresh with its quirky character sketches and gleeful power-pop arrangements. The album\u2019s back cover photo of a depressed hipster girl stuck in a cubicle nailed an enduring theme of the band\u2019s work and set them up as spokespeople for the oppressed gen-x worker drone.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Ben Folds called his early-demos release Naked Baby Photos<\/i>; you could subtitle this debut Cute Toddler Snaps<\/i>.\u00a0 They\u2019d get better and better over the years, but Fountains Of Wayne<\/i> was still an appealing starting point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6919],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-42662","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fountains-of-wayne","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42662"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42662"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}