Like traffic and weather

The metacritic score for Fountains of Wayne's Traffic and Weather is up to 70 ("generally favorable"), and the early slams by Pitchfork and Stylus have been offset by enough positive reviews to reveal them for the outliers that they are. So now it's time for my reflections on this album.

I like it. I think it's better than Welcome Innerstate Managers and the first one but not as good as Utopia Parkway. If you like FoW's kind of thing, this album is more of the same. But if you don't like the Fountains, it probably won't change your mind about them. So I won't try to change your mind. But I will filch the negative Pitchfork review.

At this point, it's no secret that Fountains of Wayne are not the world's best lyricists.I could fill this review with forced, awkward, and downright embarrassing lines from Traffic and Weather, but few people are looking to this band for lyrical wit and insight.

Count me among "few people", because lyrical wit and insight are the exact traits that I think separate Adam and Chris from their pop peers. And Schlesinger's lyrics are all top-notch: each song is like a self-contained short story with characters and a plot.

The band seems to be veering increasingly towards stories and "themes" in their songs, and the results can be pretty nightmarish-- it's all forced structure and no payoff, like a joke stripped of its humor.

They aren't "veering increasingly" toward stories and themes, it's what they've always done! Nearly every Fountains of Wayne song is a character study. And it's what makes them more than a joke band. As an example, "Someone To Love", the first single from the new album tells the story of two lonely professional, Seth and Beth. Each verse gives more details from their lives and they seem destined to meet up at the end, but they don't.

Seth Shapiro is trying in vain
To hail a taxi in the morning in the pouring rain
Beth MacKenzie sees one just up ahead
She cuts in front of him and leaves him for dead

If it were a movie, Seth and Beth would share a taxi, fall in love and live happily ever after. But in this song, Beth cuts in front of Seth, takes the taxi herself, and they miss the opportunity to meet up. It makes it heartbreaking in a bizarre way, more like real life than a movie.

Most Fountains of Wayne songs have a similar formula, which is finding a meaning in the mundane details of everyday life: getting a tattoo to impress a girl, being stuck in traffic, waiting for luggage at the baggage claim or a coffee refill at the diner. Crafting poetry and songs from regular experiences isn't that easy, but FoW does it so effortlessly. On to the first sentence in the last paragraph of the Pitchfork review.

We should expect much, much more from pop music than this kind of bullshit.

Who is "we"? Like one of the commenters on the Onion AV Club said, "reading people hating on Fountains of Wayne really damages my calm". I realize that musical taste is subjective, and FoW might not be everyone's cup of mocha, but they're hardly worthy of the hatred they're receiving from some corners. Their kind of bullshit is exactly what I expect from pop music.

I bought tickets to see Fountains of Wayne in a couple of weeks. Even though they had a hit single last time out, they're still playing small venues with reasonable ticket prices like the Great American Music Hall in SF. They don't have a reputation as a great live band, but their sound is ideal for a small place like the GAMH. It should be a great show.