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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | DanAbnrml9@aol.com |
| Subject | New FOW |
| Date | Wed, 18 Jun 2003 23:34:34 EDT |
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In a message dated 6/18/03 3:01:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
> The problem with the CD (I think someone mentioned this too) is the energy
> drops off quickly midway through the CD. The CD could have used better
> sequencing (it sounds like they crammed all the fast songs up front to get
> radio attention) and a few more upbeat songs.
I think it certainly is a grower, but speaking as a HUGE fan (they're tied
for my favorite band, along with Blur) I'm not really disappointed at all. Did I
like "Utopia Parkway" better? Yes, but that is my
_very_favorite_record_ever_, so I realized years ago that they may never top that one, at least not for
me. But with each listen, I find that a new song leaps out at me--ones that I
dismissed at first, like "Hailey's Waitress" and "Fire Island" seem stronger,
for example--and I find that I'm dissecting each song and getting into the
characters' heads. Yes, the flow is a tad off, mostly in the middle (The first
four and last four songs flow perfectly, IMHO) but that's a small complaint. This
will still likely be my favorite album this year.
A friend commented that there seems to be a lot less irony this time, which I
think is sort of true--someone who didn't hear "Go Hippie", for example,
might not even realize that they're making fun of hippies on "Peace and Love". In
general the songs are slightly more genuine, even if occasionally more jokey,
and almost all deal with a general theme of characters who are unable to
achieve their goals/dreams or even really meet their own personal expectations.
None of the characters are really "getting anywhere"; at most they're talking
about where they're planning on going ("Bright Future in Sales", "Peace and
Love"), but are always focused on some abstract "future". The most positive songs
are the ambiguous ones: "All Kinds of Time" is lyrically optomistic but
musically a little muddy--is he going to make this pass, is he going to be successful
or become some Al Bundy-ish character working at the mall? Or how about
"Mexican Wine", where uber-cynical verses give way to an unflinchingly positive
chorus?
See, I love Fountains of Wayne precisely because they write lyrics that allow
us to have this type of discussion. And that's part of why I think "Welcome
Interstate Managers" is an unqualified success, and anything but dumb, silly,
lightweight, or a failure.
--Jason
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