Andrews Rock Blog

I’m thinking that this week I’ll discuss some of the “newer” bands that I’ve been discovering over the last little while. That’s what I’m thinking anyway, but of course the blog is subject to change. 

When I was on my road trip to Chicago, one of the cd’s I brought a long for the trip was the latest album from Fountains of Wayne, “Traffic and Weather”. Fountains of Wayne formed back in 1996, but didn’t make a dent on a massive scale for a few years, though you may be familiar with member Adam Schlesinger, who wrote the Oscar-nominated title song for the Tom Hanks film ”That Thing You Do”. I think most of us had our first real taste of Fountains of Wayne with their huge megahit 2003 ”Stacey’s Mom”, a solid piece of power pop a la The Cars. Interestingly, rather than capitalize on their success, it was 4 years between 2003’s “Welcome Interstate Managers” and 2007’s “Traffic and Weather”, a life time for a band with one hit to their name. Not surprisingly, the new record didn’t really burn up the charts and none of the album’s singles have done well at all.

That’s all quite unfortunate because “Traffic and Weather” is one of the most appealing and catchy albums I’ve heard in a long time. First time through listening to it on our road trip, I caught one of my buddies singing along with the title track, a similar occurence when my wife heard the song for the first time. If you’re a Beatles or Beach Boys or Cars fan (and who isn’t, really) or someone who just likes really catchy rock tunes, you might want to check out Fountains of Wayne. Take a listen to the first single from “Traffic and Weather” titled “Someone To Love”, which features a guest vocal appearance from the lovely and talented Melisa Auf der Maur. Then use Wayne as today’s bonus code.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.