Albums Of The Year: 2.
Sky Full Of Holes- Fountains Of Wayne.
“At fifteen shoplifting was the only game she liked to play. At forty she’s so bored she thinks about it… then decides to pay.”
I am 21 years old. That’s still pretty young in the grand scheme of the world I think. But despite my boyish charm and deep rooted love of toy shops, I am all about middle-aged ennui. The Paul Rudd/Leslie Mann relationship in ‘Knocked Up’? That’s my jam. Prostate jokes? That’s my jam. The music of Michael Bublé? TOTALLY my jam! So this album with all its tales of middle aged disappointment, quiet sighs and small defeats is right up my alley. …It’s a sad alley full of people who can afford to shop at Marks & Spencer weekly but are no happier for it because they’re balding and teenagers seems scary and weird to them.
Fountains Of Wayne are workman like. Their band is their job and there’s not a lot of anguished ‘Oh, being in a band is so hard. I am an artiste!’ complaining from them it seems. Like, they’re the dudes who released ‘Stacey’s Mom’ and were rocketed to fame due to its success and that would send weaker people to be like, “Ugh, I am a clown.” Not Fountains Of Wayne, they just kept going writing catchy power-pop regardless of who was or wasn’t now listening to them. And here we are like, nine years after the success of that song and they’re still going and being awesome.
When some bands hit a certain age there is a temptation to do weird things, some try to prove their maturity and timeless appeal by releasing a Rat Pack cover album or to prove how young and current they are, some release an album that sounds like Avril Lavigne. Y’know what Fountains Of Wayne did!? Wrote songs about being middle aged! And they are the. bomb.
A lot of them are little character sketches like a bored housewife’s summer vacation (‘The Summer Place’), a dad facing the realities of getting older (‘Action Hero’) or two screw-ups whose calamities are getting less endearing as they get older (‘Richie and Reuben’). As mundane as these sound, as songwriters Fountains of Wayne excel at making the little details of life pop in their songs. In terms of content they’re more peers with Jonathan Franzen than Ke$ha. Sound wise they’re poptastic to the end. They’re pros at what they do at this point and while that can lead to it not being the most exciting album in the world ever, it’s just a very well made, comforting one. I cannot recommend it enough.
Standout Tracks: The Summer Place, Richie And Reuben, Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart, A Road Song, Radio Bar, Hate To See You Like This, Cemetery Guns.
