Image from an RCA magazine advertisement, 1961
Sometimes a veteran band puts out a new album and, even though I don't really have any interest in that album, it reminds me that I need to pick up something from the band's back catalog. This is how I ended up grabbing Fountains of Wayne a couple weeks ago - having missed the hype around the band's 1996 debut, I was curious about how it would sound fifteen years later. I've long assumed that "Radiation Vibe" (the track I was most familiar with) was the clear standout on the album, but my special lady friend was not familiar with that one even though she knew "Sink to the Bottom" and "Leave the Biker".
Hearing the album all the way through, the thing that surprises me about the pop songs on Fountains of Wayne is how many of them are built on drone-y loops. The melodies and vocals on the album are straight out of the Records' playbook, but there's something interesting and not really power-pop going on with the layered guitars on these songs. "Radiation Vibe" starts with an oscillating one-chord riff that plays throughout the whole song. A similar hollow, reverb-laden riff provides the foundation of "She's Got a Problem", and you get the same effect from the four-note keyboard riff on "I've Got a Flair" (two of my new favorites on the album). I don't remember much of this kind of thing on the second Fountains of Wayne album, Utopia Parkway (which I've owned for years) - I should probably go back and listen to that one with fresh ears.
"She's Got a Problem" by Fountains of Wayne
1 comments:
I don't see the player. Been a few days. Anything wrong?
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