Customer Reviews

Utopia Parkway

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Naming your sophomore album after a road in Queens, NY that goes pretty much nowhere hardly bodes well, and it's not surprising the radio stations and general record buying public stayed well clear of this album. I mean, why would anyone be interested in a collection of songs that were funny, witty, tuneful, melodic, bittersweet and catchy as SARS. The fact that they're also AM radio-tastic, full of hooks and generally under 3 minutes long too must also have been a huge turn off. 1999 was, remember, the year that Limp Bizkit released "Significant other" and Kid Rock's "Devil without a cause" was taking over the airwaves. This record was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fast forward to 2003 - Fred Durst can't even get a date with Britney Spears and the Fountains of Wayne are making their own, belated attempt at airwave domination. So hopefully more people will see the cheerful little blue cover of "Utopia Parkway" and be encourage to take out the shiny little cd, pop it into their player and hit <play>. And they will not be disappointed.
"Utopia Parkway" is proof that FOW are brilliant and indeed have always been brilliant - it's just the rest of the world that was wrong all along. Musically it's a bit less rock-y than the debut, and a touch more rock-y than "Welcome Interstate Managers", but that's as maybe. The songwriting, musicianship and ability are just as good, and the album sounds as great on first listen as it does on 3 millionth. The songs, as usual, revolve around character that live and work in the New York metro area and mostly hate it, but the deftness and depth of these characterizations is what sticks in the mind here, funny without being cruel, sympathetic without being mushy, the songs could only be written from experience, from the heart of someone who knows the subject matter intimately.
My second and third songs on the album, if forced to choose are "Denise" and "It must be summer". Beautifully funny, catchy tunes about chasing girls and living life with the top down and the pedal to the metal ("I know this girl named Denise - she makes me weak at the knees").
The best song on the album, however, and the best song they've written, and the best song that anybody ever has written is "Troubled Times". A tender ballad to true love, this song alone is worth buying this album for a million times, and giving copies to all your friends, your friends' friends and all the world leaders with hearts of stone. This'll bring world peace in 3 minutes 36 seconds.
The Fountains Of Wayne have always been brilliant. You now have to pay for your years of neglecting them.

Okay, I'd first like to say that Utopia Parkway is MUCH different than Fountains Of Wayne's self titled debut. On the other hand, there are more than a handful of similarities.

First of all, don't buy this expecting a bunch of two and a half minute power pop romps. There are a quite a few, but the lovely, wise mouth ballads share the same amount of time with them. "Prom Theme" comes close to being seriously sad (well, until you read the lyrics a few times over). "Fine Day For A Parade" reminds me of "She's Got A Problem" from their first record, except that "Parade" is a bit more meloncoly.

But that's where the differences end. "Denise," "Laser Show," and "Lost In Space" are great power pop anthems. They have the same bombast as the majority of the tunes from the first record. "Red Dragon Tattoo" has got to be one of the most catchy, sarcastic songs I have ever heard.

Whether you want to hear it or not, this is REAL pop rock. This winner is a sure-fire top ten "Best Albums" entry....the question is, why don't you have it yet?

I don't buy many new albums anymore. Back in the old days -- the mid-'80s -- albums would be $5.98 or $6.98 and you wouldn't feel so bad about spending it on new music, because if you got two great songs and three good songs out of an LP of 12 tunes, you figured it was okay. But with CDs costing $12, $13, sometimes $16, there's no way I'm gonna pay those bucks unless I know the record is something I'll still be listening to two or three (or, maybe, 10) years from now.

I first heard of Fountains of Wayne when their first record made a lot of critics' top tens in 1996, with accompanying enthusiastic reviews for their power pop. Hmm, I thought, I ought to check this out -- and I wasn't disappointed. Between "Radiation Vibe," "Leave the Biker," and especially "Sick Day," the album ranked highly among my recent collection. I looked forward to the second album, even as I wondered if the group was a one-shot, since both Schlesinger and Collingwood had side projects going.

Finally, there it was: Utopia Parkway. Clever title, I thought, named as it was for one of the most ill-named streets in the country, a standard chunk of New York City concrete and asphalt. But what was it going to be LIKE? The Amazon.com and other reviews seemed mixed.

Well, I'm not mixed. I like it more each time I play it. The occasionally angry and sludgy guitars of the first CD have been toned down, replaced by tuneful arrangements and more confidence. The guys KNOW they have good songs, and they do them just right. I don't know if there's a bum track on the whole thing. (Well, maybe "Go, Hippie.")

It's a fine line to walk. Some of the songs -- "Red Dragon Tattoo" and "Prom Theme" -- get pretty close to the line of being mocking, almost-novelty numbers. But there's a humaneness in Fountains of Wayne, a bit of truth that offers balance, and makes the songs something more than hummable and catchy -- though they're that, too.

If you like pop music, buy it. If you like well-written songs, buy it. If you're waiting for something, anything, other than the Third Eye Dishwalla Eve's Hazel of current radio, buy it. One can only hope there's more stuff like this out there.

The Beach Boys seem to come up quite a bit in reviews of Fountains of Wayne. The comparison makes sense, since both bands have the obvious ability to write perfectly-crafted pop songs.

However, where the Beach Boys songs were filled with the sun and sand of Southern california, FOW's melodies and lyrics focus on the asphalt and tiny lawns of east-coast suburbia. Summers on the Jersey shore, Coney Island tattoo parlors, bridge-and-tunnel Manhattan commuters, and suburban soccer moms with minivans... these are the stuff Foutains of Wayne's great songs are made of.

Utopia Parkway is, in my opinion, an even better CD than their self-titled debut. The songs on Utopia Parkway might not be as instantly catchy as "Survival Car", "Radiation Vibe", or "Leave the Biker" from the 1st album. But songs like "Senator's Daughter", "Valley of Malls", and the title track get better with every listen. And "Troubled Times" is just about as sweet and as beautiful a song as you'll ever hear.

Fountains Of Wayne have produced several underappreciated gems--"Denise," "Stacy's Mom," "Sink to the Bottom"--but the one I could forget only with years of intensive electro-shock therapy is "Troubled Times," a candied little ballad on the "Utopia Parkway" album. "Troubled Times" features one of the most Ebola-like melodies EVER. One, at the most two, exposures to it and you're done. The thing will stick to your cerebral cortex faster than your girlfriend's phone number.

But it's not like the words in the song are irrelevant. It's just that they fit the melody in a way that just seems right, like an olive in a martini. The song has to do with the inarticulate passions of love and the heart-quickening secrets of desire that can never quite be expressed right:

"Maybe one day soon/
It'll all come out/
How you dream about each other sometimes..."

It's a feeling almost emblematic of youth, the almost unbearable roller-coaster combination of two intoxicating emotions: your desire for someone and the agonizing realization that maybe, just maybe, they might desire you back. Yet none of this would matter a whole lot without that melody, which does to the lyrics what a French chef can do to a couple of eggs.

We've all been victimized by melodies so sickly sweet and juvenile, we can't escape their echoes (I won't mention "The Brady Bunch" theme song ... Doh, shouldn't have done that). The answer to such a scourge isn't no melodies. Find Fountains of Wayne, and you'll see the answer is more melodies. This album is a MUST-HAVE, if only for "Troubled Times," probably the best song ever produced.

Fountains of Wayne are definitely independent thinkers. Life in a cover band, impressing girls with tattoos, going to the laser show, the most depressing prom theme imaginable ...these are not your average topics for any band. But not only do fountains of Wayne approach things in a different way, but they do it with melodies you can actually hum. This is a talented, intelligent band that will probably be stuck with that "critic's darling" label forever, ("Stacy's Mom" Not withstanding...and not on this CD!) but they deserve greater success. Sure there are a few misfires, like the repetitive "Hat and Feet," and the dated lyrics of "Go Hippie." But overall, you'll find yourself well-rewarded by this band's work.

As Rock continues to degenerate into noise and the hyper-commercial glorification of the talentless and the near talentless, Fountains of Wayne and Matthew Sweet stand as shining beacon examples of what Rock once was and what it could still be if all musicians 1) wrote catchy tunes, 2) learned to play their instruments and 3) learned to sing together in harmony and 4) perfected their tunes before releasing them. And if record companies didn't release CD's they these standards.

FOW's Utopia Parkway is a craft music. This is music that sounds pleasant and catchy when you first hear it, and like good Cabernet gets better with time! Humable tunes that get stuck in your head so you can hear them from your memory. Like the Beatles.

The music has a timeless quality, yes it ALMOST could have been written by Brain Wilson and the Beach Boys at the height of their talent, but there's more depth here. Tunes are often on many levels at once. Utopia Parkway is superficially first person songs of joys and sorrows of teen suburban life, but they occationally seem to be viewed tongue-in-cheek from the perspective of someone older and wiser. From the endless strip malls of "Utopia Parkway", and the kid getting the "Red Dragon Tatoo" in hopes of pleasing his girlfriend, to the sadness of the guy who can no longer date the "Senators Daughter", not a bad cut on the album.

Get it! You won't be sorry. The Lost Art of Rock and Roll! In fifty years when people are scatching their heads puzzling over music in this period, this CD will be on the Classic Rock station.

This is clearly the best Rock album to come out in 1999.

If there's a band out in the world with the talent to make hits that reach the Top 40 but somehow don't, it's Fountains of Wayne. Easily identified by their sing-along choruses and catchy melodies, FOW is probably the most underrated band I've listened to. Their 2nd release, Utopia Parkway, re-establishes them as rock's top underdogs--but is not quite as utterly amazing as the self-titled release. It is, however, a very good CD. The song "Troubled Times" is worthy of the Billboard Top 10 while "Red Dragon Tattoo" seems as if it belongs on their first release (that's how good it is! ). "Prom Theme" almost brought tears to my eyes, as it made me think long and hard about the paths we must take in life after high school. And the chorus from "Amity Gardens" is something I won't be able to shake from my head any time soon! To tell the truth, much of this music sounds like it came straight from the 60's and 70's; and if the band existed at that time, it's likely their songs would be staples on the Billboard charts. An impressive 2nd effort to follow up a hard-to-surpass debut.

Utopia Parkway shimmers with the accomplished song writing that Fountains Of Wayne are famous for. With a Beatles meets Weezer sense of harmony and melody and lyrics with the kind of sense of humour and play on words purveyed by the likes of Ween and They Might Be Giants. There are serious ditties too but the majority is straight up fun. It is up beat, immediate and catchy and if that is the way you like your pop then buy this album. If you like things a bit more experimental or gritty this is not for you.

There are some excellent songs on here, but there are also a few things that I cannot make myself listen to. The first 4 songs are really good, but most of the rest of it isn't quite to my liking. There are too many songs that sound a bit much like Oasis or some adult alternative mix station band and not enough rocking new wavey songs about falling in love with a travel agent named Denise who owns a lavender lexus and listens to Puff Daddy or wanting to look like "that guy from KoRn". Not to say that I didn't like any of the slow songs, I liked "hat and feet" and "senator's daughter" a lot, it's just that a lot of them happened to sound just a bit too much like a new Vertical Horizon single or whatever. Nevertheless, there are some terrific pop songs on here, enough so to make me consider backtracking and getting the first album, which from what I hear seems to be more in the vein of what I was looking for.