Driving to the valley of POLLS: Fountains of Wayne's UTOPIA PARKWAY (An Adam Schlesinger memorial poll)

I'd argue that only a few of the songs here are less than great, but outside of Tommy Keene's discography, "Troubled Times" is about as beautiful as this brand of wistful guitar pop gets.

i have a soft spot for laser show for describing something i have done and my train station for the venture. leaning to red dragon tattoo tho. stupid youthful over-exuberance exemplified well.

It's all excellent up to and including Amity Gardens

troubled times should be a shut out

Listened to the first two albums again this evening and “Troubled Times” remains my favourite on ‘Utopia Parkway’, as it was when it came out (over 20 years ago...)

Listened to the first two albums again this evening and “Troubled Times” remains my favourite on ‘Utopia Parkway’, as it was when it came out (over 20 years ago...)

"TT" is a CC song, right

I like this album but prefer the one that followed and especially the debut

voted for "A Fine Day for a Parade". their ballads were pretty much uniformly excellent and weirdly gutting.

tbh this band was a bit too sugary sweet for me, but “red dragon tattoo” made me chuckle

It's all excellent up to and including Amity Gardens

― PaulTMA, Thursday, April 2, 2020 5:37

Then you'd be missing out on Prom Theme:

"Here we are at last
We're running out of gas
The air is getting thick
The girls are feeling sick
We'll pass out on the beach
Our keys just out of reach
And soon we'll say goodbye
Then we'll work until we die"

Can somebody clarify who wrote what, cuz I'd feel like a dick voting for a Collingswood song.

From the other FOW thread: Whatever happened to Fountains of Wayne? (c/d?)

Utopia Parkway Adam Schlesinger
Red Dragon Tattoo Chris Collingwood
Denise Adam Schlesinger
Hat and Feet Adam Schlesinger
The Valley of Malls Chris Collingwood
Troubled Times Chris Collingwood
Go, Hippie Chris Collingwood
A Fine Day for a Parade Chris Collingwood
Amity Gardens Chris Collingwood
Laser Show Adam Schlesinger
Lost in Space Adam Schlesinger
Prom Theme Adam Schlesinger
It Must be Summer Adam Schlesinger
The Senator's Daughter Adam Schlesinger

Yeah Collingwood dominates this one, awkwardly for this memorial poll.

Didn’t know how the songwriting duties broke down when I started the poll, but 8/14 tracks here are Adam’s, so this album is actually balanced in favor of his compositions.

Yeah, personally I was referring to quality, not quantity. :/

But I'm down to poll at least the first three LPs and wasn't trying to dis the poll!

No prob, didn’t take it that way.

As I said, I never knew the songwriting breakdown before, but now that I do...yeah, this was kinda Chris’s record.

I mean, I think the whole Collingwood stretch in the middle of the record is its strongest patch--oddly, with the exception of "Go Hippie," which might be my least favourite track on it.

tbh this band was a bit too sugary sweet for me

you may be missing the lemons

I was gonna say...

Here we are at last
We're running out of gas
The air is getting thick
The girls are feeling sick
We'll pass out on the beach
Our keys just out of reach
And soon we'll say goodbye
Then we'll work until we die

I still enjoy Prom Theme but find it much more ridiculous now than 21 years. The Senator's Daughter closes things off nicely, but that stretch after Amity is pretty filler-tastic. Lost In Space I always assumed was a reject from the film adaptation of that series

(The timing seems bad to make such a statement, but across the board it appears I generally prefer Collingwood's songs)

I'm gonna throw a vote to the title song, which blew me away when I first heard it. I was a middle-school nerd who loved the debut and walked all the way to the mall to buy the cd from Sam Goody on release day. It was the best first song on an anticipated new record I had ever heard at that point.

Sentimental fave is "Troubled Times", natch, but Adam still has more of my fave songs: "Hat and Feet"/"Prom Theme"/"Senator's Daughter" (like "Everything's Ruined" earlier) share a low-key gauzy/vibey quality that he didn't really revisit very much later on

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Just now really needed to listen to this guy.

<3

...and this album is perfect