New Tunes: Fountains of Wayne, Traffic & Weather

Another round of power pop comfort food from Fountains of Wayne, with more tunes that pretty much grab you on the first listen (or, in the case of the handful of filler tracks, never really catch on) -- while some artists produce pop-ish tunes that take a few listens to sink in (i.e. Flaming Lips, Wilco, Pernice Brothers), FoW are all about the immediacy. Hooks front and center, new wave keyboard riffs, ridiculously clever lyrics. Not surprisingly, Traffic & Weather falls just a tad short of its predecessor, Welcome Interstate Managers, though that album's high quotient of memorable tunes and solid songwriting set the bar pretty high. Lead-off single "Someone To Love" kicks things off on the right track, another classic FoW ditty about lonely NYC singles, which seems like it's gonna be another cliched 2:30 boy-meets-girl serendipity thing, until she grabs his cab and they never actually meet. (I can't tell you how many reviewers lazily call this a "Stacy's Mom" rip-off, which it's not, unless you simply mean they drink from the same well of cutesy lyrics, new wave synths, and catchy hooks -- if anything, the chirpy female backing vox in the chorus are more reminiscent of the Rentals' "Friends of P" [one of the most wonderful songs ever, by the way], which I guess provides some common ground insofar as "Stacy's Mom" ripped off a Cars riff and "Friends of P" was produced by Ric Ocasek.)

Anyway, the album follows pretty much the same blueprint as the three before it (though sticking with the professional production sheen of the past two and not the lo-fi indie rock aesthetic that helped make the debut so fresh). Closely-observed character studies of local figures (the girl at the DMV window, the old men eating bagels at the diner) and moments in time (waiting for the luggage at the baggage claim, spotting your girlfriend with some nerd in Dockers) are their stock in trade; no sweeping pronouncements about love and heartbreak, just the little daily ordeals. And, as usual, the upbeat pop-rockers tend to stand out more than the slower, Paul Simon-ish ballads. If I have any complaint, it's that the keyboards previously used to tweak the occasional track now seem to be everywhere, making what was once an ironic bit of kitsch more dominant (and intermittently irritating). Still, it's a fun, thoughtful album, and a fine addition to their growing catalog of joyous (but melancholy) power pop.

New Mixes

Updated my online collection of home-made cdr mixes. The most recent mix is a collection of synth-based rock, as seen above. This one's cross-faded for maximum effect. Not the sort of thing I listen to all that often, but it worked pretty well. I've been listening a bit to that Postal Service album (2003's Give Up), with Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard on vocals. Probably not something I'd typically choose, and some of the electronica beats are a bit scratchy and harsh for my taste, but the lyrics/vocals are top notch, and the melodies, when they do creep in, are surprisingly effective. And, for some reason, I've been into Kraftwork lately. Again, in small doses.

Also made a few new single-artist mixes, visiting some of the nether regions of my collection. Joe Jackson has never been at the top of my list, but his debut, 1979's Look Sharp, remains one of the greatest documents of new wave/punk-inspired pop, right alongside Elvis Costello's debut, and it holds up remarkably well nearly 20 years later. Never loved any of his later albums nearly as much, and his more mature, jazz-based later work was a lot less meaningful to me than, say, Elvis' comparable developments. Still, makes for a decent career overview, albeit a particularly limited one, as I lean pretty heavily on his first two albums with only a few selected later tracks. Also tossed together an Aimee Mann mix. Not necessarily one of my faves -- when it comes to female singer-songwriters, she's further down the list than my true loves (i.e. Amy Rigby, Barbara Manning, Mary Lou Lord, early Liz Phair, etc.) -- and much of her work is far too straightforward folk-pop, lacking in edge (at least musically). But some of her lyrics are biting and incisive, and she does have a unique vocal sound. Plus, her work on the Magnolia movie soundtrack is top-notch.

Updating The Top 50...

I spent some time this week (finally) updating the Top 50 (or 75-ish) album list on the Pop Kulcher website. I hadn't exactly abandoned the damn thing, but I set it up when I was first introduced to the web just over a decade ago and, aside from a few periodic changes since then, have pretty much left it there for the occasional reader who inadvertently bumps into it. Still, I don't want it to become one of those embarrassing relics you stumble across while haphazardly surfing, full of amateurish design choices and dead links, so I do try to take a look at it every year or so. I've gotten about 2/3 of the way through it so far, updating a few things:

1. Making a unified color scheme for the whole list, rather than changing colors every 15 albums, which seemed cute at first but now looks kinda fugly;
2. Increasing the size of the album cover scans (as graphic size is less of an issue in the era of broadband than it was when I first set up the site and we were all dialing up AOL);
3. Deleting dead links (and geez there are a lot; very sad when you think about it -- got me to reminiscing about the web of 2006, when everybody on the planet was rushing to build a website dedicated to his/her favorite band; where has everybody gone?); and
4. Making sure the links to audio samples on Amazon.com work, except for out-of-print albums with no online samples (which, alas, made me realize how many of these great albums are out of print. I mean, really, the Reivers' debut, Translate Slowly? There is simply no reason on God's green earth for that to be selling for $60 on eBay rather than for $13 on Amazon.com. Oh, well, what can you do?)

When I get through this, I do plan to make some substantive changes to the list, for the two or three of you still around. Move some stuff around to reflect my current listening patterns (which, sad to say, seem to be evolving towards mellower fare, with some of the harder-edge stuff taking a back seat to classic rock faves -- yeah, ever since I hit 40 last summer, it's been all downhill). Also swapping out some selections (i.e. while I used to prefer Matthew Sweet's fine, poppy 100% Fun, I'm spending more time with the more respected Girlfriend -- which is actually a bit edgier, so take that prior comment with a grain of salt).

Plus, I do have a handful of additioanl albums I'll be adding. Yes, Television's Marquee Moon finally gets its due -- while I've long thought of it as more of a critical pick than something I care to listen to very often, I do find myself enjoying it more and more over time. Plus Amy Rigby's Diary of a Mod Housewife, the best album I've bought in a long time (albeit one that took me about 10 years to get around to discovering), and the rare album that had me rushing out to buy an artist's entire back catalogue. That Amy, she's the bee's knees, no doubt about it. Also planned: some Uncle Tupelo, Judee Sill, and more. Probably still no Led Zeppelin, so the idiots out there who periodically flame me for my taste will just have to keep flaming away.

Project Playlist

A few songs that showed up today on my iPod's shuffle play mode, thought I'd try sharing. [NOTE: Can't get the damn thing to show up properly... BUT if you select "Launch Standalone Player" below, you'll get the playlist in a separate browser window and it should work fine.]