Utopia Parkway Is A Great Ride 

Tony Peyser

Mirror contributing writer

   There’s nothing more annoying in a movie than somebody badly singing a stupid song and the on-screen crowd reacting like they’re at Shea Stadium hearing The Beatles. A few years ago, a movie came out which was built around the idea that a group was a one-hit wonder thirty years ago. I was skeptical that the song in the movie would really sound like it could’ve gone all the way to #1. However, the title tune for “That Thing You Do!” was an astonishingly potent piece of power pop that would have put any group on top of the charts with its bouncy beat and infectious harmonies. The song was played a lot in the movie but I never got tired of it. It was written by Adam Schlesinger and got him an Academy Award nomination. 
   Schlesinger will be called many things in his life but “one-hit wonder” won’t be one of them. He and songwriting partner Chris Collingwood are the brain trust behind Fountains Of Wayne whose “Utopia Parkway” (their second album) was my favorite album from last year. They do for New Jersey and Long Island in the 1990’s what The Beach Boys did for Southern California in the 1960’s. The title song opens with this verse: “Well I’ve been saving for a custom van/And I’ve been playing in a cover band/ And my baby doesn’t understand/Why I never turned from boy to man.” You instantly know who’s singing, what he wants, what he’s doing to get it and problems his dreams are causing with his girlfriend. Not bad for just four lines. “Red Dragon Tattoo” is about a guy trying to impress a girl by having something emblazoned on his arm: “In you I confide/Red Dragon tattoo/I’m fit to be dyed/Am I fit to have you.” Other songs cover youthful terrain like school field trips, having crushes, summer days, break-ups, hitting the mall and going to the prom. Each song is short, cleverly written, occasionally melancholy and wonderfully produced. 
   They’re also sung with up tempo bravado but without any whining and preening. Fountains Of Wayne can do more with one three-minute tune than most bands these days can on their first three albums. “Utopia Parkway” --- CDNow has for it just $11.88 and Amazon for $12.99 --- reminds us all that pop music, from the get-go, was supposed to be fun. On the Counting Crows debut album several years ago, whining and preening lead singer Adam Duritz declared, “I want to be Bob Dylan.” If Fountains Of Wayne have the career they deserve, we’ll hear some young singer years from now proclaiming, “I want to be Adam Schlesinger.”