Fountains of Wayne

Fountains of Wayne is a store on route 46 in Passaic County, New Jersey, in the town of Wayne, near the obnoxious interchange of routes 23, 46, and 80. It sells fountains, obviously, and also lawn statuary, benches, gazebos and related items.

Oh yeah, it's also some sort of rock band.

I love Fountains of Wayne. Their music is incredibly fun, lighthearted pop most of the time, but then it can turn around and practically make me cry (though you can't always tell that their sad songs are sad unless you really pay attention to the lyrics, and maybe ignore the music, especially in that uber-catchy tale of heartbreak, Leave The Biker).

They've released three full-length albums, 1996's self-titled album, 1999's Utopia Parkway, and 2003's Welcome Interstate Managers, which spawned the neat but annoyingly ubiquitous hit, "Stacy's Mom". They've also released a ton of b-sides and other non-album tracks, almost approaching the number of album tracks they've released.

On their self-titled album, the band is simply listed as Chris Collingwood, Adam Schlesinger, Jody Porter, and Brian Young, without any mention of what they play. Danny Weinkauf and Dominique Durand are not members of the band, but are just there for that album, the former playing bass and the latter contributing backing vocals to Survival Car.

On Utopia Parkway, the band members are listed as follows:
Chris Collingwood: lead vocals, guitar, keyboards
Adam Schlesinger: vocals, bass, guitar, keyboards
Jody Porter: guitar, vocals
Brian Young: drums, percussion

There were a few other musicians appearing on the album, but that would be best covered in that album's node.

Here's the track listing for their self-titled album:

1. Radiation Vibe
2. Sink To The Bottom
3. Joe Rey
4. She's Got A Problem
5. Survival Car
6. Barbara H.
7. Sick Day
8. I've Got A Flair
9. Leave The Biker
10. You Curse At Girls
11. Please Don't Rock Me Tonight
12. Everything's Ruined

Here's an overview of the tracks on all their singles, and where they've released other songs. The singles are in chronological order as far as I know, but the other releases are stuck at the end.

Radiation Vibe single

1. Radiation Vibe
2. Karpet King
3. Janice's Party
4. Imperia

Sink To The Bottom single

1. Sink To The Bottom
2. Can't Get It Out Of My Head
3. Kid Gloves

Survival Car single

1. Survival Car
2. Comedienne
3. I Want You Around

Barbara H single

1. Barbara H
2. She's Got A Problem (live)
3. Places

Denise single

1. Denise
2. I'll Do The Driving¹
3. I Know You Well

Red Dragon Tattoo single

1. Red Dragon Tattoo
2. Today's Teardrops
3. Nightlight

Troubled Times single

1. Troubled Times (remix)
2. Troubled Times (radio edit)²
3. You're Just Never Satisfied
4. These Days

Alien For Christmas single

1. I Want An Alien For Christmas
2. Hannukah Under The Stars
3. Man In The Santa Suit

Also, Fountains of Wayne released "Half A Woman" on the Launch CD, issue 12. They contributed "Too Cool For School" to the Scary Movie soundtrack, and "California Sex Lawyer" to the "International Pop Overthrow Vol. 6" compilation.

Adam Schlesinger wrote the titular song for the film That Thing You Do, and his demo vocals for the song may have been used as backing vocals on the final version.

Fountains of Wayne did a cover of Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time", which was never to be released - the band wanted to release it as a b-side (reportedly on the Denise or Red Dragon Tattoo single), but Atlantic Records would only release it if it was given top billing. Fountains of Wayne didn't want to be forever known as "that wacky band that covered that Britney Spears song", so they opted not to release the cover at all. Of course, it got out (possibly first being played on the Howard Stern show), but it probably will never see official release.

Bootleg recordings can be found of a few unreleased Fountains of Wayne songs that are currently part of their live set; these include "Bowling Shoes", "Hackensack", "Mexican Wine", and "Sasquatch", and possibly others. I personally haven't heard any of these, but would be interested if anyone could point me to MP3 copies on a website or some such...

Footnotes:
1- Reportedly, there is a different mix of I'll Do The Driving on the German version of the Denise single.
2- The only actual edit in the radio version of Troubled Times is the omission of one word in the line "All the shit you put her through".

Extra super special thanks to http://website.lineone.net/~delstuff/fow_fr.htm for enlightening me with a lot of the information used here. It was an invaluable resource.