With the COVID-19
pandemic just topping 60,000 people worldwide, it seems trite and unfeeling to
mourn the loss of a single person. But
the human mind, especially trapped in isolation, can’t really compute the loss of tens of thousands
properly. But when a person whose art has affected you,
however distantly, perishes from this awful thing, the pangs of remorse assume
a different quality. I suppose it’s a way
of attaching something, anything with personal meaning to this fucking tragedy, at least until that future, heart-wrenching moment comes when someone you directly
know and love falls victim.
 |
| Adam Schlesinger, 1967-2020 |
Named after a
New Jersey garden fountain business (which also made a cameo in the Sopranos episode
“Another Toothpick”), Fountains of Wayne were cut from the same upbeat, anodyne
cloth of Weezer, The Lemonheads, and Sloan.
They did receive some mainstream attention and success with 2003’s
Grammy nominated Welcome Interstate Managers, but otherwise they toiled
under the radar. Schlesinger himself, over time, turned into a pretty
versatile artist, scoring films and theatre productions, producing a pile of
records, and putting out music in post-FoW
bands such as Tinted Windows (with Jame Iha of Smashing Pumpkins), Ivy, and the
synth-poppy Fever High. Just prior to his
death, a musical with Sarah Silverman (based on her book, The Bedwetter)
was set to debut this coming June.
Amongst this
impressive body of work, I personally think Schlesinger’s greatest achievement (shared equally with Collingwood)
is the chorus for “Radiation Vibe”, #205 on my all-time Top 500 favorite songs,
and the lead off track from the band’s 1996 self-titled debut. If anyone were to ask me what my favorite
all-time chorus in a pop song is, it would be this one.
Lyrically, it’s banal as they come:
And now it’s time to say what I forgot
to say
Baby, baby, baby, c’mon what’s wrong?
It’s a radiation vibe I’m grooving
on
Don’t you want to get some sun?
Shine on, shine on, shine on
But, power pop being what it is, lyrical depth is unnecessary if you got the hooks. And this chorus is the most impossibly hooky, wonderfully harmonized chorus I’ve ever laid my ears on. The whole song is great, of course, a wry tune about (possibly) unrequited love for a girl who is inexplicably with some meathead. The opening riff grabs you immediately, moving through a basic blues progression, setting the stage for the sun-drenched chorus. As far basic pop-rock singles go, this is tough to beat. And it leads off an album which I consider a sort of lost power-pop classic. Every song is a treat.
RIP Adam
Schlesinger, with gratitude.
