Death is DUMB Volume 1: Fountains of Wayne - Power Pop BLISS | MUSIC is not a GENRE - Season 3 Episode #13
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Loss is a constant. Loved ones. A job. The end of a relationship. The end of an era. Your youth. It hurts the most when there’s a lot of love & desire. If we want to love, we have to accept that loss is always eventually a part of it.
And so it goes with music. When a favorite band or artist is alive and well, every new album or single or show is exciting. Even if they break up or retire, there’s always hope for one more reunion, one more album. Once a band member or artist dies, it’s over. Forever. And so is that era for you. There’s no way around it. It hurts like hell.
When John Lennon died, a tremendous amount of hope died with him. I still feel it. Same for Kurt Cobain, Prince, and countless others. Unreleased tracks or faux reunions like those “new” “Beatles” songs from the 1990s just don’t cut it. It’s trying to hold onto something that is over for good. Only the music and memories survive.
Fountains of Wayne, this week’s band, is the first in a series I’m doing on love and loss in music. Early on in the pandemic, Adam Schlesinger, the principal architect and songwriter, died of COVID. He was in his 50s and in the midst of a thriving career. The band had broken up nearly a decade before, but with him and lead singer Chris Collingwood alive, I held out hope they’d do more stuff together. That all ended last April. And it sucks.
Fountains of Wayne were one of the few power pop titans that A. influenced the fuck out of me, and B. should have been way bigger than they were. They had their big hit, “Stacy’s Mom”, and that album was phenomenal. But so we’re all their albums, and they had songs even better than that. As prolific and restless as Adam was, there’s no doubt they would have done something again.
So that band is done forever. That era of my life is over. Death is dumb. But the music isn’t dumb, and it isn’t dead. It’ll be around forever, and deserves to be heard and loved by way more people. We’re lucky it was made. And I’m lucky to still be around making music. My band REC’s latest album owes a huge debt to Fountains of Wayne. Especially this song:
And here's a link to the tribute concert I did last April:
Do you know this band? Is there a band that can never exist again that breaks your heart? Discuss dammit!
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