20 Signs of Life From 2003

Fountains of Wayne make superb power-pop music, and in spite of a few stylistic embellishments—a pedal-steel-guitar-driven country weeper here, a Simon and Garfunkel impersonation there—Welcome Interstate Managers isn’t a radical departure from previous albums. But when more of the same includes the infectious hooks, ringing guitar anthems and beautiful power ballads for which the band is justly famous, it’s hard to grouse about stagnation.

Playing to their obvious strengths, Fountain heads Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger graft impossibly ingratiating melodies and sing-along choruses to witty tales of lost, disenfranchised souls. With the exception of the leering hit single “Stacy’s Mom” (still impossibly ingratiating), Collingwood and Schlesinger have replaced their previous adolescent fixations with more adult themes. But the skewed sensibilities are still intact. “Mexican Wine” manages to rhyme “cellular phone explosion,” “baby lotion,” and “wheels of promotion” and still tell a semi-coherent story. “Bright Future in Sales” recounts the tale of a surefire corporate whiz kid—that is, if he can just get out of his chair after seven scotch and sodas. There’s even a newfound sense of pathos and compassion, as on the forlorn “Hackensack,” where our lonely blue-collar protagonist, stuck in a dead-end job, tells a Hollywood starlet he’ll save her a place if she ever decides to return to her hometown. You’ll be singing along with these quirky songs for days on end, frightening the family, and amusing the people in the car next to you.