Idolator: fountains of wayne

On The Flippity-Flop: We Know Fountains Of Wayne All Too Well

Brian Raftery — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:40:40 EDT

Welcome to "On The Flippity-Flop," where your Idolators spotlight unjustly ignored B-sides, bonus tracks, compilation contributions, and EP cuts. Send your suggestions to tips@idolator.com.

ARTIST: Fountains Of Wayne
SONG: "I Know You Well"
FIRST APPEARANCE: As the B-side to 1999's "Denise" single.
WHY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN A-SIDE: Years before the two-disc Out-Of-State Plates collection was released, we emptied our PayPal accounts buying up as many rare FOW singles as we could find; and while the group's throwaways were often album-worthy, no track was more unjustly left behind than "I Know You Well," a lovely jingle of devotion that's one of the finest songs ever to appear in the Schlesinger/Collingwood catalog:

~~Fountains Of Wayne - I Know You Well~~ [MP3, link expired]

No Matter What Rock Festival You Go To This Year, You're Going To Run Into "Stacy's Mom"

mjohnston — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:54:44 EST

Thanks to the tipster who pointed us to this USA Today blurb on power-pop masters Fountains Of Wayne, which pegs the band for slots at the Coachella and Bonnaroo festivals this summer. (At least we'll be able to hear catchy songs during our inevitable attack of desert-induced heatstroke.) The rumblings about a Rage Against The Machine reunion are also growing louder, and if there's one thing we love doing, it's fanning speculative flames, so if you have any info on other artists playing either Coachella or Bonnaroo, send the news to tips@idolator.com.

~~Fountains Of Wayne - Laser Show~~ [MP3, link expired]
Fountains of Wayne gets stuck in 'Traffic' this spring [USA Today]
Previously: Idolator's rampant speculation on the Coachella lineup

The Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files: Swirl 360's Failed Power-Pop Push

mjohnston — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 12:36:54 EDT

Welcome to a special edition of the Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files, which normally looks at a song that was left by the airwaves' wayside—today, we're going to look at an album that didn't quite hit the world's pop-music sweet spot.

Artist: Swirl 360
Album: Ask Anybody, 1998
What happened: Swirl 360 was made up of a pair of pretty-boy brothers and a boatload of collaborators, and to hear them tell it, they were high on their label's priority list until corporate politics pushed them down the food chain. The album's one minor hit, the absurdly hooky "Hey Now Now," was penned by the folks who brought you Meredith Brooks' "Bitch"; the full-length can be yours for as low as a penny.
Why it should have been a hit: Rock critics like to throw around the term "perfect pop songs" a lot—heck, we've been guilty of that offense more times than we'd like to admit. The masterminds behind Ask Anybody decided to put that idea to the test, enlisting Fountains Of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, The Posies' Ken Stringfellow, and The Vaselines' Eugene Kelly to pen some tracks. Did it work? Sort of. Of the four songs offered up by the critical heroes, we like the Schlesinger-written "Stick Around" the best; Stringfellow's contribution, "Ask Anybody," has some great moments, but its chorus teeters on the brink of WB themedom a bit too much for our liking.

~~Swirl 360 - Stick Around~~ [MP3, link expired]
~~Swirl 360 - Ask Anybody~~ [MP3, link expired]
~~Swirl 360 - I'll Take My Chances~~ [MP3, link expired]
~~Swirl 360 - Slow (Be There)~~ [MP3, link expired]
Swirl 360 - Ask Anybody [Amazon]