Switched on Pop - Wonders: "Stacy's Mom" and Adam Schlesinger

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

In 2003, amidst a bunch of bleak alternative rock bangers like “Numb” by Linkin Park and “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence, a rock song stood out on the charts for its fantastic hooks and juvenile sense of humor. “Stacy’s Mom” turned the New Jersey band Fountains of Wayne into MTV mainstays and Grammy nominees. But while they continued to release music, tour the country, and maintain a devoted fanbase, they never reached the same level of fame again. Most people never looked further than the raunchy music video, but Fountains of Wayne released six albums across two decades, each filled with tracks of quirky, clever, and undeniably catchy power pop. And the writer of that song, FOW bassist Adam Schlesinger, had a rich and fascinating career behind the scenes in film, TV, and more. In this episode of Switched on Pop, we explore the history of “Stacy’s Mom”, a perfectly crafted pop song that stands as a testament to the brilliance of a musician whose career was cut tragically short. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm producer Rihanna Cruz. Rihanna, did you have a favorite alternative radio station growing up? Yes, I always listened to, you know, in New Jersey, we get radio stations from New York and Philly. And I would always listen to all 104.5, which is the Philly alternative rock station. I feel like the Philly's Alternative Rock.

I feel like the Philly Jersey Corridor must have been a hot spot for alternative rock. Oh yeah. I mean, there's just a lot of suburban on Wii in general, I would think. Absolutely. Rihanna, if you were listening to Alt 104.5 in the early 2000s, 2003, 2004, you would have encountered a barrage of dark, sad alternative rock hits. I'm talking about songs like Blink 182's, I Miss You. I'm talking about NUM by Lincoln Park.

Ooh, banger. I'm talking about weak and powerless by a perfect circle. Bleak, but. But all very formative, I have to say. Amid all those bleak bangers, one song would have stood out for its effervescent music, its tongue-and-cheek lyrics, and its undeniably catchy chorus. That song is Stacey's Mom by Fountains of Wayne. It was released 20 years ago this year, which means it's the perfect time for another entry in our series, Wonders, where we give quote-unquote one-hit wonders, the respect they deserve.

Stacey's mom was more than just an antidote to that dark alternative moment of the early 2000s and more than just kind of a novelty hit. It was actually a perfectly crafted pop song and a testament to the brilliance of a musician whose career was cut tragically short, a musician who thrive for a moment in the spotlight and for decades in the background.

Yeah, maybe I'm showing my age here or lack thereof, But even like as a child, right, because I was a child when this song came out, I would hear it everywhere in a way that kind of stuck with me. I remember being in elementary school and hearing this play at a class party or something like that, which is such a weird place to hear Stacey's mom in hindsight. Like now that I'm grown and I know the song and I know what it's about. But it really was everywhere. And you're right. It was different than a lot of the other songs of that era, which were firmly rooted in new metal, but rock, things of that nature. Right, right.

Yeah, even if you've never heard of Fountains of Wayne, the phrase Stacey's mom instantly conjures up that chorus for multiple generations. So let's dig into what makes this song so effective and then learn a little bit more about its creator, Adam Schlesinger. maybe one of the first things that makes this song so successful is that it wears its influences on its sleeves. This is a song from the early 2000s, but it's paying homage to an earlier era of pop greatness, specifically new wave music and even more specifically, one of the paradigmatic bands of that sound, The Cars. The beginning of Stacey's mom is marked by this distinct sound, chugging electric guitar. and then the occasional hit from the entire band. Let's listen now to the beginning of just what I needed.

Very much the cars. In fact, the Cars chief songwriter Rick O'Kasik thought that Fountains of Wayne was sampling just what I needed in Stacey's mom. Adam set the record straight. No, no, no. It's just an homage. We didn't actually take the original recording. But it's clear they're trying to pay tribute to the car.

not just with these musical references, but I think trying to celebrate the way bands like the cars had song lyrics that had a little bit of humor and levity to them as well. I mean, there's some lines in Stacey's mom that make me crack up. It's very witty songwriting, like this exchange in the second verse, talking about mowing Stacey's mom's lawn. Stacey, do you As if the lyrics themselves weren't funny enough, what crack to be of is the background vocals that just mow the lawn. Why is that so funny?

Maybe because it adds a certain gravitas to these lines that are really silly and sort of self-delusional. Right, and very mundane, you know, a kid mowing the lawn, but it's the most impactful moment in this young child's life. Which isn't to say that this song is just a joke, though I think the lyrics are very amusing. I mean, there is some diabolical pop songcraft at work. The central hook of this song, Stacey's mom, has got it going on, is tied to this indelible melody that you hear throughout the song so that by the time you've heard it once, you're never going to forget that melodic hook.

I think that part is also super impactful because the chorus is, so massive. And then most of the loudness of the instruments gets taken away. And then you just have the chugging guitar and the melody and, you know, the drums. And it really amplifies the songcraft. The melody of that line is so immaculate. There's a lot of dynamic contrast in the song that kind of keeps you on your toes. And another thing that keeps you engaged in listening is the key change that Slesinger and Fountains of Wayne deliver about three quarters through this song. Oh, wow. Your favorite, Nate?

Yes. Yes, a certain alter ego of mine would be very intrigued by this modulation. I love that key change. It rocks so hard. I always kind of fitted this song, and I guess the work of Fountains of Wayne, into the terminology of Power Pop, which I find to be these songs that are really big, rooted in these power chords. Thick vocal harmonies.

Exactly. Pop sensibilities, but oftentimes the songs would tend to skew into more rocky anthemic territory. That's where I put this track. Now, I should note that while a lot of people over the years label Fountains of Wayne is Power Pop, neither Schlesinger nor the band's lead singer and co-songwriter Chris Collingwood particularly liked the term. Regardless, Stacey's mom was definitely a breath of fresh air on the alternative charts

of the early 2000s. And its incredibly popular music video also helped stoke the song's success. Stacey's mom got as high as 21 on the Billboard Hot 100. And Fountains of Wayne were nominated for two awards at the 2004 Grammys, including Best New Artist,

even though they had been a band for nearly a decade by that point in time. They lost that best new artist category to Evanescence. But nevertheless, still a W, I think. Okay, so you say they're nominated for Best New Artist. They have a decade of work behind them. But after Stacey's mom, I guess my question is, what came next?

Fountains of Wayne, led by Schlesinger and Collingwood, continue to put out albums, continue to tour, maintain a devoted fan base, but never again crack that crowning success of Stacey's mom. Unfortunate. Yes, but surprisingly. Slesinger himself didn't really take issue with having this fleeting glimpse of stardom and then having it evaporate. In a 2007 interview, he said, being a one-hit wonder is a good thing. That one song gets heard by everyone, but then it allows you to have an artistic life for the people who are paying attention to all of your music. I love that. It's a very optimistic perspective on one. one hit wonder them because I feel like a lot of other artists in the same boat get frustrated and they're like, I don't want this one hit to be my legacy. But Adam has the opposite perspective where

he's like, this one hit opens up doors for other people to discover my work. Totally. And I like that. I find it a really optimistic take. This was a songwriter who liked being in the background to a degree. So maybe this was the perfect situation, a song that brought him a certain amount of financial stability and artistic success, but didn't thrust him into the spotlight in a permanent way. Slesinger died of complications from COVID-19 in April 2020, so this is a poignant moment to revisit some of his work beyond Stacey's mom. As his bandmate, Chris Collingwood told Rolling Stone, he was too good a writer to have that be his calling card. So let's listen to some other fountains of Wayne's songs

that give us different dimensions of Schlesinger's songwriting. And let's hear about some of the other work he did beyond the band after a quick break. Attention Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolut of Carolina Herrera. A fragrance intense with carathe gourmet and addicive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, topi caramelized and tonka toasted.

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All right, Rihanna, let's listen to some Fountains of Wayne songs that are not Stacey's mom. I'm stoked. I mean, I'm a big Cars fan and if they're pulling that much from Rick Oakesk and Benjamin Orr, I feel like their catalog at large

is going to yield similar, great, silly fun pop songs so i'm stoked okay reyanna let me give you a little Fountains of Wayne history they formed when adams slessinger and chris collingwood met in 1986 at williams college their original name was the wallflowers oh wow but that band didn't last long in fact jacob dillon bought the band name from them and went on to have a much more successful version they eventually reformed as Fountains of Wayne in 1996, taking their name from a lawn ornament store in Wayne, New Jersey. Collingwood and Slesinger mostly wrote separately but shared all writing credits in the band,

Lennon McCartney style, and Slesinger credited Collingwood with writing the song that initially defined their sound. That song was the first single off of their self-titled debut, a track called Radiation Vibe. True to form, the song is uptempo, incredibly catchy, and features lyrics about a monkey reading Playboy on a couch. Fountains of Wayne released six albums between 1996 and 2011. Let's listen to some of Adam Schlesinger's highlights from their discography. Here's one from the same album as Stacey's mom, Welcome Interstate Managers, called All Kinds of Time. The clock's running down when suddenly...

It all starts to make sense. Rihanna, maybe not the car's tribute you were hoping for, but still pretty compelling melody here at the beginning of this ode to the Great American Game of football. The lyrics here tell a story, which I think is proving to be Schlesinger's strong suit, the lyric crafting, the telling a story, the immersing you in a scene. because Stacey's mom, we're immersed in Mowing Milan, and in here we're immersed in what I assume to be a high school football game. I like that insight, Rianne.

It's very imagistic, very cinematic in a way. And then just like Stacey's mom, another melody that is really distinct. And in this case, really stands out because of the range of it, how it just ascends to these really high notes. And incidentally, shout out to Chris Collingwood, great vocal. performance here. Now, I love a good football song as much as the next red-blooded American male, but what I find so interesting about this particular composition is the way Schlesinger finds ways to freeze time. It's there in the music. It's there in the lyrics. Things seem to slow down

just like the quarterback in this song is slowing down his mind as he finds the open man. Another song from Welcome Interstate Managers, perhaps overshadowed by Stacey's mom, is Hackensack. Now I see your face in the strangest places, movies and magazine. I saw you talking to Christopher walking on my TV screen. Another surprising kind of funny image that also has a certain poignancy to it. Definitely. All wrapped up in a hooky melody. What I'm coming to really like about the vocals of Fountains of Wayne is they sound kind of canny in a way that I think places them in more crisp, clean-cut forms of like 50s and 60s pop.

And then they have these lyrics that are funny, kind of sardonic. and plaintive, and it creates that sort of contrast that I'm enjoying, the more that we listen to these songs. That makes me think about how we're really listening to a band when we're listening to Fountains of Wayne. Schlesinger and Collingwood are the main drivers of the sound, with Collingwood's haunting voice, a key part of that formula. And then there's Jody Porter on lead guitar and backing vocals, and Brian Young on drums and

percussion. If we move a little further through the F-O-W discography, we can go to a 2007 track called Someone to Love, which returns us to the more tongue-in-cheek side of Schlesinger's songcraft. That guitar is filthy. Seth Shapiro got his law degree. He moved to Brooklyn from Schenectady, 93. Got some clients in the food industry. He says it's not the money It's the recipes He costs his mom Wow, I love that

I mean, I feel like your theory Is being born out here Again, there's a high degree of specificity, there's a lot of character work in these lyrics He's not just creating these kind of universal Anthemic pop songs They have a very clear perspective

And a very clear location Yeah, it reminds me of Other bands like the Mountain Goats, for example, that put so much character work in their songs and in their lyrics. And I think that's really what the beauty is here. You're immersed, like I said before, in these scenes, these tableaus of modern life. So there's just a small glimpse into the offerings of Fountains of Wayne beyond Stacey's mom. If that tantalizes you, go out and listen to the other great albums they have.

But, Rianna, I noted that you said that some of this music reminds you of 50s and 60s pop. And that insight maybe can be a pivot to talk about Schlesinger's work other than with Fountains of Wayne, which stretches back to the very beginning of that band, 1996. Fountains of Wayne hadn't even released their debut album yet. And Schlesinger answered this cattle call to create a song for a movie directed by Tom Hanks. about a Beatles-type band trying to make it big in America. Out of all the entries that Hanks and his co-producers considered, this songwriter from New Jersey was the one they selected. And that song would become, I think, another instant classic,

That Thing You Do. Very fitting. Super in line with everything we've just heard. First of all, I mean, I love that the story of how the song came to be in the movie reflects the story of the movie itself, which is about this band that becomes a one-hit wonder doing this Beatles-style American pop music. Yeah. And then Schlesinger's song was the one that was selected out of over 300 submissions to be

the title track. Schlesinger himself was a huge Beatles fan, and he could work fast. He actually wrote three different versions of that thing you do over the course of a single weekend. He even makes some specific. harmonic references to Beatles songs, like, I want to hold your hand when the chords turn minor. When John Lennon sings understand the chords dip to this minor feel, that thing you do does the same thing when the lyrics say into a million pieces. But it's not a carbon copy of a Beatles song. It has its own identity, and I think that's what made it a hit in its own right.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm also hearing parallels between the that thing you do and Stacey's mom, because in that thing you do, there's a hand clap pattern that's like, duh, duh, dot, dot, dot, dot, exactly. And I heard that in the final chorus of Stacey's mom. Okay, that's awesome. It's so sick. That gives us a through line through Schlesinger's whole writing career. That's really fun. And it speaks to the sort of timelessness that I mentioned before because these handclaps are as fit in 2003 as they are in pastiche of Beatle 60 songwriter. Adam Schlesinger was very prolific outside of Fountains of Wayne and that thing you do as well. This guy won Emmys and Grammys for collaborating with everyone from Stephen Colbert to Sesame Street to the Tony Award ceremony.

He also wrote songs for the 2001 film, Josie and the Pussycats. Placid. And the 2008 film music and lyrics. Wow. And I think his success in all these endeavors goes back to what we were talking about in the first half of this episode, Rianna. His comfort with being a little bit in the background. He never wanted to be the front man. He wanted to be the person behind the scenes making it all work.

Here's Adam talking on the soda Jerker on Songwriting Podcast. back in 2014. I'm a good chameleon. It's dangerous because you don't want to just do pastiches and that's it, but I can do them. And if somebody tells me they want something that sounds like a particular era or something, I can sort of figure out what the hallmarks of that style are. And part of that is the way the song is written, but also part of it is the way it's produced. And, you know, a producer also.

So I'm pretty good at sort of mimicking the sound of it as well. Those skills came in handy for Sessinger's last major project, which was executive music producer for the TV series Crazy X Girlfriend. No way. Which he did from 2015 through the show's four season run, ultimately winning an Emmy for the song from season four. Antidepressants are so not a big deal. Fluoxetine, fluoxetine, peroxatine, paroxetine, paroxetine.

Satalopram, satalopram. Take once a day. Fluoxetine, fluoxetine, paroxetine, paroxetine, paroxetine. Wow. I used to be a really big fan of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and I think the quote that he just said about being able to chameleon himself into any particular style is kind of what the beauty of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's music was as well. These episodes were an hour long, but you could go from like microtonal South Asian pastiche into this Broadway, La La Land. type sound into regular pop, into hip hop, into 80s New Wave. And because it's songs for a TV show, the songs need to be shorter, have catchier hooks, so they're able to condense and connect with an audience in a minute, a minute 30 or less.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was so smart because of that. And I had no idea that all came from Schlesinger himself. He co-wrote the songs with the show's creator and star Rachel Bloom, as well as executive producer and songwriter Jack Dolgan and showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna, and also performed with the cast during a series of live shows after the series wrapped in 2019. Showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna remembered that Adam could write songs in as little as 15 minutes. And longer ones might take a weekend, but this was clearly the person that you wanted on your team when you were producing these shows with a lot of music in a really fast timeline.

One of the songs from the show, Getting By, B.I, became a cast and crew favorite and an anthem for bisexuality championed by the show's fans. I don't know how it's a surprise, but now I see that that's just me. It's not like I even try. Here's Rachel Bloom on the Rhino podcast tribute to Adam Schlesinger talking about how he wrote this song. Aline and the writers had talked to a representative from Glad about, okay, we want to do a song, destigmatizing bisexuality. And Adam took these almost like talking points and then made this brilliant Huey Lewis song out of that.

I mean, every time you got a new Adam demo, it was astonishing. Now some may say, are you just gay? Why don't you just go gay all the way? But that's not it. Because by is legit. Whether you're a he or a she, we might be a perfect fit. And one more thing. I remember when they played the,

in the show and the context is that the character, Daryl, brought his entire office into a conference room because he had an announcement. And then he just sings this song, which... Amazing. Yeah, it's incredible. It makes it even funnier. And then when the song is over, they're all like, okay, anyway. And then they just move on. Stepping back and hearing all these different phases and facets of the work of Fountains of Wayne and Adam Schlesinger makes me appreciate how this moniker of one-hit wonder isn't always necessarily a negative mantle or reputation to have. In fact, as we talked about for Schlesinger

in particular, it was kind of an advantage, something he used as his secret weapon. Here's Adam on the WTF podcast with Mark Marin. I never saw myself as being like the front man in a rock band. or something. I felt like somebody that was a good executor of ideas. Like I could work with a lot of different people and figure out what they were going for and try to help get there.

And it's not that different. Like if somebody calls me and says, we need a song about this or that sounds like this or, you know, like that musical theater kind of thing, which I ended up getting a little into too where it's like, okay, here's what's happening in the story. We need a song to help tell this.

I like kind of solving those puzzles with songs. And it's a different part of your brain than just like, I want to be the front guy and a rock band. So the next time you hear Stacey's mom at a pool party or karaoke night, Rihanna, you can appreciate the limpid, melodic hooks, the tongue in cheek lyrics, the abelient key change. But you can also maybe silently celebrate the legacy and work of a composer and songwriter who generated so many. classic pop songs of the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s, and yet throughout all of it was content to be in the shadows

working behind the scenes, solving his musical puzzles. Epic. So we have only skimmed the surface of Fountains of Wayne's discography, of the work of Adam Schlesinger. We want to hear which of his songs, which of Fountains of Wayne's songs, are your favorite. so hit us up on Instagram and Twitter at Switchdown Pop and tell us what you're listening to. And just like we've only skimmed the surface of Fountains of Wayne,

we've only skimmed the surface of topics for our Wonders series. So if you have anything that you want us to talk about that could fit in to being a wonder, hit us up on Twitter, on Instagram, on email. Switchdown Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz, engineered by Brandon McFarland, edited by Jolie Myers. Abby Barr runs community management. Iris Gottlieb is our brilliant illustrator. The executive producer is Nashat Kurwa,

and we're production of Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This episode was produced by Jake Casman. Check out more of his work at jakecassman.com. We'll be back next week with a brand spanking new episode, and until then, thanks for listening. I don't know what that episode's about, but I know it will have it going on.