'Traffic and Weather' Report

Fresh Air | By Ken Tucker

Published April 12, 2007 at 11:00 AM EDT

Fountains of Wayne, the band led by songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood, has a new album called Traffic and Weather, their first collection of new songs in four years.

The band came close to becoming a mass-audience act in 2003 with the hit single and music video for their song "Stacy's Mom." More recently, Schlesinger wrote the parody-pop songs for the recent Drew Barrymore-Hugh Grant movie Music & Lyrics.

The new album turns out to be a deeper exploration of the central question about Fountains of Wayne — are they making potential hit songs, or satirizing them?

Ken Tucker

Ken Tucker reviews rock, country, hip-hop and pop music for Fresh Air. He is a cultural critic who has been the editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a film critic for New York Magazine. His work has won two National Magazine Awards and two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards. He has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and other publications.

See stories by Ken Tucker

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