Why hasn’t this been turned into a movie? Co-written by Schlesinger and vocalist Jaret Reddick, the chugging power-pop song boasted sticky hooks and smart commentary: “And you still don’t have the right look/ And you don’t have the right friends/ And you still listen to the same shit you did back then.”, In 2006, Schlesinger and James Iha co-produced Here & Now, an album for ’70s AM Gold gods America. “Red dragon tattoo is just about on me/I got it for you, so now do you want me?” the dim bulb pleads. From his early hits with Fountains of Wayne to his work in TV and film and for outside artists, he had a chameleon-like ability to apply his musical understanding to any context. Spencer Kornhaber He won three Emmys, a Grammy, and the ASCAP Pop Music Award.He was nominated for an Oscar, Tony Award and Golden Globe for best original song in 1997.. His best known work was writing and co-producing the title song to That Thing You Do!. (You can listen to the playlist on Spotify here.). It’s not snide — you can’t emulate a band this closely unless you love them. Adam Schlesinger attend the ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Live Event at the Feinstein’s/54 Below on November 3, 2016 in New York City. The guitar intro and his upper-tenor voice mimic Fountains of Wayne; the narrator, who’s stymied by a song he’s trying, phones up a hotline that gives arrangement advice by recommending the tricks that repeat throughout Fountains of Wayne songs. ‎Adam Schlesinger is an award-winning songwriter best known to many as bassist for the power pop group Fountains of Wayne. The arrangement is tight — quarter-note piano, clipped organ hook, a trumpet section — there’s a loving Billy Joel reference (“Heart attack-ack-ack”), and our hero avoids a beating from his loan shark, at least for now. In the 2007 movie Music And Lyrics, a fading British pop star — played in brilliant fashion by Hugh Grant — writes an earnest song called “Way Back Into Love” for a younger artist named Cora Corman, portrayed by Haley Bennett. Adam Schlesinger didn’t just understand what made a perfect pop song tick; he could map its genome and replicate it like a mad scientist. “I have so much to say about Adam Schlesinger that I am at a complete loss for words,” she tweeted Wednesday night. Top 40 needed a song about hot moms, and this was the band to do it. “Utopia Parkway,” a midtempo harmony fest with a buzzing, distorted guitar line (they’ve also moved from Beatles references to nodding at the Cars), is narrated by a smug outer-borough wannabe with a custom van and a cover band who has never turned from boy to man and his baby doesn’t understand. Hear tracks from Fountains of Wayne, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and more — plus a tune written about the power-pop dynamo, who died of the coronavirus at 52. Superdrag and Fountains of Wayne both specialized in well-crafted, out-of-time power-pop with smarts and humanity. In remembrance of singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger, who died Wednesday of complications from COVID-19, we rounded up five of the best songs by his band Fountains of Wayne. Hanson’s vocals add earnest, skinny-tie sweetness to the song’s muscular ’70s AOR rock riffage. Adam Schlesinger’s “That Thing You Do” is an amazing song, but don’t sleep on the fake Wham! Together with co-producer/co-writer Andy Chase and vocalist Dominique Durand, the trio crafted sleek sophisti-pop. “The Fiddler on the Roof” violin pushes it over the top. A new twist on songs about high school: It’s written from an older vantage of disappointment (“We’ll grow old and lose our hair/It’s all downhill from there”) but builds to a brave, innocent defiance in the chorus (“Tonight we’ll reach for the stars/We’ll rent expensive cars”). Crucially, the film needed a great retro song that a) sounded credibly like a British Invasion-styled song from, specifically, the summer of 1964; b) was great enough to have been a hit; and c) could stand up to being heard over and over in the movie. It was nominated for best original song at the Academy Awards and at the Golden Globes. That’s kind of the point: The band wrote about the big dreams and tiny victories of people who never get anywhere. “He is irreplaceable.” Working again with Javerbaum, Schlesinger won a 2012 Emmy Award for writing the song “It’s Not Just for Gays Anymore,” performed by Neil Patrick Harris to open the Tony Awards telecast. Big Star had three. Adam Schlesinger was an award-winning songwriter best known to many as bassist for the power pop group Fountains of Wayne.Also a co-founder of the indie pop bands Ivy and Tinted Windows, he balanced band membership with work as a producer/engineer and as a songwriter for film (That Thing You Do!, Music and Lyrics), TV (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Sesame Street), and theater (Cry-Baby: The Musical). Over the course of four seasons, Schlesinger wrote or co-wrote 157 songs for this groundbreaking music comedy, an astoundingly fecund pace, in a huge variety of styles. Here are 30 of his essential songs. Fountains of Wayne didn’t have a record deal when it wrote this (Schlesinger paid for the recording sessions), and the group shopped it to “just about everybody,” he said. He was 52. Kimberly Butler/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images. Hilarious, tragic. Adam Schlesinger was a gifted power-pop songwriter who never seemed to run out of hooks. People who don’t like FOW complain that all it made is cute meta-pop full of references to other bands, but — ehh, you know what, that’s not wrong. A native of New York City, Adam Schlesinger (1967-2020) was a founding member of Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows. Adam Schlesinger, the co-founder of pop-rock band Fountains of Wayne and an Oscar-nominated songwriter, has died from complications related to coronavirus. Ivy’s transformative 2002 covers album Guestroom presaged the interpretive work of the Bird & The Bee, while 2005’s superlative electro-pop effort In The Clear brought the lush, sparkling standout “Thinking About You.”, Bowling For Soup built their commercial success on sly retro-pop nods. (The timing of that pause shows a keen comic sense.) Adam Schlesinger (Manhattan, Nueva York, 31 de octubre de 1967-Poughkeepsie, Nueva York, 1 de abril de 2020) [1] fue un compositor estadounidense, productor discográfico y el contrabajista de las bandas Tinted Windows, Ivy y Fountains of Wayne, de la cual fue fundador.Además era dueño de la discográfica Scratchie Records y de Stratosphere Sound, [2] un estudio de grabación en Nueva York Available with an Apple Music subscription. About 300 writers submitted songs for consideration, and Schlesinger’s song won. He played bass in Tinted Windows and wrote most of the songs, James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins played guitar, Taylor Hanson of Hanson sang and Cheap Trick’s Bun E. Carlos manned the drums. In a perfect world, the bubblegum electro song “Tantalized” would’ve been a huge hit, as its snappy ’80s beats and sparkling keyboards rival those favored by iconic production svengalis Stock Aitken Waterman. (All songs are by Fountains of Wayne unless otherwise noted.) It’s a gorgeous acoustic ballad, with a winking reference to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” after the third chorus, and it sketches out some ideas that came to perfection later in “Troubled Times.”. Schlesinger was game for most anything, including a supergroup. He did the gig as a favor, in a little home studio on a Saturday.”. Adam Schlesinger, co-founder of the New Jersey power-pop group Fountains of Wayne and Emmy- and Grammy-winning songwriter for film, television, and … The references in these songs were always clear within the first eight bars, and “Getting’ Bi,” a celebration of bisexuality from Season One, paid homage to Huey Lewis and the News (a bit of “Hip to be Square,” a smidgen of “The Power of Love”). In recent years, Schlesinger’s highest-profile work was for the beloved TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend; in fact, he won a 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for “Antidepressants Are So Not A Big Deal.” He also co-penned eight songs for Stephen Colbert’s A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, which won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, and teamed up with his Crazy Ex-Girlfriend musical collaborator Rachel Bloom to score a forthcoming musical based on The Nanny. Nearly as good, on the same album: “Lucy Doesn’t Love You.”. No one ever called FOW the voice of a generation, but no group wrote more songs about the economic tribulations and uncertainty of Gen X. number he wrote for the opening of Music and Lyrics. In 1996, Adam Schlesinger, then in his late twenties, ... Other songwriters submitted songs for the movie, too, but Tom Hanks was smart enough to figure out that Schlesinger’s song was the one. — his status as a power-pop master would’ve been secure. This fourth selection from the band’s debut not only inverts the classic AOR imperative of rocking all night, it rhymes “care to” and “hairdo.”. Adam Schlesinger, the co-founder of the band Fountains of Wayne, died Wednesday morning due to coronavirus complications, according to Variety. In September 2005, sharp-dressed boy band the Click Five peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the Schlesinger-penned “Just The Girl.” The sugary pop-rock song, which boasts zippy retro keyboards and lush harmonies, boasts lyrics about crushing hard on someone who’s playing hard to get. Adam Schlesinger sits down with Fuzztopia to talk about the song writing process and discuss his early days as a musician. Adam Schlesinger’s 30 Essential Songs Hear tracks from Fountains of Wayne, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and more — plus a tune written about the power … Leave it to Schlesinger to appreciate the somewhat-lost art of a well-crafted TV theme, as he wrote the title song for comedian Kathy Griffin’s Bravo late-night talk show, Kathy. fame died of COVID-19 on April 1, 2020. Schlesinger produced and was a Wizard Of Oz-like background songwriting figure for Fever High, the synth-pop duo comprising Anna Nordeen and Reni Lane. Second album, they’ve brought in a drummer and a lead guitarist to fatten the sound, and they’ve got a recording budget. Adam Schlesinger is being remembered by a long list of talented friends via a 31-track tribute album that was released on Tuesday. Several years ago, Schlesinger was tapped to produce Good Times!, the stellar comeback LP for the Monkees. Here at Rolling Stone, we’re all hoping that he makes a full recovery; according to Schlesinger’s lawyer, “the doctors are doing everything they can think of and they’re cautiously optimistic.”In the meantime, here are 20 reasons we love him, drawn from the many songs Schlesinger wrote, sang, produced, or performed on. And “Where’s the Bathroom,” a musical theater patter song for Rebecca’s awful mom, played by Tovah Feldshuh, is history’s greatest catalog of passive-aggressive behavior (“I see your eczema is back”). Although his c.v. contains dozens and dozens of indelible songs, here are 11 moments that reveal he’s a power-pop master. http://Fuzztopia.com Singer Adam Schlesinger, of Fountains of Wayne, dead at 52 of coronavirus Read more But the loss feels even more acute when that musician was responsible for as many sun-kissed and life-affirming melodies as Adam Schlesinger. In her hands, the sunny song is an effervescent nod to ’60s garage-pop and mod-soul that’s full of character. They had one huge hit, “Stacy’s Mom,” but wrote dozens of funny or sympathetic songs about Gen X misfits, like an earthbound Beach Boys serenading the suburbs rather than the sea. As far as power-pop supergroups go, it doesn’t get much better than Tinted Windows, which brought Schlesinger together with Cheap Trick’s Bun E. Carlos, Taylor Hanson and James Iha. Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger: 20 Essential Songs Read full article Jon Dolan, Brian Hiatt, Christian Hoard, Daniel Kreps, Angie Martoccio, Alan Sepinwall and Simon Vozick-Levinson What Adam Schlesinger Knew About America The Fountains of Wayne front man, who died of complications from the coronavirus, made big songs about small triumphs. However, the musician, who died from complications of COVID-19 on Wednesday at the age of 52, was involved with a staggering number of additional projects throughout his life. What Will Be The Impact Of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” And Its Historically Massive Debut? While in other hands this sentiment could curdle into bitterness, Schlesinger’s tone is charmingly soft: “When she sees it’s me/ On her caller ID/ She won’t pick up the phone.”, In parallel with Fountains Of Wayne, Schlesinger also played in the band Ivy. Among the highlights of the LP — which also featured a cover of Nada Surf’s “Always Love” — was the impossibly lovely, Schlesinger-written “Work To Do.” Driven by cascading harmonies and jangly guitars, the cautiously hopeful song posits that despite the “long hours and late nights” needed to mend a relationship, that effort will pay off: “If we try, we just might/ Make it all right/ It might all work out somehow.”. It was written and named for a record executive they’d worked with and his wife. The Knack had an album and a half. Boasting lovestruck lyrics with a pure heart, the “Our Own World” sounds tailor-made for the Monkees: “You’re a dreamer, just like me/ We don’t need reality/ We’re in our own world.”, The Number Ones: The Human League’s “Human”, The Number Ones: Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name”, Ariel Pink Went On Tucker Carlson To Whine About “Cancel Culture”, Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best And Worst Comments. Only S-Curve offered them a deal. Adam Schlesinger didn’t just understand what made a perfect pop song tick; he could map its genome and replicate it like a mad scientist. Photograph: Jason Merritt/TERM/FilmMagic for Superfly Presents Y ou got a sense of the breadth of Adam Schlesinger ’s talent from the tributes. Mike Viola and Adam Schlesinger - That Thing You Do - YouTube It’s part John Cheever, part John Hughes. The Raspberries catalog could make for a fantastic first half of a CD. This slow-building rocker cycles around a great description of someone stuck in place: “I tried to change, but I changed my mind/Think I’ll have another glass of Mexican wine.”. In addition to tracks penned by Ben Gibbard, Rivers Cuomo, and Andy Partridge, the album also included a Schlesinger composition. Like Lennon and McCartney, they shared joint credit, even if only one of them wrote a song. The arrangement is dominated by a dulcet string arrangement for two violins and a cello. The song hit No. Adam Schlesinger, who died April 1, wrote songs that were loved by many fans who never knew his name. Once again, our narrator is in love with someone who’s dating higher on the food chain — a biker with “crumbs in his beard from the seafood special.” And there’s, you guessed it, another winking Beatles rip at the end. Tom Hanks wrote, directed and appeared in “That Thing You Do!,” a 1996 movie about a mythical Erie, Pa. band who have one big hit in the mid-60s before it all falls apart on them. On the group’s only album, a 2009 self-titled effort largely written by Schlesinger, “Messing With My Head” stands tall. There are no jokes or clever quips in this power ballad, just a skyborne melody that, in the film Music and Lyrics, brings Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore together, and later, back together. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was a key songwriting contributor and producer for Brooklyn-based synth-pop duo Fever High. Bittersweet enough to soundtrack a season-ending, broken teen romance for a series on the CW Network, and that’s high praise. Kay Hanley, who was the lead singing voice in the 2001 musical comedy film “Josie and the Pussycats,” wrote this on Twitter about Schlesinger, who penned the song: “His talent as a songwriter is so special, so enormous, it never overwhelms, only sweetens any airspace it inhabits.” Jabbing, on-the-beat guitar catapults this track, and the girl can’t figure out why the boy, who’s patently a shlub, won’t compliment her or laugh at her jokes.