Thursday, March 29, 2012

An Early Clue to the New Direction: Special Adam Schlesinger is a Fricking Genius! Edition

This may be old news to you guys, but I just chanced across it over at Willard's Wormholes and have been wondering where it's been all my life.

From the 2006 MOJO sampler The Modern Genius of Ray Davies, please enjoy World's Greatest Living Power Pop Band Fountains of Wayne and their absolutely astonishing cover of The Kinks' deliberately retro 1981 single "Better Things."




Apparently, FOW recorded this for a 2002 Ray Davies tribute album, which I also missed somehow. In any case, as much as I love the Kinks original, I have to concede this improves on it, if only in terms of the energy level.

And in any case, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded to the first reader who gleans the track's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.
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16 comments:

  1. dave™©3/29/2012 12:46 AM

    Great version! Wikipedia says the tribute thing was put out by Mojo - maybe as part of the magazine?

    BTW, my favorite tune off that "Give the People What They Want" elpee is "Yo Yo" - just don't hear it enough!

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  2. dave™©3/29/2012 12:56 AM

    Sorry about the Mojo thing - got that from the Dept. of Redundancy Dept...

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  3. Anonymous3/29/2012 6:23 AM

    Cover versions better then the original.

    Sorry Steve, in my opinion the original is more then a bit better. More energy doesn't necessarily equate to better quality. I just don't feel the FOW version.

    ROTP(lumber)

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  4. Sal Nunziato3/29/2012 7:30 AM

    Have to second ROTP. How I love FOW, but was crushed when I first heard this cover, which feels like the band had never heard the song before recording it. Though it is worlds ahead of the Ray and Bruce duet, which should have been amazing.

    My guess, if "Better Things" is the clue:

    "Songs About The Past"

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  5. steve simels3/29/2012 8:13 AM

    No, no, no, and no.

    But who's counting?
    :-)

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  6. Shriner3/29/2012 9:01 AM

    Favorite Adam Schlesinger-involved tunes that are *not* Fountains of Wayne tunes?

    (Admittedly, I can only think of "that thing you do", the *great* song on the few-years-back America album and his great work with IVY, but there are probably others out there...)

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  7. steve simels3/29/2012 9:10 AM

    FOW does a killer version of the Moody's "Story in Your Eyes."

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  8. edward3/29/2012 9:12 AM

    Songs that would make great TV themes?

    I got nothin

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  9. David3/29/2012 9:16 AM

    Songs about things?

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  10. TMink3/29/2012 9:45 AM

    Tasty! I can understand the critique as Chris takes some time to get his vocal up to speed to my ears.

    But on to the task:

    Best songs you did not know about for at least a decade before you heard them.

    Trey - who does not care how convoluted and impractical his guess is

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  11. J. Loslo3/29/2012 11:13 AM

    Songs that are deliberately retro?

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  12. ed3/29/2012 12:15 PM

    i saw a one-off show last month in philly combining jim boggia with pete donnelly and terry adams of NRBQ and they did this song

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  13. Brooklyn Girl3/29/2012 12:56 PM

    Good, better, or best in the song title?

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  14. steves3/29/2012 1:23 PM

    I thought of potential TV themes, too. Short of that, I'm going to go with Best or Worst Covers of Pop Classics.

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  15. edward3/29/2012 11:21 PM

    So wait. You're telling us that all these years you've been making up the answer AFTER we submit suggestions? Like Schroddingers Cat for Pop Blogs?

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  16. Anonymous4/02/2012 10:24 PM

    I like both versions, but I have to give a slight nod to FOW (even though I'm not a huge FOW fan).

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