It seems only right to start my new blog with an album from one of my favorite bands.

Traffic and Weather is the fourth studio album from Fountains of Wayne, the power-pop New Jersey quartet. The album isn’t really a big break from the style of their previous albums: quirky lyrics, amusing stories and great guitar hooks.

The album starts out with “Someone to Love”, a guitar song with a disco beat telling the tale of two lonely hearts, “Beth” and “Seth”, living in New York City. The lyrics describe the mundane histories and daily activities of two people who could be anyone. It all feels like the set of a Hugh Grant film as the lyrics of the break chant “You’re not the only one who’s lonely…” and as the third verse places the two on the street waiting for a cab on a rainy night. But then a surprise. There is no serendipitous sharing of taxi leading to a whirlwind romance. The cold hard reality of city life is hit home as Beth steals the cab Seth was waiting for. That moment really defines the album: Real Life.

If you were filming the videos to the songs on the album, pretty much everyone will know a person who fills each role. “‘92 Subaru” is a man who has just bought an average car that he feels is the best thing to ever hit the road, set to a Bryan Adams style musical backdrop.

All of the songs are catchy and have the potential to get in your head but some are better than others. “Revolving Dora” lyrically is a bit plain. “Planet of Weed” does exactly what it says on the tin, which is to say a description of being stoned, accurate and tuneful but “could do better”.

“Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim” to me sounds like a preposterous name for a song, but then again “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” isn’t really sensible. The song describes better than I ever could the feeling of being stuck in an airport after a long trip when you just get home. “I-95″ is equally effective at getting across the feeling of a long commute to see a loved one.

The real highlight of the album is the penultimate song “New Routine”. The song superficially is quite enjoyable, nice guitar work with a synth backing and a catchy riff. Where it really gets into its own is the story. It starts by describing two old guys meeting for a chat over breakfast in a diner. Their story fills the majority of the first verse, but just as their parts end something interesting happens. The waitress at the diner collects their “half eaten bagels” and with that the song becomes about the waitress. The majority of the next verse covers the waitress and then she meets someone and the story becomes about him. This happens a few times, each time the setting is another far flung part of the world. The final verse is back in the diner where things are drawn to a close. Most songs just pass me by but I can’t listen to “New Routine” without being distracted by the constant motion of it. It is for me the song of 2007.

Fountains do what most modern pop songs don’t – stimulate emotion. Most songs on the album the average person can relate to and as a result it prompts events from our memories when we hear them. However, a group of 40+ year old blokes sining about getting stoned and waiting in an airport isn’t quite going to appeal to Leona Lewis devotees and thus they aren’t selling albums in the way they should.

Rating: 9
Best Song: New Routine
Worst Song: Traffic and Weather