ADAM SCHLESINGER
OCTOBER 31, 1967-APRIL 1, 2020
OCTOBER 31, 1967-APRIL 1, 2020
This hits too close to the bone.
Early on Monday, March 31st, the news hit the internet that Adam Schlesinger, singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and most importantly, world class songwriter, had been placed into a medically induced coma after suffering from complications due to the COVID-19. Needless to say that I was s hocked to read the news, as I am so certain many of you were also. While that story certainly signaled that his time was not long (in fact, more than imminent), but maybe...hopefully...
Yet, a mere two days later, the inevitable sadly arrived. Adam Schlesinger passed away at the age of just 52. He was only one year older than myself.
Certainly, the sheer painfulness of this news is, of course, due to its swiftness and overall suddenness of being revealed to the public. From our end, there was no preparation (and frankly, who knows of how much preparation Schlesinger himself had with his own illness and hospitalization) and so, the news of his passing felt even more immediate, sending us reeling. Secondly, and unavoidably, there is the intense presence of Coronavirus and what it has already wrought. From the aforementioned social distancing and remaining at home, which keeps us all away from each other, as well as the complete lack of any sense of normalcy, with only the horrorshow of the news and the unknown staring us in our collective faces, we are all upended, making the apparent suddenness of Schlesinger's death that much more paramount.
And then, the most important and the obvious, Adam Schlesinger made a profound impact upon my life through his artistry, helping to shape and inspire me with a stunning arsenal of songs and albums that are now cherished and treasured pieces of the very music that has enriched my life.
If one did not already know or was not fully aware, the full legacy of Adam Schlesinger encompasses a wider arena than just rock and roll. Yes, he was the man who wrote the irresistible theme song to Writer/Director/Actor Tom Hanks' "That Thing You Do!" (1996), a song that rightfully was nominated for both the 1996 Golden Globes and Academy Awards for Best Original Song. What I did not realize was how much of a musical force he had become both on the stage and television, most notably his roles with composing music for the Tony and Emmy Awards, a Stephen Colbert Christmas special and his Emmy Award winning work as songwriter and Executive Music Producer for "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend."
All of the work and acclaim that the has rightfully received in this area feels more than fitting based upon the musical and lyrical depths he mined through his songwriting as his body of work is filled with exquisite, funny, poignant, heartfelt and undeniably humane short stories, character studies and emotional portraits any of which could be films or episodes of television shows all by themselves.
And you can find them all upon his albums.
My introduction, and therefore, my subsequent love for the music Adam Schlesinger arrived and remains firmly within the bands in which he made music. With the now defunct but forever exemplary Fountains Of Wayne, the band he shared with co-songwriter/singer/guitarist Chris Collingwood, guitarist Jody Porter and drummer Brian Young, Adam Schlesinger first grabbed my attention...although it did take a little time.
Admittedly, the band's single "Radiation Vibe" (released 1996) slipped past me. I knew the song and heard it often on the radio but it was one that never really made a strong impression upon me for whatever reason, and so because of that, I didn't really keep them upon my personal radar.
Everything changed for me with the band's second album.
"Utopia Parkway" (released April 6, 1999), the band's first masterpiece, as far as I am concerned, was given to me by a dear friend and neighbor who somehow ended up with two copies, and feeling that it would be somewhere up my alley, relinquished herself of one of those said copies. A glorious power pop song cycle/concept album centered mostly around the teenagers and citizens of the Queens borough in New York felt to me to essentially be the John Hughes film that he never made.
From the restless kids who desire to escape ("Utopia Parkway"), lovestruck boys desperate to impress ("Red Dragon Tattoo," "Denise") or have failed to do so ("Hat And Feet"), and tales of adolescent ennui ("The Valley Of Malls"), romance ("Troubled Times"), rites of passage (the startling "Prom Theme"), ways to pass the time ("Laser Show") and hopes for the future ("It Must Be Summer") plus even more vignettes enraptured me upon the very first listen.
Schlesinger and his bandmates created a work that clearly evoked the storytelling and lyricism of The Kinks, the power pop of the 1970's a la Big Star, The Raspberries, Badfinger and early Cheap Trick, the AOR hard rock swagger and 1980's college rock eclecticism while fitting more than comfortably into the alternative rock of the late 1990's, therefore making a work that is absolutely, resplendently timeless.
Schlesinger demonstrated an especially high level of songwriting craft that allowed Fountains of Wayne to bash it out (the track "Go Hippie" outdoes Oasis as their own game) as much as they could break your heart with a clear-eyed, deeply felt bittersweet wistfulness that can suddenly produce a lump in the throat and leaving us all unsure as to how quickly it has happened, as evidenced by the album closer "The Senator's Daughter," which sounds like the melancholy of a setting sun, or in the case of this album, could be the sound of fading youth itself.
"Utopia Parkway" remains one of those albums that feels undeniably perfect for Spring time when the growing warmth of the temperatures and the re-awakening of the Earth is juxtaposed with the endings contained in every school year cycles with all manner of conclusions and farewells. So specific yet universal inits reach and scope, Adam Schlesinger's mastery of melody and wit, angst and comedy, roar and grace captivated me and with only one album, I was in the palm of his hand.
And to think, he and Fountains Of Wayne would only go on to raise their own bar even higher.
Yes, it is the album that contains the massive "Stacy's Mom," the outstanding hybrid that is part ode to teenage lust and part tribute to The Cars, but Fountains Of Wayne's third album "Welcome Interstate Managers" (released June 10, 2003) is so much more than that song.
While teenagers still run around the edge of the album, the band expanded its reach to include a collective of emotionally and financially struggling young adults and even further into the lives of people in desperate middle aged crises all attempting to make sense of their lives. While the band rocks at possibly their heaviest ("Mexican Wine," Supercollider," "Bought For A Song," "Little Red Lights"), there is a greater existential ache at work in otherwise energetic songs like "Bright Future In Sales," "No Better Place" and "Hey Julie," and when the band allows itself to fall directly into the pain, we end up with absolute songwriting diamonds like the wondrous "Hackensack" and the sadly swaying "Hailey's Waitress."
And even then, there is even more as the band diverges a bit from any sense of conceptual narrative and expands it musical scope into the glittering folk of "Valley Winter Song," the country bar-stool lament of "Hung Up On You," the lazy day lounge of teenage and adult hedonism in "Fire Island," the bouncy good vibes of "Peace And Love" and in two of their finest songs period, we have the transcendent "All Kinds Of Time," during which we experience a sense of time travel in the mind of a teenage football star in the climactic moments of the big game. and album closer "Yours And Mine," a pure grace note of a complete love story all told in a hair over one minute.
It is an album where every moment works, the copious jokes land firmly, the stories beg to be re-heard instantly and every single multi-layered melody sticks like glue to your brain and heart. If "Utopia Parkway" was the masterpiece then "Welcome Interstate Managers" was even better. It was the band's defining statement and Adam Schlesinger's efforts made up a master class of songwriting meant to be studied.
While Fountains Of Wayne's final two albums "Traffic And Weather" (released April 3, 2007) and "Sky Full Of Holes" (released July 20, 2011) didn't scale the highest heights of their predecessors, they did continue to cement the band's, and therefore Adam Schlesinger's, unquestionable skills with songcraft as the storytelling and musical elasticity set them far apart from their contemporaries.
It was during the period of these albums that I had discovered Schlesinger's extracurricular musical activities in two more bands that completely captured my attention once I heard them.
Adam Schlesinger surprised and wowed me again with the formation of Tinted Windows, a supergroup made up of frequent collaborator songwriter/guitarist James Iha (The Smashing Pumpkins, A Perfect Circle), former Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos and lead singer Taylor Hanson (Hanson). It was a band created from unlikely parts but congealed beautifully with an album, the eponymously titled "Tinted Windows" (released April 21, 2009) that certainly did not re-invent the wheel but just got down to the basics of excellent vocals, loud guitars, banging drums, strong melodics and first and foremost, crisp, clear power pop songwriting resulting in an album that grew in strength the longer it played.
And even then, it was Adam Schlesinger who helped to resurrect The Monkess as a recording act, as he shepherded two terrific albums, "Good Times!" (released May 27, 20116) and "Christmas Party" (released October 12, 2018). I am only able to imagine how these projects turned out as well as they did because not only were Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork (before his passing) and the late Davy Jones reunited in great voice and instrumentation throughout, the albums each featured songwriting work from XTC'S Andy Partridge, Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard, Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Neil Diamond and others, including Schlesinger himself.
But some how, it feels as if these projects turned out as well as they did because of Adam Schlesinger's involvement.
It wasn't as if he had to build his musical body of work in this fashion for being a songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist of his skill and caliber, he could've easily created a series of one-man-band albums for years. And yet he didn't. For it feels as if collaboration was the key to Adam Schlesinger. It feels as if collaboration was where he thrived and enjoyed himself the most. Of course, I am speculating as I haven't read very many interviews with him over the years but just looking at his musical history, Schlesinger was a figure who was always working with others and through that joined sense of creation, his musical light shined brightest.
I am typically draw towards members of a band who are possibly seen as the "quieter" members. In the case of Adam Schlesinger, he certainly was not a musician who ever called attention to himself. He never was the front-person. He never sang lead vocals. In quite a number of the band photo shoots that I have seen, rarely is he ever placed right up front, often being seen in the back, behind his bandmates.
With Adam Schlesinger, the star was the song itself and through all of the bands, the albums, the variety of projects the songs he wrote and co-wrote were, and will forever remain, directly in the spotlight. But even so, I feel that we need to shine that light upon Adam Schlesinger, now more than ever, so that we all are able to understand that there was a real and immensely talented individual who was genuinely and generously inspired and who honed his craft to create and share a lifetime's worth of superb songs worthy of discovering and treasuring for the remainder of our own lives.
I am fearing that during this unprecedented period in our shared history, we will be experiencing many terrible stories announcing the deaths of the artists we love and have performed their parts in helping to shape who we are while expressing themselves. Adam Schlesinger's death has impacted me profoundly due to the surprising nature of its announcement as well as the extreme relative closeness in his age to my own. But, mostly it is this...
It always hurts when an artist one loves and with whom a connection was made dies. And yes, this one was a painful one indeed and maybe because Adam Schlesinger was an artist who certainly was not remotely finished, who obviously had so much more to say and express and whose body of work always felt so spry, so youthful, so energetic, so filled to the point of overflowing with melody and zestful exuberance. It is music that sounds eternally young, something that would never age and wither but continuously explode with vitality and vibrancy.
It is music that will forever lift me and make me feel so thankful to be alive to hear it.
Thank you, Adam. Thank you.
Yet, a mere two days later, the inevitable sadly arrived. Adam Schlesinger passed away at the age of just 52. He was only one year older than myself.
Certainly, the sheer painfulness of this news is, of course, due to its swiftness and overall suddenness of being revealed to the public. From our end, there was no preparation (and frankly, who knows of how much preparation Schlesinger himself had with his own illness and hospitalization) and so, the news of his passing felt even more immediate, sending us reeling. Secondly, and unavoidably, there is the intense presence of Coronavirus and what it has already wrought. From the aforementioned social distancing and remaining at home, which keeps us all away from each other, as well as the complete lack of any sense of normalcy, with only the horrorshow of the news and the unknown staring us in our collective faces, we are all upended, making the apparent suddenness of Schlesinger's death that much more paramount.
And then, the most important and the obvious, Adam Schlesinger made a profound impact upon my life through his artistry, helping to shape and inspire me with a stunning arsenal of songs and albums that are now cherished and treasured pieces of the very music that has enriched my life.
Tom Hanks' "That Thing You Do!" (1996)
If one did not already know or was not fully aware, the full legacy of Adam Schlesinger encompasses a wider arena than just rock and roll. Yes, he was the man who wrote the irresistible theme song to Writer/Director/Actor Tom Hanks' "That Thing You Do!" (1996), a song that rightfully was nominated for both the 1996 Golden Globes and Academy Awards for Best Original Song. What I did not realize was how much of a musical force he had become both on the stage and television, most notably his roles with composing music for the Tony and Emmy Awards, a Stephen Colbert Christmas special and his Emmy Award winning work as songwriter and Executive Music Producer for "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend."
All of the work and acclaim that the has rightfully received in this area feels more than fitting based upon the musical and lyrical depths he mined through his songwriting as his body of work is filled with exquisite, funny, poignant, heartfelt and undeniably humane short stories, character studies and emotional portraits any of which could be films or episodes of television shows all by themselves.
And you can find them all upon his albums.
FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE
My introduction, and therefore, my subsequent love for the music Adam Schlesinger arrived and remains firmly within the bands in which he made music. With the now defunct but forever exemplary Fountains Of Wayne, the band he shared with co-songwriter/singer/guitarist Chris Collingwood, guitarist Jody Porter and drummer Brian Young, Adam Schlesinger first grabbed my attention...although it did take a little time.
Everything changed for me with the band's second album.
"Utopia Parkway" (released April 6, 1999), the band's first masterpiece, as far as I am concerned, was given to me by a dear friend and neighbor who somehow ended up with two copies, and feeling that it would be somewhere up my alley, relinquished herself of one of those said copies. A glorious power pop song cycle/concept album centered mostly around the teenagers and citizens of the Queens borough in New York felt to me to essentially be the John Hughes film that he never made.
From the restless kids who desire to escape ("Utopia Parkway"), lovestruck boys desperate to impress ("Red Dragon Tattoo," "Denise") or have failed to do so ("Hat And Feet"), and tales of adolescent ennui ("The Valley Of Malls"), romance ("Troubled Times"), rites of passage (the startling "Prom Theme"), ways to pass the time ("Laser Show") and hopes for the future ("It Must Be Summer") plus even more vignettes enraptured me upon the very first listen.
Schlesinger and his bandmates created a work that clearly evoked the storytelling and lyricism of The Kinks, the power pop of the 1970's a la Big Star, The Raspberries, Badfinger and early Cheap Trick, the AOR hard rock swagger and 1980's college rock eclecticism while fitting more than comfortably into the alternative rock of the late 1990's, therefore making a work that is absolutely, resplendently timeless.
Schlesinger demonstrated an especially high level of songwriting craft that allowed Fountains of Wayne to bash it out (the track "Go Hippie" outdoes Oasis as their own game) as much as they could break your heart with a clear-eyed, deeply felt bittersweet wistfulness that can suddenly produce a lump in the throat and leaving us all unsure as to how quickly it has happened, as evidenced by the album closer "The Senator's Daughter," which sounds like the melancholy of a setting sun, or in the case of this album, could be the sound of fading youth itself.
"Utopia Parkway" remains one of those albums that feels undeniably perfect for Spring time when the growing warmth of the temperatures and the re-awakening of the Earth is juxtaposed with the endings contained in every school year cycles with all manner of conclusions and farewells. So specific yet universal inits reach and scope, Adam Schlesinger's mastery of melody and wit, angst and comedy, roar and grace captivated me and with only one album, I was in the palm of his hand.
And to think, he and Fountains Of Wayne would only go on to raise their own bar even higher.
While teenagers still run around the edge of the album, the band expanded its reach to include a collective of emotionally and financially struggling young adults and even further into the lives of people in desperate middle aged crises all attempting to make sense of their lives. While the band rocks at possibly their heaviest ("Mexican Wine," Supercollider," "Bought For A Song," "Little Red Lights"), there is a greater existential ache at work in otherwise energetic songs like "Bright Future In Sales," "No Better Place" and "Hey Julie," and when the band allows itself to fall directly into the pain, we end up with absolute songwriting diamonds like the wondrous "Hackensack" and the sadly swaying "Hailey's Waitress."
And even then, there is even more as the band diverges a bit from any sense of conceptual narrative and expands it musical scope into the glittering folk of "Valley Winter Song," the country bar-stool lament of "Hung Up On You," the lazy day lounge of teenage and adult hedonism in "Fire Island," the bouncy good vibes of "Peace And Love" and in two of their finest songs period, we have the transcendent "All Kinds Of Time," during which we experience a sense of time travel in the mind of a teenage football star in the climactic moments of the big game. and album closer "Yours And Mine," a pure grace note of a complete love story all told in a hair over one minute.
It is an album where every moment works, the copious jokes land firmly, the stories beg to be re-heard instantly and every single multi-layered melody sticks like glue to your brain and heart. If "Utopia Parkway" was the masterpiece then "Welcome Interstate Managers" was even better. It was the band's defining statement and Adam Schlesinger's efforts made up a master class of songwriting meant to be studied.
It was during the period of these albums that I had discovered Schlesinger's extracurricular musical activities in two more bands that completely captured my attention once I heard them.
IVY
Ivy, a trio that found Adam Schlesinger joining forces with Andy Chase and vocalist Dominque Durand, allowed him to flex different songwriting muscles, creating songs and albums that veered directly into the very type literate Europop that I had already adored with Prefab Sprout, The Go-Betweens and Everything But The Girl but also evoking that nostalgic sense of the not quite reachable and dreamlike foreign romantic elsewhere.
TINTED WINDOWS
Adam Schlesinger surprised and wowed me again with the formation of Tinted Windows, a supergroup made up of frequent collaborator songwriter/guitarist James Iha (The Smashing Pumpkins, A Perfect Circle), former Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos and lead singer Taylor Hanson (Hanson). It was a band created from unlikely parts but congealed beautifully with an album, the eponymously titled "Tinted Windows" (released April 21, 2009) that certainly did not re-invent the wheel but just got down to the basics of excellent vocals, loud guitars, banging drums, strong melodics and first and foremost, crisp, clear power pop songwriting resulting in an album that grew in strength the longer it played.
But some how, it feels as if these projects turned out as well as they did because of Adam Schlesinger's involvement.
I am typically draw towards members of a band who are possibly seen as the "quieter" members. In the case of Adam Schlesinger, he certainly was not a musician who ever called attention to himself. He never was the front-person. He never sang lead vocals. In quite a number of the band photo shoots that I have seen, rarely is he ever placed right up front, often being seen in the back, behind his bandmates.
With Adam Schlesinger, the star was the song itself and through all of the bands, the albums, the variety of projects the songs he wrote and co-wrote were, and will forever remain, directly in the spotlight. But even so, I feel that we need to shine that light upon Adam Schlesinger, now more than ever, so that we all are able to understand that there was a real and immensely talented individual who was genuinely and generously inspired and who honed his craft to create and share a lifetime's worth of superb songs worthy of discovering and treasuring for the remainder of our own lives.
I am fearing that during this unprecedented period in our shared history, we will be experiencing many terrible stories announcing the deaths of the artists we love and have performed their parts in helping to shape who we are while expressing themselves. Adam Schlesinger's death has impacted me profoundly due to the surprising nature of its announcement as well as the extreme relative closeness in his age to my own. But, mostly it is this...
It always hurts when an artist one loves and with whom a connection was made dies. And yes, this one was a painful one indeed and maybe because Adam Schlesinger was an artist who certainly was not remotely finished, who obviously had so much more to say and express and whose body of work always felt so spry, so youthful, so energetic, so filled to the point of overflowing with melody and zestful exuberance. It is music that sounds eternally young, something that would never age and wither but continuously explode with vitality and vibrancy.
It is music that will forever lift me and make me feel so thankful to be alive to hear it.
Thank you, Adam. Thank you.
ADAM SCHLESINGER
REST IN POWER
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