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Zero 7
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Traffic And Weather
EMAILPRINTby Fountains Of Wayne
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 29 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Virgin
Release Date: 03 April 2007
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Alternative, Rock
Summary
Band member Adam Schlesinger produced FOW's long-awaited fourth studio album, which follows four years after their breakthrough hit 'Welcome Interstate Managers.'
Also By This Artist: Out-Of-State Plates Welcome Interstate Managers
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Traffic And Weather offers vivid little snapshots of characters and places, but in Schlesinger and Collingswood's hands, a snapshot can tell the whole story.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
The end product is, on the whole, a simply wonderful CD of songs about love, lust, and loneliness.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
Here they fail to provide the elusive novelty follow-up to "Stacy's Mom" but nonetheless invent many dandy new ways not to be in love.
Read Full Review >Billboard
They still pen power-pop tunes so utterly irresistible—"Someone to Love," "This Better Be Good," "Strapped for Cash"—that they deserve to be every bit as ubiquitous at radio as the elements of the album's title. Oh, and they're still brilliant. [2 Apr 2007]
Amazon.com
As usual, the band never takes itself too seriously, crafting melodies around a lively, vigorous cast of characters that practically come to life.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
Matters of love and life dominate the album, as they do all great pop, although there’s a sense that the band is more in on the joke this time out.
Read Full Review >Uncut
Cements FOW's status as the savviest modern-day practitioners of both Beatlesque pop and Steely Dan's cool precision. [Jun 2007, p.94]
Austin Chronicle
Front to back, this 14-song slice of bop-worthy Americana hits the spot like hamburgers and coffee.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times
Record geeks beyond repair, the songwriters still lace the more accessible material here with their trademark wit.
Read Full Review >cokemachineglow
They’re still far and away the best bet for impeccably produced, beach-ready power-pop, and way better than your shitty sounding power-pop band, so excuse them if they seem to harbor no interest in doing anything else.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe
If ‘‘Traffic and Weather,’’ doesn’t as frequently pack the knock-out punch of 2003’s superb ‘‘Welcome Interstate Managers,’’ it still more than holds its own in the fight for pop music that is both catchy and canny.
Read Full Review >Magnet
There's always a surplus of good humor to carry us past the rough patches. [#75, p.98]
All Music Guide
It's sturdy, well-written power pop, but it falls prey to some of the faults of craftsmanlike pop -- mainly, it's possible to hear the craft behind the pop instead of just getting sucked into the sugar rush of the melodies.
Read Full Review >Village Voice
The left-bent, middle-class everymen in these songs are consistently disarming.
Read Full Review >Hartford Courant
The everyday-ness of the songs makes them easily relatable, but, like a commute where traffic and weather happen on the 10s, the album starts to feel routine by the end.
Read Full Review >Prefix Magazine
The perfectly pleasant Traffic and Weather is inarguably diminished returns.
Read Full Review >Spin
It's like an alt-rock adaptation of a John Cheever anthology. [Apr 2007, p.87]
Alternative Press
It's something they've done better before. [May 2007, p.158]
ShakingThrough.net
Without interesting stories to tell, it all feels like an empty-calorie exercise in vapid songcraft.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
After such a lengthy break between records, the disappointing ratio of great-to-crummy songs is a mild surprise. Traffic and Weather could’ve been so much better. [#17, p.84]
The Guardian
There's a feeling that maybe it all comes a little too easily, and perhaps they would be best advised to think harder before committing songs to tape.
Read Full Review >Paste Magazine
The band simply reiterates earlier ideas less interestingly. [Apr 2007, p.54]
Pitchfork
Traffic and Weather finds them treading water in the worst possible way.
Read Full Review >New Musical Express
Their songs are either shitty soft-rock or worse, wink-nudge pastiches like the new-wavey 'Someone To Love'.
Read Full Review >Hot Press
This essentially middle of road noise bears some relation to their past work but lacks any of the grit or charm that made them such a cool little indie band.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
Despite being four years in the making, Traffic and Weather finds Fountains Of Wayne offering more of the same and yet decidedly less, working your nerves to the point where you’ll wonder whether you ever truly liked them in the first place.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 29 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Parco M. gave it a9:
Not the best FOW album ever, but very solid, very enjoyable, and sticks with you, the way true FOW music should.
John R gave it an8:
How corny is '92 Subaru'? Barenaked Ladies heard it and said, "Wow, that's corny. Are they Canadian, too?" Hey, Fountains of Wayne, Ray Davies just called. He heard '92 Subaru' and says he wants his embarrassing '80s period back. Haha, seriously, '92 Subaru' aside, this is song-for-song every bit as satisfying as WIM. There's at least three masterpieces here ('T&W', 'New Routine', 'This Better Be Good'), and the rest is completely listenable and not completely disposable. 'Planet of Weed' is hilarious and kind of sweet -- I don't get the backlash against that song. And, OK, even '92 Subaru' scratches some dark, repressed .38-Special-adoring itch somewhere. Pitchfork hates pop music, that's all I can figure. Anyone who likes pop music will like this album, and like it repeatedly.
Ted R. gave it a9:
Great power pop....songs I can listen to over and over again.
Todd T. gave it a9:
You can let the entire album play and nothing you hear will disappoint you.
Rob You gave it a7:
Not their best, but still pretty strong. "Someone to Love" and "Strapped for Cash" are standouts. I would've given it an 8 if they'd left off "Planet of Weed". I really don't get what crawled up Stylus' and Pitchfork's butts...it's as if they announced around the office "Who hates Fountains of Wayne?", and assigned the review to the most vociferous respondent.
Tom T gave it a9:
Yeah, it does sound a bit the same as the old stuff, but it is old GREAT stuff!!!!
Robert K gave it a9:
FOW is absolutely the best at what they do! This is not their best album, but they have grown as a band....just listen to the title song for proof. The best songs on this album are very good indeed. Buy all of their albums...
