- Record Label: S-Curve Records
- Release Date: Jun 10, 2003
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Welcome Interstate Managers is a watershed accomplishment, surpassing the band's debut in terms of whimsical pop songcraft, lyrical astuteness and blind melodic ambition.
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BlenderA nearly flawless collection of hummable overtures. [#17, p.138]
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SpinThe lyrics explore suburban everyguyism, but the choruses explode like fireworks over a church picnic. [Jul 2003, p.109]
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Not only their crowning achievement to date but also one of the year's finest albums, period.
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Their tunes have always seemed too facile, but seven years divided by three albums doesn't equal glib, especially with those years deepening their lyricism rather than their cynicism.
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Entertainment WeeklyParkway didn't take Fountains of Wayne to the charts, but let's hope the Interstate will. [13 Jun 2003, p.92]
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The group encapsulates the Atlantic seacoast just as 1980s twangers the dBs embodied the South and the Beach Boys captured California.
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Carved into the glittering surface of its obsessively polished pop jewels are the biographies of horny schoolkids, laid-off airline pilots, aspiring salesmen reeling from scotch and soda -- in short, credible characters sculpted with music.
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Welcome Interstate Managers is stone-cold great.
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Welcome Interstate Managers is the welcome aural equivalent of a great collection of short stories, each song offering a little snippet from a life, and presenting a range of characters to fill this musical spectrum.
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Q MagazineSuch moments of wry genius make a very special record. [Oct 2003, p.104]
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This is exactly the album that should be blasting from car radios all summer.
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Even at their most piercingly observant, Collingwood and Schlesinger never lose their warmth for their subjects, and their lack of condescension comes through in the music, as well.
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The record is sprawling and beautiful, a genuine pop masterpiece through and through.
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You'll love it.
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This time, the one flaw may simply be that the group doesn't know when to say when.
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For people friendly to western pop traditions, there is little or nothing in the music to dislike, and lots to sing along with.
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MojoCelebrates the little people with full powerpop majesty. [Jul 2003, p.108]
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No doubt, the music that falls between the Beatles and Bacharach extremes suffers slightly from adherence to formula, but few can boast such immediately memorable melodies. What surprises, though, is the care that they take with the lighter side of their music.
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The secret to Fountains of Wayne's genius is the ability to infuse personality into a typically personalityless segment of America, making sadness and mundanity both interesting and deceptively fun.
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Despite its obviously short shelf-life, Welcome Interstate Managers is delicious power-pop, unpretentious, loose and perfect for teenagers driving down to Ocean City for the weekend.
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Rolling StoneThe songs are more laid-back than the band's earlier work, but they're still catchy enough to rattle around your brain for days. [12 Jun 2003, p.94]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 73 out of 91
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Mixed: 6 out of 91
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Negative: 12 out of 91
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Sep 24, 2010
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Jun 1, 2012
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Apr 26, 2012