Adam Schlesinger, co-founder of New Jersey power-pop group, Fountains of Wayne and Emmy- and Grammy-winning songwriter for film, television, and theater, died last week from complications related to COVID-19. He was 52. His band was perhaps most famous for writing “Stacey’s Mom”, an instant pop classic about teen sexuality and looked to become a one-hit-wonder. But throughout the years, it released album after album of finely crafted songs that in some cases equaled major US-songwriters. In the same way that Paul Simon captured the seedier parts of American life in tracks such as The Boxer and The Only Living Boy in New York, Adam Schlesinger and fellow songwriter Chris Collingwood, examined the more mundane rhythms of small-town America. A song that best illustrates this is “Hackensack”, named after a small town in New Jersey, where the protagonist laments a teenage crush and croons that she will always be welcome when she comes back home from LA. Of course, she never does.
