RIP Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne

[HappyCamper]

Well, shit.

[Benny Profane]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...5N32KGQB6DV5XI

"Adam Schlesinger, the prolific singer-songwriter and co-founder of rock band Fountains of Wayne, died Tuesday at age 52 after complications from coronavirus, according to multiple reports.

On Tuesday, his family confirmed that he had been hospitalized for covid-19 and was on a ventilator. His attorney told Billboard he had been in the hospital for a week.

A New York City native, Schlesinger racked up many accolades for his music over the years, including Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for writing the title track to the 1997 film “That Thing You Do!" The song was chosen out of 300 other submissions when the movie’s writer and director, Tom Hanks, put out a call for a “Beatles-esque” track that could carry the film.

Fountains of Wayne’s biggest hit, the tongue-in-cheek “Stacy’s Mom,” earned a Grammy nomination in 2003 for duo/group pop vocal and helped land the band in the best new artist category. Schlesinger would go on to win a Grammy for best comedy album in 2009 for his work on Stephen Colbert’s “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!”

Over the past several years, he became a fan-favorite writer on CW musical dramedy “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” and won the Emmy Award last year for original music and lyrics for the song “Antidepressants Are So Not A Big Deal.” A Tony Award nominee, he was also well-known for his work in the Broadway world, and previously won two Emmys for the opening and closing numbers of the Tonys broadcast.

[Flounder]

This sucks. 52 and no underlying conditions. Saw he went on a ventilator yesterday. Met him once at the studio he owned with James Iha. He was a producer on a buddies album that was being recorded there. Super nice, very mellow. He didn't partake in any of our shenanigan, seemed pretty straight laced.

[retirwntm]

I still remember driving thru Wayne NJ and seeing the fountains. I almost immediately got it. Seemed like a pretty cool dude. I mean, stacys mom was a serious MILF.


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[MultiVerse]

[bobz]

I mainly know him for his work on the brilliant, vastly under-appreciated (rock-bottom viewership ratings all the way through its 4-season run) Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, for which he was one of the lead songwriters. Here's a song he wrote for the show, and won an Emmy for:

[Benny Profane]

This song just says NYC/Vermont winter to me every time I hear it. RIP.

[Captain Awesome]

"That Thing You Do!" is my favorite movie. I defend it by saying that while I know that it's not a great movie, it's a nearly perfect movie, in that it's written to exactly the right level of detail (and after seeing the deleted scenes, I think that's even more true. They add a lot of depth to certain characters, but they wouldn't have improved the movie, which I think is the right reason to leave them out).

That title track is an amazing pastiche of 60's post-Brit-Invasion pop that really nails it (the whole soundtrack really delivers on its premise). Schlessinger wrote it, and Mike Viola (Candy Butchers) laid down a great vocal. A believable 60s-sounding hit. A good friend of mine who lives in LA had regular interaction with him, writing music for various things, and said he could be a bit prickly, but there's no question the dude had an ear for pop music and could write friggin' great hooks. I also loved a lot of the FoW stuff, but that track for the movie would have been enough for me to hold his songwriting as a very special talent.

This was the first COVID-19 death that really made me think about the amount of talent we'll likely lose (well, this and Terrence McNally) long before their time.

PS - I just saw a commercial for Crank Yankers, and remembered that he wrote/sang that, too. Not as impressive as his other work, but just as catchy...