On this episode, we take a deep dive into the third album by the power-pop band, Fountains of Wayne: Welcome Interstate Managers.  After two critically acclaimed, but in the eyes of the Atlantic Records commercially underperforming LPs, the label dropped them. The band shopped around for a label, but with little success, As a result, Welcome Interstate Managers. was self-financed. The record saw the songwriting duo of Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood crafting songs about the alienation and working day travails of young adulthood. The album spawned a Grammy-nominated hit “Stacy's Mom”, and also garnered them a “Best New Artist” nod as well. As long-time fans of the band already knew, “Stacy’s Mom”  only scratched the surface of what the band had to offer.  Without the backing of a major label, the band crafted an LP of 16 pop tunes containing some of the most deftly written funny,  heartbreaking, and poignant lyrics on just about any pop album made before or since.Sadly, the world lost Adam Schlesinger, arguably one of the best, and certainly one of the most prolific songwriters of the 21st Century, to Covid in 2020.