Welcome Interstate Managers, Fountains Of Wayne.

Tyler: Welcome Interstate Managers rocketed Fountains Of Wayne to the top of the power-pop tower, “Stacy’s Mom” and all. That song gave the band a serious boost, as well as some eventual backlash, but it’s the whole of the album that secured their positive place near or at the top of a lot of lists. From opener “Mexican Wine” to the concluding “Yours And Mine”—terrific final song, Oasis pastiche “Elevator Up,” qualifies as an era-indicative bonus track—Welcome Interstate Managers distills youthful ennui, fueled by lingering high school crushes, or stinging breakups, bad jobs and dismissive diner servers and quietly-tense Sunday mornings. There are burbles of righteous joy placed carefully here—most notably the ebullient “Hey Julie,” with its loving title character offering understanding and backrubs—but the album title and, especially, “Bright Future In Sales” serve as direct shots at the drudgier elements of so many modern occupations. Harried travel, heavy drinking, corporate meetings left and right. Exquisite executive power pop is frequently the name of the game.

There are breaks in the narrative—Welcome Interstate Managers flirts with being a concept album, but has too many asides to qualify. “All Kinds Of Time” is sung from the perspective of a quarterback in action, while the LP’s crowning achievement depicts not the workplace, but a northeastern U.S. left melancholy by falling snow and the seasonal blues. “Valley Winter Song” strikes me every time I hear it, even in the deathly days of humid summers spent many miles from the northeast. There’s something cozy in it, and it’s by far my favorite song from an album full of terrific work.

Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood steered Fountains Of Wayne creatively, and richly-rewarded “That Thing You Do!” songwriter Schlesinger put up his own funds to record this album. The brilliant pairing would later dissolve, wounded by Collingwood’s struggles with alcohol—his retreat from co-direction led to the Schlesinger showcase Traffic And Weather, an album with some terrific songs millstoned by tracks a bit too cutesy—and an overarching divide between the two principals. The band’s final album, Sky Full Of Holes, has its own pleasures, but nothing in the wake of Welcome Interstate Managers matched its mighty incarnation of lightning in a bottle. Schlesinger was a victim of Covid in its earliest days, so there will be no reunion, no opportunity to approach such heights again. No matter. With Welcome Interstate Managers, as well as the pleasures of their eponymous debut and, especially, lively sophomore release Utopia Parkway, Fountains Of Wayne cemented their rightful inclusion in the rock-pop pantheon.

Future Me Hates Me, The Beths.

Norman: Rock n’ roll has a lot of subgenres. I am amenable to most of them, but like everyone else I have my preferences. There are subgenres I enjoy even if I know that the band isn’t really that good. Power pop is that genre for me. Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, Cheap Trick, Superdrag, Matthew Sweet, Weezer, Todd Rundgren. It’s just ear candy to me. It’s all about simple hooks, glorious melodies, and dark, often complex lyrics underneath the sheen of catchiness. 

The Beths, a band from New Zealand, are a newcomer to the genre, but already, after only four albums, they have entered my personal power pop pantheon. Are they catchy? Box checked. Are they guitar hook driven? Box checked. Are the lyrics appropriately dark and brooding? Box checked. What makes them unique in the power pop world is their rhythm section. Tristan Deck’s drum playing works at punk level speed, adding a busy and bouncy element to their songs. Benjamin Sinclair’s bass keeps the propulsion going. The lead singer and founder, Elizabeth Stokes, however, is the true centerpiece. This lady has songwriting chops! Her lyrics are clever, literate, and self-deprecating to the max. 

Their debut record, Future Me Hates Me, and their third one, Expert in a Dying Field, are the best of their efforts, and choosing between them was a flip of the coin. I’m hoping these four will continue making music well into my 70s. 

Favorite Tracks: “Future Me Hates Me,” “Little Death,” “Whatever”

Evergreen, Michigan Rattlers.

Tyler: Loom’s history buff pal turned me onto Evergreen, and I’m in his debt for the introduction. The album has come on in recent months like a major league prospect making good despite years of minor league tread. Michigan Rattlers released the record all the way back in 2018, and I never knew of either until ’24. It is not lightly that I include such a fresh discovery in this feature’s heady company, but, as in romance, sometimes with music you just know. There isn’t a single song on Evergreen that I don’t love. They’re lived-in, durable tunes, clever and heartfelt, and so much more than easy on the ear, even as they do sound great. It’s country and Midwestern, and it’s as approachably warm as the best of that genre and region.

God’s Favorite Customer, Father John Misty.

Norman: Josh Tillman (or, as we know him, Father John Misty) is one of the strangest musical acts of the new century. Started as a solo artist under the name J. Tillman. Became the drummer for Fleet Foxes for a little while and then quit to begin the Father John Misty project. I got the chance to see him on tour for his first album, Fear Fun, in which he owned the stage like a master and even played a not bad cover of “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” He quickly rose to stardom high enough to get on Saturday Night Live, where he debuted one of the most ridiculous opening lyrics of my life: “Bedding Taylor Swift / Every Night inside the Oculus Rift.” I’ve enjoyed his potent blend of bombast, sarcasm, and elite songwriting. He has long struck me as the rightful heir of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson. And, truly, every generation needs its own version of that. 

His best album is his most relaxed. Which is weird, because it was written in a six week period where he was living in a hotel and dealing with an undisclosed incident that apparently blew his life up. The sarcasm is still there, but somehow this is an intimate album about implosion. I always appreciate a person who can reflect on their failures, heartache, and dismay with tongue firmly planted in cheek. 

Favorite Tracks: “Just Dumb Enough to Try,” “Please Don’t Die,” and “God’s Favorite Customer” 

SOUND & FURY, Sturgill Simpson.

Tyler: Having covered Sturgill Simpson’s rebirth as Johnny Blue Skies earlier in this feature, I must take time to celebrate the man under his given handle. From 2013 through 2021, Simpson released five full-length albums, and two spirited compilations of crackling bluegrass. It’s the fourth of the full-lengths that concerns me here, the tremendous departure from prior form that is 2019’s SOUND & FURY.

The three LPs predating SOUND & FURY bridged gaps between rip-roaring outlaw country and frequently-pensive psychedelia, but the release of S&F plunged Simpson’s listeners into precisely-arranged chaos, synth flourishes and cosmic licks, careening from hook to hook to hook, dark as all hell, heavy as concrete but supersonically invigorating. I didn’t know what to make of this album upon first listen, immersed as I’d been in the rest of the Sturgill catalog, but now it’s my must-have of the seven. There’s grace throughout all of Simpson’s work, and I swoon for more traditionally luminous tracks like, say, “Panbowl,” to name one of so many. But SOUND & FURY fires me up even when it eases up on the throttle. It’s a thrill, and it at high volume may or may not have inspired me in getting pulled over for speeding a few weeks ago. That right there is proof enough to queue up the LP and let it rip.

Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem.

Norman: In the famous words of Phil Collins, I can’t dance. My body coordination is strange. Attempting to match up certain moves with certain parts of a song turns out to be an absolute disaster for me. And yet, I can play drums passably. So, I can’t dance, but I love rhythm. Net result: I dance at home when no one else is around. It would look bad to anyone who managed to catch a glimpse through the window, but I’m having myself a time. 

What does this have to do with anything? Well, when I dance alone in my house, I love to dance to LCD Soundsystem. Slick grooves, big synths, and great hooks. This band is the hipster dance band and I was a hipster once back in Chicago, so it fits. 

LCD Soundsystem has put out four full albums. There were three I could have chosen. I’ve opted for Sound of Silver over This is Happening and American Dream not necessarily because it is exponentially better than those two, but because everything else being equal, Sound of Silver has one of my absolute favorite songs of all time on it. The fourth track, “Someone Great” is the danciest song you’ll ever hear about the death of a great friend. Over those massive synths, fun be boop noises, and pulsating drums, you get James Murphy ripping off some of the most affecting lyrics of my adult life. I’ve never lost one of my great friends yet, but when I do I’ll be thinking of these words. 

Alright, that’s SAD. But you can dance to it. 

At any rate, Sound of Silver is packed with a bunch of songs that aren’t about a great friend’s death. There is one song, “All My Friends,” that’s about hanging out with friends. “North American Scum” is a weirdly petty and self-conscious song about taking pride in being from North America. And “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” is exactly what the title suggests: a love letter to the city with a few bones to pick. 

Favorite Tracks: “Someone Great,” “Us v Them,” “North American Scum”

Till The Sun Turns Black, Ray LaMontagne.

Tyler: Ray LaMontagne’s “Empty,” the second track on his second album, leaves my heart so beautifully haunted. I’ve attempted love in my 42 years, never married, sometimes attached, currently happily so, and “Empty” wholly and utterly embodies the guilty exhaustion of unwilling solitude within a coupling, some involuntary retreat away from a lover who may nonetheless be a perfect match. Giving yourself to another person is hard, it’s hard work, and the yearning we feel in youth, fueled by romantic film and music and all manner of art, does not prepare you for the proper effort it takes to both build and maintain real romantic love. In “Empty” we hear the most trying, most painful of those strains. When I listen to it, and I listen at least once every little while, I think of the more tortured moments in my past relationships, as well as the possibly more internally challenging world of appreciating the right person if you’re lucky and they do wander into your life. “I never learned to count my blessings,” sings LaMontagne. “I choose instead to dwell in my disasters.” Success doesn’t scar the way failure does. I give and owe my partner every bit of myself that I can, but even then at times I wonder, as does LaMontagne in this song’s refrain, “Will I always feel this way, so empty, so estranged.” I’m a person of privilege who’s lived a comparatively cushy material life. Even in that providence, however, I stumble, or rage straight into, universal emotional struggles as described here. “Empty” isn’t the only track on Till The Sun Turns Black. There are eleven; they are all worthy and very regularly gorgeous. There are ballads, there are meditations, there’s a bumping R&B ode to getting back home to one’s lover. There’s also “Empty.” It elevates everything around it. It’s a masterpiece, and the album around it does the hard work supporting it.

I’ve described one track at length here, too, my own personal hall of famer, and LaMontagne has such a gift for songcraft that maybe you’ll find your own, a different selection, that hits you where you are. Maybe you’ll find one, listening through the LP, and it will make you feel, as “Empty” contrarily does, restored and full of life. We look into the past, and also the darker portions of us, so that we appreciate the present and our better selves, as well as the loved ones around us. Here in November of 2025, American democracy is on life support, and I still don’t know how to do my part. But I’m making moves on my own micro level to better prepare me for coming days. I don’t always feel so empty, so estranged. I appreciate my life; I love my lady. If I need a reminder, and often I do, Ray is here to sing me back home. After all, “Empty” also makes time for a beautiful scene of love made within the inimitable fall of rain on leaves. That’s the good stuff right there. There are some things still to cherish in all this.

Among the Leaves, Sun Kil Moon.

Norman: Is there anything more pretentious, unrelatable, and annoying than a “woe is me I went on tour” album? Probably not. Many artists have tried to capture the difficulties and emotional strain of constant travel, the need to perform, and exhaustion of touring. In a lot of ways, the subject matter would lend itself better to a novel or maybe a movie. But musicians, like any other artist, will draw from their personal experiences to make their art. 

Sun Kill Moon (Mark Kozelek, formerly of Red House Painters) made the only such tour album I can stand. It manages to be mundane, morose, and beautiful all at the same time. There are songs on this album that work literally as checklists of cities he visited on tour (“UK Blues 1 & 2”). Other songs recount on the road romantic encounters (“The Moderately Talented Yet Attractive Young Woman vs. The Exceptionally Talented Yet Not So Attractive Middle Aged Man”). Whatever the case, this is an album about not just the passing nature of the road, but the ephemeral nature of all life. But what makes Among the Leaves work so well for me is that Kozelek isn’t always committed to the road. The album’s genius is in it’s ability to create these lovely, passing vignettes. In “Song for Richard Callopy” he sings about the death of the guy who fixes his guitars. In “Not Much Rhymes With Everything’s Perfect At All Time” he wonders how a person can be a proper poet without suffering a little. The album just simply moves from one thing to the next, surprising the listener with each turn. 

Recorded mostly by himself on a nylon string guitar, Among the Leaves was made with a sense of urgency and no looking back. Some could accuse it of being a little bloated (and at 17 tracks and 73 minutes of music, it probably is), but I don’t really care. Each time I put it on I feel like I’m reading a great autobiography. 

Favorite Tracks: “Sunshine in Chicago,” “Red Poison,” and “Track Number 8”

Turn On The Bright Lights, Interpol.

Tyler: The dark possibility for nocturnal good and bad, the kind that comes so easily within a city, lives in the ringing, propulsive sound of Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights. Quite a few years after the album’s 2002 release, I finally gave it the time it deserves, and my lateness to the game lent the music something it would have lacked otherwise. I hear my twenties in Turn On The Bright Lights, in gauzy smears of lived Chicago memories, and flickering remnants of long-abandoned New York dreams. There are all-nighters in these songs, and not just the sort that leave one perspiring regret. Crashing on a couch only sounds reassuring when you’re under the influences of intoxicants and waning early-A.M. momentum, and Interpol thread that needle, turning an absurdist offer into a chorus one could dare call heartwarming. You might have gotten after it hard tonight, and perhaps a brutal sun-fired headache awaits you in some hours’ time. But, for now, rest easy. As the song goes, “We have 200 couches where you can sleep tonight.”

You couldn’t pay me to flip back fifteen years and relive my own personal version of that era. But, however rarely, I can be seduced into romanticizing the long shadow of it all. Nights when fun felt limitless, responsibilities be damned, great thriving swirls of people and music and lust and romance, longing for life but doing everything under power to escape it. There’s merit in those memories, sometimes, and so, sometimes, typically after sunset, I listen to this album. It glows.

Harlem River Blues, Justin Townes Earle.

Norman: In August of 2020, as the pandemic was raging around us, news came out that Justin Townes Earle, country/Americana songwriter extraordinaire, died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl laced cocaine. Drugs were not new to Earle. He had started at the age of 12 and had been on and off them ever since. Though the son of famous outlaw country star Steve Earle, Justin had lived what you might call a “hard life.” There’s something about his voice that tells you he has actually been there before. 

His crown jewel is 2010’s Harlem River Blues, a collection of 10 perfectly crafted songs about New York City, heartbreak, and recovery. The genius of Earle’s work is that it sounds like it could have been written decades ago, but at the same time he’s reframing what it means to be a “railroad man” by telling the story of someone who drives the MTA trains. Fun fact: Jason Isbell plays on this album!

Country music, at least in its most popular forms, is absolute trash. I wish we had more artists like Earle (or Isbell or Sturgill Simpson or Tyler Childers) to carry the torch of what country music can be. For now, we have their records. I know I’ll be returning to Harlem River Blues for years to come. 

Favorite Tracks: “Harlem River Blues,” “Workin’ for the MTA,” “Rogers Park.”

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