Loathsomely Slick Power-Pop Band Become Loathed By... Former Devotees?

Appallingly polished corporate rockers/Cars wannabees Fountains of Wayne (they of the "Stacey's Mom" uber-hit and accompanying MILF-friendly video) have turned longtime admirers, into reluctant first-time haters. The Village Voice's Rob Harvilla has joined the tide of negative voices swimming against FOW's latest radio-ready jingle-fest, Traffic and Weather. Reviewers are collectively feeling the same: "We should expect much, much more from pop music than this kind of bullshit," Pitchfork railed; Former-fans at aspiring authoritarian-zine, Stylus make it personal, ". . . you'll wonder whether you ever truly liked them in the first place."

As much as we can't help but slyly smile with schadenfreude-ish told-you-so satisfaction, in the interest of principled fairness, we do acknowledge that Fountains songwriter (and least annoying member of this group) Adam Schlesinger is an important figure in pop music soundtracks. Schlesinger was the force behind the cloying, Mersey-beat-like songs in the ingratiating Tom Hank-helmed '50s pop group drama "That Thing You Do!" (the FOW bassist even earned himself the estimable title of Academy Award nominee for his effort).

Schlesinger composed and produced several slick and soulless original songs for the 2007 film about slick and soulless pop singers, "Music and Lyrics," but as he notes to the Onion A/V Club, "score by _____insert your name here_____," doesn't necessarily mean it's so.

"I tried to get [my name] taken [off the soundtrack title], because I only wrote three songs. There were a lot of other songwriters involved," he told the well-intentioned nerdlingers at the AV/Club. "It was just this crazy pre-negotiated [thing],...I was supposed to do the score... and the little bits of incidental piano music... I didn't even do. So it was just one of those movie-biz things where at the 11th hour when it was [being completed], the credits were already in there, and I actually went to the director and said, 'You should probably take that down, because it's wrong.' And they said it couldn't be done."

Ahh, that's showbiz, people! As much as Schlesinger's day-job is a shameless irritant, his Brill-Building-like workmanship is admirable and has been showcased in movies like, "Robots," "There's Something About Mary," "Josie And The Pussycats," "Art School Confidential," "Two Weeks Notice" and plenty of others.

Watch: Neil Sedaka - "Calendar Girls" [onstage with Fountains of Wayne at Joe's Pub 5/2, YouTube]