Atlantic

One of my jobs requires me to take down the addresses of people; seeing as how NUB is based in a town that houses a major university, I deal with students from all over the country. I don't get much more than a nod or a shrug if I mention to a Minnesotan my visit to Duluth. But a Long Islander's eyes will light up when I recount the summer of my internship at Newsday there in 1996. Apart from the citizenry of Chicago's suburbs, I've never really noted such a sense of regional community as I have in my dealings with people from Long Island. Someone from Huntington or Babylon, LI, knows exactly where Yaphank or Holtsville are, yet three-quarters of the non-student population in this town aren't likely familiar with the small town that Lane and I grew up in, even though it's less than an hour from here (for the record, Shoals). It's odd, and a little disheartening.

Sociogeography lesson aside, the New York quartet Fountains of Wayne's second LP, Utopia Parkway, would be a perfect soundtrack to life in that sprawling suburban wasteland just east of NYC. It's a little sarcastic, a little cynical, yet perversely fun.

Every pore of this 45-minute opus oozes with melody (no surprise, since Chris Collingwood, chief songwriter here, penned the jangly pop classic "That Thing You Do" for the 1996 Tom Hanks flick of the same title). From the delightfully Napoleonic opener "Utopia Parkway" ("I got it made/I got it down/I am the king of this island town") to "Denise, the last great put-the-top-down cruising song in a half-century built around our love affair with the internal combustion engine, this is an incredibly catchy record.

And they're not too good for schlock or cheese, either - the harmonies of "Laser Show" recall that Diesel hit of the early '80s, "Sausalito Summer Nights", while the title "Prom Theme" captures the feel of that subtly pessimistic ballad ("And soon we'll say goodbye/Then we'll work until we die").

Simply put, Utopia Parkway strikes a blow for guitar pop, a triumph that alternates between sugary and biting. If ye of little faith have lost sight of what a definitive power pop record sounds like these days, this album is a stop-the-presses proclamation.