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iTunes Review

Lonely hearts who stay in to watch King of Queens, guys who crush on the lady at the DMV window, people who relocate every few years to escape themselves vs. those who never change a single thing, a Fountains of Wayne album is like a collection of short stories that just happen to have melodies and catchy choruses. They even come with specific names. (That’s Beth Mackenzie watching TV and Yolanda Hayes working the DMV.) Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood write what they know and do so with an informed knowledge of pop music history, so there are Burt Bacharach touches among the early 80s grooves in “Strapped for Cash,” while much late-70s new wave is reborn in the band’s motoring rhythms for “This Better Be Good.”  “Fire in the Canyon” presses country-rock into service. 80s synth-pop takes control of the title track. But the band always begins with the harmony-heavy, guitar-based pop rock that takes the finer points of the Beatles, Raspberries and Squeeze and turns them into contemporary commentary.