×
Skip to main content

Fountains of Wayne Return to the Billboard Charts After Adam Schlesinger’s Death

The band’s co-founder, bassist & songwriter died April 1 due to coronavirus complications.

Streams of Fountains of Wayne’s catalog of songs jumped significantly in the days since the death of one of its founding members, songwriter and bassist Adam Schlesinger, on April 1 due to complications from the coronavirus.

From April 1-4, the band’s music earned 3.5 million U.S. on-demand streams, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. That marked a 400% increase over the previous four days (March 28-31), during which the group’s streams numbered 692,000.

Unsurprisingly, Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom,” which Schlesinger co-wrote with frontman Chris Collingwood, led the way in overall streams during that period. In fact, nearly half — 1.7 million — of the band’s streams April 1-4 were of the song, up 184% from 604,000 streams from March 28-31.

Related

“Radiation Vibe” followed, with 128,000 streams from April 1-4. A far more significant bump than that of “Stacy’s Mom,” the song’s streams were up 1,874% from the previous four days’ count of 7,000.

“Stacy’s Mom” marked Fountains of Wayne’s only appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at No. 21 on the Nov. 15, 2003, chart, while “Radiation Vibe” marked the band’s first-ever chart appearance, peaking at No. 14 on the Alternative Songs airplay tally in January 1997.

On a digital downloads front, Fountains of Wayne earned 4,000 downloads from April 1-4, a boost of 1,560% over March 28-31. “Stacy’s Mom” again paced all tracks with 2,000 downloads in that period.

Related

The gains land Fountains of Wayne onto multiple Billboard charts dated April 11 (for which the tracking week for sales and streams ended April 2). “Stacy’s Mom” debuts on the Hot Rock Songs tally, where older songs are allowed to chart if in the top half of points and with a meaningful reason for their return, at No. 12, and the song also appears on Rock Digital Song Sales at No. 11.

The Wonders’ “That Thing You Do,” the song from the film of the same name about the fictional rock band that was written by Schlesinger, also earned a bump in streams, with 508,000 total for the song from April 1-4, up 902% from 51,000 between March 28-31.

Schlesinger died April 1 after a brief battle with the coronavirus, one of multiple people in the music industry to die from complications of the global pandemic. He was 52.