Fountains of Wayne was at a low point following the under-performance of 1999's Utopia Parkway, which led to them getting dropped by their then-label, Atlantic Records. The period when they were without a label was particularly hard on lead singer and co-songwriter Chris Collingwood. According to bassist and co-songwriter Adam Schlesinger in 2005, "I think Chris felt especially bummed during that whole period. He just sort of felt that we worked for a really long time and it didn’t really add up to anything. And it didn’t seem like the future had much in the way of promise. Chris wasn’t writing a lot. I don’t know if it was the whole thing of being in between labels but more just the whole thing of putting all that time into it and feeling it tapering off. Eventually Schlesinger convinced Collingwood to start writing and recording "because it was the only way that I could get Chris to want to be a part of it. I was just like, ‘Hey look, let’s just go in and do like we have always done when we were 18. If we have a song we like, we’ll just record it and eventually we’ll see if we have an album." By mid-2001, Fountains of Wayne had discussed plans for a new album. Meanwhile, the band got in touch with several prospective labels, but balked at their insistence that the band record demos for consideration to be signed. According to Schlesinger, "We talked to a bunch of record companies before we had anything recorded. And everybody was like, ‘Well we really like your band but we need to hear what you’re working on. Do you have any demos or anything?’ And we didn't want to make demos. We just found that kind of demeaning. But we were sort of at the point where we could have gone and made demos. And it was like, you know, for God's sake we’ve been doing this so long, we’re not going to make a demo tape. We’re just gonna go make a record and that's what we did."
Recording
Fountains of Wayne commenced recording their new album without any label support. According to drummer Brian Young, "Adam put up the money to do the recording, we converged in a studio in upstate New York, and we didn’t know what to expect. We all showed up with basically nothing. I had a stick bag, and the engineer mentioned to me, 'You know, it would’ve been a lot cooler if you showed up with nothing at all.' We were kind of going through the studio basement, looking for gear and taping stands together. It was funny." Once the album was finished, Fountains of Wayne signed to S-Curve Records, whose executive vice president, Steve Yegelwel, had first signed the band when he was working as an A&R at Atlantic Records. Prior to the album's release, the band went on tour in November 2002 to road test the new material and build up fan anticipation for the new record.
Release and reception
"Stacy's Mom" was released to radio on May 20, 2003. The album was met with commercial success and favorable reviews. Review aggregating website Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on 24 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Covers
In 2009, Katy Perry performed a cover of "Hackensack" on MTV Unplugged. In 2011, the band The Wonder Years performed a cover of "Hey Julie" for the charity compilation album, Vs. the Earthquake.
