"Stacy's Mom" is a song by American
rock band
Fountains of Wayne
Fountains of Wayne was an American rock band that formed in New York City in 1995. The band included founding members Chris Collingwood, Adam Schlesinger, Jody Porter, and Brian Young. They released five albums from 1996 to 2011 before e ...
. It is the third track on their third studio album, ''
Welcome Interstate Managers
''Welcome Interstate Managers'' is the third studio album by the American rock band Fountains of Wayne. It was released by S-Curve Records on June 10, 2003. The album contains the power pop single "Stacy's Mom," which reached number 21 on the U ...
'', and was released to radio as the album's first single on May 19, 2003, through
S-Curve Records and
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldw ...
. "Stacy's Mom" was written by bassist
Adam Schlesinger
Adam Lyons Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – April 1, 2020) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was a key songwriting contrib ...
and vocalist
Chris Collingwood
Chris Collingwood (born October 3, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter, and artist. He is best known as the former lead vocalist and founding member of the power pop band Fountains of Wayne.
Life and career
Collingwood was born in Britain an ...
, both of whom produced the song alongside Mike Denneen. Its subject matter was inspired by a friend of Schlesinger's when he was young who was attracted to Schlesinger's grandmother. It is a
power pop
Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and ...
song with which the group hoped to emulate the sound of American rock band
the Cars
The Cars were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the New wave music, new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), ...
.
"Stacy's Mom" reached number 21 on the US
''Billboard'' Hot 100, becoming the band's highest-charting hit in the United States. Additionally, the song peaked within the top 10 in Ireland and the top 20 in the United Kingdom and Australia. The single was certified
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
by the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...
for sales of over 500,000 copies, and it was nominated for a
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...
for
Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals. The song was accompanied with a
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...
in which model
Rachel Hunter
Rachel Hunter (born 8 September 1969) is a New Zealand model, actress and the host of Imagination Television's ''Rachel Hunter's Tour of Beauty''. She has appeared on several magazine covers, including '' Vogue'', ''Elle'', ''Rolling Stone'', ...
plays the titular role. "Stacy's Mom" was the only mainstream hit by Fountains of Wayne.
Background
Authorship of "Stacy's Mom" is credited to
Chris Collingwood
Chris Collingwood (born October 3, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter, and artist. He is best known as the former lead vocalist and founding member of the power pop band Fountains of Wayne.
Life and career
Collingwood was born in Britain an ...
and
Adam Schlesinger
Adam Lyons Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – April 1, 2020) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was a key songwriting contrib ...
; in practice, the two songwriters wrote independently, and agreed to credit both writers on all Fountains of Wayne songs regardless of the actual author. In interviews, Schlesinger took responsibility for the song.
Stylistically it is
power pop
Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and ...
and
pop-punk
Pop punk (or punk pop) is a rock music genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop. It is defined for its emphasis on classic pop songcraft, as well as adolescent and anti- suburbia themes, and is distinguished from other pu ...
. Part of the song's inspiration was a friend with whom Schlesinger had grown up who thought Schlesinger's grandmother was attractive. "One of my best friends, when we were maybe 11 or 12, came to me and announced that he thought my grandmother was hot. And I said, 'Hey, you're stepping over the line,' but at that point in life, I wouldn't put it past anyone," he recalled.
He hoped to strike a balance "between humor and personality" with the song.
In writing the song, he was hoping to take influence from
new wave and power pop music: "I was thinking a little bit about '
Mrs. Robinson' and sonically I was thinking about
the Cars
The Cars were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the New wave music, new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), ...
, a
Rick Springfield
Richard Lewis Springthorpe (born 23 August 1949), known professionally as Rick Springfield, is an Australian-American musician and actor. He was a member of the pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971, then started his solo career with his debu ...
sort of thing." He acknowledged that stylistically, the song "owes a debt" to the Cars' "
Just What I Needed
"Just What I Needed" is a song by American rock band The Cars from their self-titled debut album (1978). The song, which first achieved radio success as a demo, took inspiration from the Ohio Express and the Velvet Underground. The song is sun ...
"; its opening guitar riff is similar.
Cars frontman
Ric Ocasek
Richard Theodore Otcasek (March 23, 1944 – September 15, 2019), known as Ric Ocasek, was an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was the primary co-lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, songwriter, and frontman for the rock ...
thought that the intro was a
sample from "Just What I Needed" but the band says they performed it in the studio and just "got it right."
Chart performance
"Stacy's Mom" debuted on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 the week of October 11, 2003, at number 59, making this their first song to appear on that chart.
It entered the top 40 the week after by moving 21 spots to number 38 and moved nine spots to number 31 on the week of October 25, 2003.
It peaked at number 21 the week of November 21, 2003, and stayed there for two weeks. It stayed on the chart for 17 weeks.
It was one of the first songs to reach the No. 1 spot on the "Most Downloaded Songs" list of the
iTunes Music Store
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
. It reached No. 11 in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
. It was nominated for a
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...
for
Best Vocal Pop Performance at the
2004 awards
4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures.
In mathematics
Four is the smallest c ...
. The single's sales were last estimated at 888,000, according to
Nielsen SoundScan
Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...
, in 2011.
Reception
Richard Harrington of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' dubbed it "nicely naughty."
Ben Greenman, writing for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
'', considered it the "second-catchiest song ever written about a girlfriend's parent," after "Mrs. Robinson".
The song ranks No. 350 on
''Blender'''s ''500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born'' and No. 88 on VH1's ''100 Greatest Songs of the '00s''.
Music video
The
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...
, directed by
Chris Applebaum
Chris Applebaum is a music video director from Los Angeles, California. His videos including Miley Cyrus' '' Party in the U.S.A.'', Usher's ''Dive'', and Demi Lovato's ''Heart Attack''. 30 of his videos have reached #1 on the MTV charts. Apple ...
,
features several comedic scenes illustrating the boy's attempts to get closer to Stacy's mother (
Rachel Hunter
Rachel Hunter (born 8 September 1969) is a New Zealand model, actress and the host of Imagination Television's ''Rachel Hunter's Tour of Beauty''. She has appeared on several magazine covers, including '' Vogue'', ''Elle'', ''Rolling Stone'', ...
). Its premise is around Stacy (Gianna Distenca), whose best friend and love interest (Shane Haboucha) is attracted to her mother, mentioning times she caught his attention: by the pool, receiving a massage on the lawn and during an imaginary strip tease in the dining room. It features several sexual innuendos such as wet dreams and adolescent gratification. By the end of the video, Stacy walks in on her unnamed friend in the bathroom while watching Stacy's mother in the backyard pool. It closes on the door with an "Ocupado" sign hanging from the doorknob and Stacy laughing, possibly flattered by the event believing the friend in question reciprocated her romantic and sexual interests.
"We looked at a lot of treatments and some directors were trying to be kind of arty and subtle with it, but Chris Applebaum went completely for the jugular," said Schlesinger.
Model
Rachel Hunter
Rachel Hunter (born 8 September 1969) is a New Zealand model, actress and the host of Imagination Television's ''Rachel Hunter's Tour of Beauty''. She has appeared on several magazine covers, including '' Vogue'', ''Elle'', ''Rolling Stone'', ...
plays the title role,
which she accepted because she was a fan of the band and the song.
The group had previously hoped to get
Paulina Porizkova
Paulina Porizkova (born Pavlína Pořízková, ; 9 April 1965) is a Swedish model. Born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Sweden, Porizkova became the first Central European woman to appear on the cover of the ''Sports Illustrated'' swimsuit issu ...
(Ocasek's then-wife) for the role.
The clip was shot in Los Angeles in late May 2003.
"It was 7 a.m., and there was Rachel Hunter doing a striptease on the kitchen counter," remembered Schlesinger.
The video was first sent to television in July 2003.
Fountains of Wayne had asked Ocasek to be in the video for the song. Schlesinger explains that while Ocasek claimed that he "politely declined", he actually just never responded to the request. There are several references to the Cars in the video: a license plate reads "I ♥ RIC", a reference to Ocasek; one of the boys in the opening scene has dark hair, sunglasses, and clothes such that he looks like an adolescent version of Ocasek; the trademark
Elliot Easton
Elliot Easton (born Elliot Steinberg, December 18, 1953) is an American guitarist. He played lead guitar and sang backing vocals for The Cars, and his guitar solos are an integral part of the band's music. Easton has also recorded music as a so ...
"bouncing" (at approximately 1:15 into the video) and hairdo as he plays his guitar for the Cars; and the re-creation of a scene from the movie ''
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' is a 1982 American coming-of-age comedy film directed by Amy Heckerling (in her feature directorial debut), from a screenplay by Cameron Crowe, based on his 1981 book ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Sto ...
'', which featured the Cars' "
Moving in Stereo". Further links to the Cars and new wave music are given by the magazine ''Nu Wave'' that is featured in the video, the
Roland Juno-6
The Roland Juno-60 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1982 and 1984. It followed the Juno-6, an almost identical synthesizer released months earlier. The Juno synthesizers introduced Roland's digitally control ...
keyboard (a synthesizer of the 1980s), and the record sleeve showing 'Stacy's Mom' in a car. The video reached No. 1 on both
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
's ''
TRL'' and
VH1
VH1 (originally an initialism of Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network based in New York City and owned by Paramount Global. It was created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, at the time a division of Warner Communic ...
's ''
VSpot Top 20 Countdown''.
Track listings
Australian and European CD single
# "Stacy's Mom" – 3:16
# "Elevator Up" – 4:02
# "
Trains and Boats and Planes" – 3:02
UK CD1 and 7-inch single
# "Stacy's Mom" – 3:16
# "Trains and Boats and Planes" – 3:02
UK CD2
# "Stacy's Mom" – 3:16
# "Trains and Boats and Planes" – 3:02
# "Elevator Up" – 4:02
# "Stacy's Mom" (video) – 3:16
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
Bowling for Soup cover
In 2011,
pop punk
Pop punk (or punk pop) is a rock music genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop. It is defined for its emphasis on classic pop songcraft, as well as adolescent and anti- suburbia themes, and is distinguished from other p ...
band
Bowling for Soup
Bowling for Soup (abbreviated as BFS) is an American rock band formed in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1994. The band consists of Jaret Reddick (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Burney (guitar, backing vocals), Gary Wiseman (drums, percussion, backing v ...
released a cover version of "Stacy's Mom" as a B-side to their single "
I've Never Done Anything Like This
"I've Never Done Anything Like This" is the third single from Bowling for Soup's eleventh studio album '' Fishin' for Woos''. The song features guest vocals from Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo. The three-song single was released digitally on Oc ...
".
The cover version came about because the original Fountains of Wayne song was often misattributed to Bowling for Soup. The song was misidentified as a Bowling for Soup song on YouTube and other video sites.
In multiple interviews, Bowling for Soup bandleader
Jaret Reddick
Jaret Ray Reddick is an American musician, singer, songwriter, composer, podcaster and actor, best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Bowling for Soup. As a voice actor, Reddick is known for his work ...
has said that he regularly encountered fans at their concerts who mistakenly thought "Stacy's Mom" was a Bowling for Soup song.
In 2011, they recorded and released a cover version of the song. Reddick said that by finally releasing their own version of the song, "I’ve basically just taken care of a large part of the population that's been wrong for years, and I've made them right."
Alluding to the mistaken identity issue, the cover art for the song release reads: "Finally you can say this is your favorite song by BFS and not look like an idiot!"
Bowling for Soup has since made the song part of their live setlist.
In popular culture
The song was included on the setlist for ''
Guitar Hero: Van Halen'' as a guest act, and was included as DLC for ''
Rock Band 4
''Rock Band 4'' is a 2015 music video game developed and published by Harmonix. ''Rock Band 4'' allows players to simulate the playing of music across many different decades and genres using instrument controllers that mimic playing lead and bas ...
''. It also appeared in the 4th episode of the television series ''
Psych
''Psych'' is an American Detective fiction, detective comedy-drama television series created by Steve Franks for USA Network. The series stars James Roday Rodriguez, James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a young crime consultant for the Santa Barbara P ...
'', "
Woman Seeking Dead Husband: Smokers Okay, No Pets". The song was parodied on ''
The Howard Stern Show
''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The show has aired on Howard 100 a ...
'' to mock
Wack Pack
The Wack Pack is the name given to an assortment of personalities heard throughout the history of ''The Howard Stern Show''. As a parody of the Rat Pack or Brat Pack, Stern biographer Richard Mintzer has labeled them a key part of the show. Memb ...
character Hanzi (Imran Kahn). It has also been performed by ''
Postmodern Jukebox
Postmodern Jukebox, also widely known by the initialism PMJ, is a rotating musical collective founded by arranger and pianist Scott Bradlee in 2011. PMJ is known for reworking popular modern music into different vintage genres, especially early 2 ...
'' ft.
Casey Abrams. It has appeared in ''
Me Him Her
''Me Him Her'' is a 2015 American comedy film written and directed by Max Landis, in his directorial debut. The film stars Luke Bracey, Dustin Milligan, and Emily Meade. The film had its world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival ...
'' and ''
Art School Confidential''.
A cover of the song by the
Northeastern University
Northeastern University (NU) is a private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in Charlotte, North C ...
pep band has become an unofficial theme song for the
Northeastern Huskies men's ice hockey
The Northeastern Huskies men's ice hockey team is an NCAA Division I college ice hockey program that represents Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. The team has competed in Hockey East since 1984 and has won three tournament titles, ...
team, and has frequent performances at the annual
Beanpot
A beanpot is a deep, wide-bellied, short-necked vessel used to cook bean-based dishes. Beanpots are typically made of ceramic, though some are made of other materials, such as cast iron. The relatively narrow mouth of the beanpot minimizes evapo ...
. At each game, the pep band plays the song during a stoppage of play with the fan sections continuing to sing through the chorus without accompaniment once gameplay begins again.
References
{{Authority control
2003 singles
2003 songs
2004 singles
Bowling for Soup songs
Fountains of Wayne songs
Music videos directed by Chris Applebaum
Sexuality and age in fiction
Songs about mothers
Masturbation in fiction
Songs written by Adam Schlesinger
Songs written by Chris Collingwood
Torch songs
Virgin Records singles