Adam Schlesinger, Songwriter for Rock, Film and the Stage, Dies at 52

Adam Schlesinger, Songwriter for Rock, Film and the Stage, Dies at 52

He made suburban characters shine in Fountains of Wayne songs and brought pop-rock perfection to the Tom Hanks film “That Thing You Do!”

Adam Schlesinger, an acclaimed singer-songwriter for the bands Fountains of Wayne and Ivy who had an award-winning second career writing songs for film, theater and television, died on Wednesday in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was 52.

The cause was complications of the coronavirus, his family said.

In Fountains of Wayne, which was started in 1995, Mr. Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood perfected a novelistic form of hummable pop-rock in a style derived from the Kinks and from 1970s groups like Big Star and the Cars.

They chose northern New Jersey and boroughs outside Manhattan as thematic territory, chronicling the lives of suburban mall shoppers, Generation X slackers and down-market cover bands in songs like “Hackensack” and “Red Dragon Tattoo.”