Now That's Embarrassing For Fountains Of Wayne

Addicted To Noise staff writer Gil Kaufman reports:

Somebody just wasn't doing their homework. It seems that Fountains of Wayne (whose singer, Adam Schlesinger is also in the band Ivy, which is signed to the Chicago-based label, Scratchie, that he co-owns,with members of the Smashing Pumpkins, and who wrote the "That Thing You Do" single) thought they bought exclusive rights to the photo that appears on the cover of their debut, except that it already appeared on someone else's album cover. Oops. Apparently, the British band, the Flamingoes, released an album called Plastic Jewels in England almost a year ago that bears the same shot of a little kid in a Superman costume holding a rabbit by English photographer Mick Waplington. Now, the Flamingoes are in the embarrassing position of finding their album, which just made its U.S. debut on the Big Pop label, going up against the almost indistinguishable eponymous FOW debut. A source at Atlantic Records, which released the FOW album, said, "They both bought the photo and they both thought they had exclusive rights. There hasn't been any legal action ...yet, but FOW are thinking about having a different cover on the European release." Really, it's not that great a photo.

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