Andrew W.K.
[andrew w.k. website]

I Get Wet

The Wolf

Tom Waits
[tom waits website]

Alice

Blood Money

Mule Variations

Swordfishtrombones

The Walkabouts
[the walkabouts website]

Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone

The Walkmen
[the walkmen website]

Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone

The Wallflowers
[the wallflowers website]

Bringing Down the Horse

Walt Mink
[walk mink website]

Bareback Ride

Mike Watt
[mike watt website]

Ball-hog or Tugboat

Contemplating the Engine Room

Wax
[wax website]

What Else Can We Do

We Are Scientists
[we are scientists website]

With Love and Squalor

Weezer
[weezer website]

Maladroit They have really poured on the pop for this one. "Dope Nose" is a great, great pop song in all its power chord glory. It's never really clear when Weezer is being serious with their music, though. I mean there's a fine line between parody and authenticity, especially when it comes to really smart Harvard grads. Is Cuomo serious with this churning brand of head-bobbing 70s/80s arena rock, or is he just pulling a huge prank on all of us? I think he's actually being earnest in his love of all that is huge about music, and this is certainly the biggest of his career. There is so much guitar in this album it's almost retarded. To think that a little skinny dude in jeans and glasses is banging out this craziness is pretty funny. I've honestly forgotten how solid this album is, and the enormity and aggression of the music, all heavy metal symbols and chugging guitars and solos (solos!). It really is stunning, just stunning.

Pinkerton These guys got totally hosed on this album. Actually, it's a better all around record than their debut. It's more textured and emotional and the songwriting doesn't depend on sunny pop melodies to get by. This thing is way thicker and pulsating (ew) and rockin'. It's like the geeks have really manned up on this one, dropped the cuteness in favor of distortion pedals and songwriting. Apparently the denseness of the album put off some of the fans of the debut, but while that album was awesome in its own right, it was a little light on content. This one is the dork rockin' out as if his heart depended on it-for a girl, for respect, for whatever. "Goddamn you half-Japanese girls, y'do it to me every time!" So solid, man. So good.

Weezer [blue] My introduction to this album came upon me like a sign. KROQ played "(Undone) The Sweater Song" one day, and I happened to catch the middle and tail end of the song and had to get out of the car before the DJ said who the song was by. Believing it to be a new Pixies song for some reason, I almost shat my pants. Three years after their breakup and now a new song!? Sure, it sounded a bit different, but it was definitely the Pixies. Wow, was I way off. So I walk into my neighborhood record store, Moby Disc, to confirm my suspicions, and while waiting to talk to the guy at the counter, this cool album is playing something about "Buddy Holly" and whatnot, and what comes on but that song! And sitting on the high counter, as it always was was the CD cover and the handmade "now playing" sign, but instead of some weird cover full of debris there was this clean blue cover with some dorky dudes standing on it. Of course I purchased it immediately and spent the next week listening to it on repeat. It was a such a fresh breath of power pop air in an era of dingy grunge aftermath. "Say It Ain't So" is still one of my favorite songs of all time, and a jukebox staple. It's also one of the dorkiest records ever, which makes my geeky heart do back flips.

Weezer [green] There we go. This oughta make some of those Pinkerton-haters happy. Keeping the rockin' attitude of Pinkerton, but adding back in some of the funniness of the Blue Album, this album, the third from Weezer, turns on the power pop to eleven. Back from seclusion after the commercial bomb of their second album, Rivers Cuomo relented and brought forth this short pop gem of an album. While Ric Ocasek was busy wrecking Guided by Voices albums, his touch on this one works well for the Cheap Trick stadium rock band that Weezer always aspired to be. Their sound is actually more straight forward on this record, without Matt Sharp's organ flourishes (which he had taken over to The Rentals), but it's a great little rock album all the same.

Scott Weiland
[scott weiland website]

12 Bar Blues

Kanye West
[kanye west website]

The College Dropout

Late Registration

Paul Westerberg
[paul westerberg website]

49:00

Wheat
[wheat website]

Hope and Adams

Medeiros

Whiskeytown
[whiskeytown website]

Faithless Street

Barry White

All-Time Greatest Hits

The White Octave
[white octave website]

Menergy

Style No. 6312

White Rabbits
[white rabbits website]

Fort Nightly Imagine some sort of weird Walkmen and Madness mash-up and you have The White Rabbits. Throw in some spooky Specials or Clinic reverb and maybe the pop sensibilities of a Hot Hot Heat, and you've drilled down even a bit more. Granted, their sound is more fleshed out than any of those, as six dudes in a band these days is like twice as many as is popular (unless you're one of those wacky "music collectives"). The songs are slinky and bottom-heavy, with just a hint of middle-eastern smokiness and Caribbean bounce, and with many of the melodies provided by the voices and lots of piano flourishes. It's really hard to pinpoint what is so attractive about this music, other than to say it just flows naturally. The stuff feels kind of organic and slippery and something that will grow into classic territory on their next LP.

The White Stripes
[the white stripes website]

Elephant

De Stijl

DGet Behind Me Satan

The White Stripes

White Blood Cells

White Trash

White Trash

White Whale
[white whale website]

WWI For some reason the opening moments of this album remind me of INXS. I can't say exactly why, as the rest of the album is nothing like it, but it's just the spooky feeling I get. The album is all bluster and theater, soaring highs like Arcade Fire (but with more up-front vocals) and even some Decemberists with its sea faring and Chinese obsessions. It does delve into some strangeness occasionally, taking a break from the big, almost orchestral sound that even stirs the shadows of late Pixies. There are a few spacey dirges that aren't exactly my thing, but overall this is a pretty varied album that has been woefully overlooked in a world where Arcade Fire is on the tip of everyone's tongue and on everyone's shelf.

Wilco
[wilco website]

A Ghost is Born

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Wilderness
[wilderness website]

Wilderness

Victoria Williams
[victoria williams website]

Musings of a Creekdipper

Wesley Willis
[wesley willis website]

Fabian Road Warrior

Witchdoctor

A S.W.A.T. Healin' Ritual

Wolf Parade
[wolf parade website]

Apologies to the Queen Mary Wolf Parade sound like a lot of other bands and none at all. How is that possible? They take the Brooklyn, indie aesthetic and put their weird, vampire spin on it. I'm not sure why vampires come to mind, but some of it is the kind of yelping chorus in the back of a lot of their songs. Of course they're Canadian, and not Brooklynites, but everyone who's anyone knows that Canada is the new Brooklyn. I can only liken their sound (on some of the album) to Modest Mouse doing some sort of evil mash up with countrymates Arcade Fire--especially on the song ''Grounds for Divorce.'' The album swings wildly between styles, but all the styles are really, really good. This is without a doubt one of the best albums of 2005, and a constant treat from listen to listen. Like a nice red wine, the thing just opens up as it plays, expanding and growing and working its way into your brain.

Wreckx-n-Effect

Hard or Smooth There's only one reason to own this album... and that reason is the ubiquitous 1992 hit, "Rump Shaker." You remember the awful video with the chicks in the small, colorful bikinis shaking what God gave them--giant, clap-when-they-walk asses? This was back in the days when I bought albums for one cut to play at parties to get the honies on the floor. I honestly had no delusions that Wreckx-n-Effect was anything more than a hideously misogynistic flash in the pan. Apparently these guys actually released another album in 1996 to scathing reviews pointing out the irony of their name.

The Wrens
[the wrens website]

The Meadowlands

Secaucus

Silver

Wu-Tang Clan
[wu-tang clan website]

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

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