This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which is not new.

note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.

SCOTT WALKER: Tilt (1995, UK #27, ****)
True confession time: I listened to this 1995 album (released domestically in 1997) for the first time at 4 am one Monday in '99. It prompted my breakdown and I started therapy that afternoon. This is phenomenally ominous and dark stuff; lushly orchestrated and harshly sequenced, with Walker's smooth baritone intoning strange and frightening poetry. It feels like the soundtrack of the last hour of a man's life before a violent death that he knows is coming. The most challenging, hellish and depressing music I've ever heard, Tilt makes Nick Drake sound like a Backstreet Boy.

WENDY & LISA: Wendy & Lisa (1987, ****)
After Prince split the Revolution in '86, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman seemed like shoe-ins for commercial success, but it sadly eluded them. Their debut, ably assisted by Bobby Z, carries on from where Parade and its centerpiece "Mountains" left off, a supremely confident and assured soul-funk sound with lush instrumentation and warm, romantic delivery. "Song About" and "Everything But You" are spectacular, but sadly CBS, who paid no attention to Prince's crossover appeal seemed to have no idea how to market this, resulting in a colossal missed opportunity.

WENDY & LISA: Eroica (1990, **)
Their third album has much of the same confident funk we expect, but the production is cluttered in places and this has too many songs with multiple vocalists. After hitting creative peaks by doing just about everything themselves, the duo adds five members to the band and it doesn't work as well.

BARRY WHITE: All-Time Greatest Hits (***)
Only a little bit dated, these 20 songs cannot take the blame for not leading to love...that'd be your fault, bud. Good packaging and presentation can't overtake the still-evident schmaltz factor in some of these recordings. Naturally includes the astonishing "Never Never Gonna Give You Up" and several other winners with long titles.

WHITE TOWN: Women in Technology (1997, UK #83, *)
White Town is the band name for Jhoti Mishra, an Indian raised in England who released several EPs on the US indie label Parasol before a Chrysalis rep signed him on the strength of a song called "Your Woman." This novelty hit, built around an old trumpet sample, led a few listeners to sample the parent album. Women in Technology is an almighty mess of synthesizers and samples, with lyrics full of puns and ostensibly clever entendres, somewhere between Momus and the Magnetic Fields, who are actually cited, along with Noam Chomsky, in the cloying, embarassing sleeve notes. Women in Technology didn't sell and Chrysalis quickly dropped him. Parasol didn't harbor any ill will, and Mishra has continued to record for that label.

WHITE TOWN: "Undressed" (1997, UK #57)
The follow-up to the #1 "Your Woman" contains two album tracks, a previously unreleased number and a remix.

WILD STRAWBERRIES: Quiver (1998, **)
I had no idea who they are; I found this for 99 cents and took the gamble. Quiver is the third release from the Canadian husband-and-wife act and it's not bad at all, and quite unpredictable, with influences ranging from Dead Can Dance to (on the harsh "Speak of the Devil") Skinny Puppy. Vocalist Roberta Carter-Harrison evokes Sarah McLachlan on several occasions with her deep, passionate voice; amusingly, Sarah's husband Ashwin Sood provides drums for several songs. It's entertaining, but not the most memorable album I've heard. A fourth album, Twist, was released in 2000.

VICTORIA WILLIAMS: Happy Come Home (1987, **)
Victoria Williams is "original," which is critic-speak for "not at all listenable, but at least not like anything on the radio." She sings in a yodelling meow about lost dogs and shoes over some nutball hoedown arrangement of strings. One of those two stars is awarded simply for being really weird.

THE WOGGLES: Get Tough! (1997, ***)
Formed in Athens a very long time ago (all right, 1987), the Woggles are a four-piece fronted by Manfred "The Professor of Rock n' Roll" Jones. After quite a few singles on Zontar, a 1993 album on Estrus and a hell of a live rep, the band hooked up with Telstar Records in New Joisey to bring their swamp bar-B-Q garage boogie to the masses on Get Tough! This is really fun, primeval rock, recommended for any out-of-towners a-wonderin' what joys there are in Georgia's indie scene. The best songs include "Do Just What I Say," the live favorite "Mule-Lipped" and the Screaming Lord Sutch homage "Zombie Stomp."

THE WOGGLES: Live! At the Star Bar (2001, ***)
After relocating from Athens to Atlanta in the late 90s, the Woggles were, for a time, fixtures at the Star Bar in Little 5 Points. This album features a typical, dancin'-on-the-bar night (September 30, 2000, to be exact), with 23 songs performed at maximum velocity. Groove-a-boogie highlights include "Snap Your Fingers," "Mad Dog 20/20" and "Get Tough."

WON TON TON: Home (1991, ***)
This opens with a bit of majesty called "I Lie and I Cheat" and offers several agreeable ditties along the way, including a fair cover of Richard Thompson's "Walking on a Wire." Some of the lyrics are a little cliched, but singer Bea Van der Maat has a wonderful voice. They released two other albums in Belgium, but I'm not sure if they came out here.

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