Andrew W.K. - I Get Wet (Island, 2001)
One of the best things about picking this particular album to cover today is that Modern Classics are released on this site every Friday and this opus might well be the best Friday afternoon album ever made.
Some of our albums on this list will require patience. Some of them might involve you stretching your musical boundaries to fully appreciate them. Not this one. This is simply an album that makes you feel like a million dollars every single time you play it. It’s the kind of album that makes you look at the reflection looking back at you in the mirror and say “Tonight is going to be my night”. It doesn’t belong to any genre or scene but rock ‘n’ roll. Its charm is magnetic. Andrew W.K.’s odyssey to having a good time all the time is worthy of its place in our Hall of Fame just on the good vibes it creates alone. It really is as simple as that.
In the same way that a black metal album will pummel you with heaviness or a horror movie might hit you with a tsunami of blood and innards, I Get Wet is relentlessly chirpy and hyperactive like a toddler after a Red Bull on their birthday. While its boundless energy is captivating, it’s the overwhelming sense of optimism that really hits the bullseye and ramps the feel-good factor up the second you push play. Got To Do It is a horn-led stomper that encourages you to keep fighting the good fight with a clenched fist, the mountainous arena rock guitars and soaring call and answer melodies that propel Girl’s Own Love are enough to make you feel untouchable and literally every song on display is infused with enough party to make you feel like you’ve had seven litres of Hooch. The only way that this album could fail to slap a smile on your face is if you’ve just been given an hour to live and even then you could listen to this album (nearly twice) and go out with a bang.
Support for W.K. seems rampant today but for a long while this album was heavily misunderstood. Released as nu metal was in bloom and everyone was happy to wallow in their own problems, Andrew W.K. was the musical equivalent of someone saying “cheer up, it might never happen” after being told that your house is going to be repossessed. It didn’t fit and people were resistant to his charms but over the years Party Hard has been the definitive soundtrack to raucous rock club debauchery and thankfully, it’s made that a thing of the past. Through years of relentless touring and taking his positive energy into everything he does, Andrew has rightfully been heralded as a cult hero and I Get Wet is his finest hour.
There is a brilliant and interesting rumour that has existed for years that Dave Grohl was involved in the writing of this album and the songs on display are so consistently brilliant, you wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. That is testament to how rad songs like the joyous She Is Beautiful and the ultimate training montage song, Don’t Stop Living In The Red, are.
I Get Wet has turned a frown upside down more times than I care to imagine over the last 13 years. It is a unique album in that it can take the most lethargic and laboured afternoon and make you feel invincible. They should put this album on the NHS. Try it today.
