Album Review: Out-Of-State Plates by Fountains of Wayne

Most bands wouldn't follow up their long-awaited commercial breakthrough with a double-disc rarities collection, so it's hard not to see Fountains of Wayne's 2005 odds-n-sods comp, Out-of-State Plates, as either a contractual obligation or a way to buy time as the group works on the real sequel to 2003's Welcome Interstate Managers and its surprise smash single, "Stacy's Mom. " Either way, it doesn't change the fact that Out-of-State Plates is a ragged collection of hits and misses that will satisfy FOW completists, while being of intermittent interest to recent converts or general power pop fans. Like most '90s bands, Fountains of Wayne were required to fill out multi-part CD singles with non-LP material and had a tendency to contribute to soundtracks, benefit albums, and tribute albums, plus they had a handful of unreleased cuts as well, so they had a surplus of stray tracks uncollected on a proper album prior to this comp.

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