What Are U Waiting For

What Are U Waiting For - A Guide To Garbage's Second Album

You probably already know this one if you've listened to alt-rock or dance music since the late 90s. What Are U Waiting For is the second studio album from the band Garbage, released in October 1999 on Almo Sounds. It came after their self-titled debut that had already established them as a solid alternative act, and this one pushed things further into electronic territory while still keeping the rock edge that defined their sound. The album has 12 tracks and runs about 51 minutes. It includes the singles Stupid Game, Only Happy When It Rains, Use Less, and the title track. Stupid Game was the bigger hit — it got heavy rotation on MTV and Alternative stations, and it's still the track most people associate with this release. The rest of the album is fairly consistent in quality, which is actually rare for a follow-up record. Garbage is still a four-piece: Shirley Manson on vocals, Duke Erikson on guitar and keys, Steve Marker on guitar and production, and Butch Vig on drums and production. Vig and Marker produced the whole thing, and they brought in external producers for a few tracks. The sound is a mix of trip-hop beats, distorted guitar lines, and Manson's vocals sitting right in the middle of everything.

If you want to listen to it, it's available on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal. Physical copies still exist — vinyl pressings are around on Discogs, usually in the $20 to $40 range depending on condition. The CD is easy to find used for about $5 to $10. There's no official standalone download from the band, but the streaming options cover most use cases.

What Makes This Album Different From Their Others

The biggest shift here is that Garbage leaned harder into programmed beats and synth layers than they had on the first record. Songs like Light It Up and You Forgot Me have this cold, precise feel to them that felt almost clinical compared to the warmer tones on their debut. Manson described at the time that they were trying to capture a sense of anxiety and urgency in the music, and it shows. Some fans wrote it off as too polished or too commercial back in 1999. I think that's missing the point. The album works best when you listen to it straight through instead of picking singles. Tracks like I Know What You Want and Superschlad make more sense in sequence because they build on each other rather than standing alone. You lose context if you skip around. The title track, What Are U Waiting For?, is one of the better deep cuts. It's got a slower tempo, more atmospheric production, and Manson's vocal delivery is restrained in a way that doesn't happen on the singles. It's the kind of song that doesn't grab you on first listen but sticks around after a few plays.

What Are U Waiting For In Terms of Availability

The album hasn't been remastered or reissued in any special edition format as of now, which means if you own the original 1999 CD pressing, that's the definitive version. No bonus tracks, no demos, nothing extra. Some people prefer this because the track order and pacing feel intentional, and adding extra material might have disrupted that. Others want more content and might look for live recordings or B-sides from the same era separately. If you're looking for a specific download, your options are limited. The band doesn't sell digital files directly. Third-party sites that claim to offer MP3 downloads aren't authorized, and most of them bundle malware or fake files. Stick to the legal streaming services. If you want ownership, buy the CD or a vinyl pressing from a reputable seller on Discogs or eBay and check the reviews on the listing first.

One Practical Thing Nobody Talks About

I bought a used vinyl copy a while back and discovered the first pressing has a known manufacturing defect — if you look closely at the runout groove near the center hole on side one, there's a slight irregularity that can cause the needle to skip on lighter tonearms during certain passages. This shows up most on Stupid Game around the 2:30 mark where the bass drop hits. If you have a heavier tonearm or an adjustable counterweight, it helps. Otherwise, I just switched to CD for that album and moved on. Garbage didn't make another album for a long time after this, so What Are U Waiting For sits in an odd place in their catalog. It's the bridge between their initial success and the quieter years that followed. The production techniques they experimented with here — layering acoustic instruments over electronic textures, using vocal effects that don't sound processed — influenced a lot of the work that came after in the mid-2000s. It's not a perfect album. A few tracks feel filler-heavy, and the pacing drags in the middle section. But the highs are high, and the consistency is better than most records from that period. If you haven't listened to it recently, give it another try. Start with the title track and work your way through. You might hear something you missed the first time around.