"Sink to the Bottom" is the second single by Fountains of Wayne, from their debut studio album Fountains of Wayne. The song was first released on February 21, 1997, for radio airplay. It was later released in Europe on April 28, 1997, and charted in the UK at No. 42 on May 10, 1997. It also reached No. 7 in Norway in 1998.
"Sink to the Bottom" was written by Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger, the latter also produced the track. The song was recorded at the Place in New York City between January to April 1996. A live cover of "Can't Get It Out of My Head" originally performed by Jeff Lynne, was recorded at the Jacksonville Coliseum, Jacksonville, Florida on February 2, 1997.
The two other tracks on the single â "Kid Gloves" and a live version of "Can't Get It Out of My Head" â were unavailable on any Fountains of Wayne album until the release of Out-of-State Plates in 2005.
In a retrospective review on the 25th anniversary of Fountains of Wayne, Chris Conaton of PopMatters wrote on the song, "The rest of the song is also very simple [...] Both refrains are catchy earworms, and Schlesinger and Collingwood resist the urge to overcomplicate, just letting the song be two big hooks." Morgan Enos of Billboard named the track as one of Schlesinger's "15 Greatest Songs", writing, "it's hard to think of a more prototypically 1996 radio-rock song than 'Sink to the Bottom' â despondent yet triumphant with a melodic fuzzbomb of a chorus."
The music video for "Sink to the Bottom" premiered via MTV on March 11, 1997, directed by Sisyphus Applebaum.
The song was used as the outro for the movie Bongwater, on How I Met Your Mother, in the episode "Atlantic City" and outro song for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Se.3 Ep.7 "Marvelous Radio". It was also featured on a Finnish beer commercial, according to Schlesinger.
Credits for "Sink to the Bottom" adapted from CD liner notes.
Fountains of Wayne
Additional personnel