There are some days that you feel like there’s nothing right in the world. Rihanna telling People how hard it is to stay a size two? Some idiotic story about Mick Jagger being hunted by the Hell’s Angels? That whole Britney/Heidi thing? It’s hard to stay positive. Well, I’m happy to announce we’ve hit the absolute bottom: An album full of covers. By Everclear.
I know what you’re thinking. Everclear? Aren’t their songs bad enough? Do they need to take on popular songs I might have once enjoyed? The answers to those questions are “Unfortunately, yes,” “Definitely, yes,” and “No, but they’re doing it anyway.”
Never shy about their influences and the music they grew up on, multi-platinum rockers EVERCLEAR have long been known for saluting the band’s roots by recording and performing a dynamic and eclectic array of covers. Now for the first time, Everclear’s best studio and concert recordings have been gathered for a new collection, The Vegas Years, to be released April 15 by Capitol/EMI…
The collection includes live performances from Everclear’s 2007 national tour: Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309 (Jenny),” adopted by the band as a high-energy show closer, and Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl,” which can also be heard on 2001’s platinum-selling Songs From An American Movie: Learning How To Smile album. The rest of the tracks are culled from various studio sessions and include rare and never-before-heard recordings, from “American Girl”-recorded in 1994 for a Tom Petty tribute album-to two newly recorded covers: Hall & Oates’ “Rich Girl” and Paul Revere & The Raiders’ “Kicks.” Also included are Everclear’s takes on Yaz’s “Bad Connection,” Cheap Trick’s “Southern Girls,” Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town,” Neil Young’s “Pocahontas,” The Go-Go’s’ “Our Lips Are Sealed,” Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” Little Jimmy Dickens’ “Night Train To Memphis” and two classic TV theme songs, “Land Of The Lost” and “Speed Racer.”
First of all, I don’t think that 2001 Everclear release actually was “platinum selling”–more like “platinum shipping, and nearly platinum in returns.” But that’s just a hunch. Secondly, what does it take to get dropped from Capitol these days? If I can’t have my pleasant memories of Yaz unsullied, nothing’s sacred in this world. Nothing.
Look for whatever this thing is called on music retailers’ shelves on April 15, and in cutout bins and truck-stop racks by early September.
Everclear’s Favorite Covers Collected By Art Alexakis For ‘The Vegas Years,’ To Be Released On April 15, 2008 [Top 40 Charts]
I still like Sparkle And Fade-era Everclear. Kind of a lot, really. And the idea of a live covers album called “The Vegas Years” means they’re probably trying to be ironic and don’t expect many people to buy it anyway. Plus the choice of covers, like the Land of the Lost theme song, means they’re probably just catering to the Me First & The Gimme Gimmies set, anyway, who are probably the only ones who still admit to liking them in the first place.
I just assumed this was going to be about one of their regular records.
“Science can now reveal that the Everclear record [insert one] is the least essential album of all time, just nosing out Fastball’s Greatest Hits and the Ray Manzarek solo album where he’s painted gold on the cover.”
They deserve some sort of credit, almost, for this quixotic charge into plucky banality. Especially in the face of Art Alexakis’s hypoglycemia!
@bcapirigi: i actually like the ‘one hit wonder’ era of everclear. that said, everyone needs to take a break with the covering of the hall & oates catalog, because usually remakes of those songs are made of lose.
And re: the Land of the Lost theme, it’s the mention of “sleestacks” on some track or other thereon that has kept me from giving a rat’s about the new Malkmus. Well, that and ten minute song lengths.
I 99% agree. On the other hand … SPEED RACER!!!
I think it’s important to remember that the only thing linking “Sparkle & Fade/So Much For The Afterglow,” aka good, Everclear to “Let’s cover other people’s music rather than make our own,” aka not good, Everclear is Art Alexakis. The other two members left the group several years back and he re-created a totally new band under the same name - but only after launching an unsuccessful solo career. Just saying.
God, there is a lot of bile on this site lately. Why get upset about it? Let Alexakis try to make a living if he wants to.
Actually, there are over 1 million copies scanned on Learning how to Smile. I’m as surprised as you are.
What took Poison twenty-plus years to do (release an all-covers album), Everclear did it in half that time. I still really like Sparkle and Fade.
Snigger if you must, but “Santa Monica” is now, and forevermore, a great song.
I don’t care what anybody says, I freaking love So Much for the Afterglow…
@bcapirigi: Yeah - because bands routinely pay management and publicity firms to drum up noise about records they DON’T EXPECT MANY PEOPLE TO BUY ANYWAY. Hands down the dumbest apologist argument I’ve read this month - and last month. Why not just do the online mp3-for-free thing then if that’s the case?
If I had to pick a Rust Never Sleeps tune for Everclear to cover, I woulda gone with Welfare Mothers since that song is kind of a joke anyway. I can live with Pocahontas — though hopefully I never have to hear Art’s version — mainly because I’m so glad it’s not Thrasher.
@Whigged: I just don’t see releasing an album of live covers and discarded b-sides as something they spent all night working on. Especially since it’s being put out by a label that they’re not on anymore. And mainly features songs performed by people that aren’t in the band anymore.
Last I checked Everclear was dropped by Capitol three years ago. Their last record - yes there was one, don’t you remember Bill O’Reilly’s outrage? - was from Tenth Street Entertainment/Eleven Seven. This reaks of “one-off carried over from old contract.”
And yeah, Songs From…not only sold, it was a mainstream critical success.(A- from the Dean!)
I find it interesting that any band/artist that I like is pretty much reviled on Idolator. I wonder at that dynamic, but it explains why I hate most of the new artists relentlessly hyped by the editors/other posters.
Clearly I have no taste. I’m sure that’s it.
Man, the world would be a much better place if these guys had pulled a Fastball and had just one mid-90s alternative radio hit.
@revmatty: Send in a list of your favorite bands, and I’ll say something nice about at least one on Wednesday.
Will that make you feel better?
Like Stone Temple Pilots, Everclear is a band who always makes me smile when a song of theirs pops up (it only works if the song is specifically from the 1990s, for some reason).
The fact that there are other people who like old Everclear on this site makes me feel safe and warm. I felt so alone, for so long.
It’s a shame there aren’t a dozen whiny songs about your parents divorce written by other artists that asshole could cover.
As a child of divorce I continue to reserve the right to cry every time I hear “Wonderful.”
Sparkle and Fade wasn’t bad, but their first full length, World of Noise, was really thier masterpiece. I’m glad Art got clean, but as we learned from Dave Mustaine, no junk, no soul…
perhaps this is the only way Everclear could make a record with more than four chords.
Thanks for the cranky blogger post.
Closeted everclear minions unite!
@insideoutbox: ha! exactly. god they’re mundane. if you’ve heard one everclear song, then you’ve heard them all. y a w n.