They were the first rock band I ever fell in love with, after my Hanson obsession began to die down. 1997 to 1999 was ALL about Everclear for me.
Everclear reveals 'World of Noise' 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Out on June 10 1. Your Genius Hands 2. Sick & Tired 3. The Laughing World 4. Fire Maple Song 5. Pennsylvania Is… 6. Nervous & Weird 7. Malevolent 8. Sparkle 9. Trust Fund 10. Loser Makes Good 11. Invisible 12. Evergleam 13. Drunk Again (Previously Unreleased Bonus Track) 14. Pacific Wonderland (Bonus Track) 15. Blondes (Bonus Track) 16. Detroit (Bonus Track) 17. 1975 (Bonus Track) 18. Nervous & Weird 2001 Remix (Previously Unreleased Bonus Track)
Afterglow was my favorite for a long while, but I ultimately settled on Sparkle & Fade as my favorite with that one not far behind. "The Twistinside" is still my favorite Everclear song and one of my all-time favorite songs.
Listening to S&F for the first time in a while right now and, yep, still love it. I still remember learning how to play Twistinside on the guitar in high school and jamming it nonstop.
After watching that “30 Year” video it made me go pull out my old Everclear CD’s. I remember hearing Santa’s Monica and instantly loving that song. Then months later they blew up. Sparkle and Fade was parts grunge and garage rock, pretty pop vibes and hard luck personally stories. It was nice and fresh sounding based on what was out there and started from the grunge sound. I found World of Noise at an indie record store and loved how raw that record sound. I feel like the follow up to S&F took forever, and was so excited to hear “Pure White Evil”. It just felt like that follow up took forever, but when So Much For The Afterglow got announced and ETE came out as a lead single it was pretty cool. They really covered a lot of new sounds without changing there lyrical approach which was nice. The songs from an American Movie or whatever just didn’t catch me. Didn’t know until now that Art had planned those as solo albums. I did feel that songs didn’t have the same edge feel and were safer and more radio targeted.
I was in Portland a few days ago and I went by the house that’s on the back of the Sparkle and Fade album. Pretty surreal. I got into them during SMFTA, and then worked my way backwards from there. When I first listened to Sparkle and Fade, I was bummed. Felt like a different band, less polished, etc. So I initially didn’t like it. But as time went on, I gave it more of a chance and it finally clicked for me and became my fav album of theirs.
I’d forgotten all about Pure White Evil until I watched that video today. So I googled it to learn more about it, and apparently rough mixes of a bunch of the songs (if not all) leaked. It’s mostly SMFTA songs, but there’s a couple songs that never came out, and there’s even a “rock version” of “Otis Redding” (which later came out on SFAAM vol 1.) Pretty crazy that I’ve been into this band since 1997 and never really thought to do a deep dive into their unreleased music/demos that have surfaced. Pretty fun!
It's interesting that "Otis Redding" was originally written for (what became) So Much For The Afterglow. Lyrically it's more or less like the version that came out on Songs From An American Movie, but musically, it's completely different. It sounds more like a Sparkle and Fade song, musically.
Also, here's a new interview with Art Sounds like next year Art's going to release a remastered version of the Colorfinger album because when he found the World of Noise master tapes, he also found that one too.