so much for the afterpoll

if i am being totally real, after a few drinks and smoking a little weed i got completely emotionally overwhelmed by this album, like, this is probably the only power-pop album where the lyrics on every single song hurt my fucking feelings!!!! everclear were good for that for like 2.5-3 albums, makes me grateful they ever existed

you are neurotic and depressed, it doesn't mean that you're sad!!

father of mine is the one for me
love it so much

I will never be safe
I will never be sane
I will always be weird inside
I will always be lame
Now I'm a grown man
With a child of my own
And I swear, I'm not gonna let her know
All the pain I have known


the emotion of that bridge always gets me; also great to scream along to in the car or at karaoke after a few beers

absolutely I loved this album for the same reason a lot of my friends loved Linkin Park

haven't heard it in a long time but I know "One Hit Wonder" was my favorite. actually looking at the tracklisting though there were a lot of good tunes on this thing

one thing though I think the dude sucked as a lyric writer. I mean that in a technical sense. I agree there's something really raw and emotional about it but he has a tendency to put the wrong number of syllables in each line, or rhyme a word with itself, or use a lot of filler words where they really aren't needed, idk its kind of charming actually

he's not a good writer yet the lyrics are SO good, it's inexplicable

he just gets straight to the heart about a lot of stuff probably better writers would veil in metaphor and ambiguity

“why i don’t believe in god” especially is just a fucking harrowing thing to write

he writes from such a deeply personal place and he can deliver such great emotion in his singing that the technical good/bad value falls by the wayside, for me anyway

“I Will Buy You A New Life,” which I loathed at the time (along with any Everclear blasted at parties/played on the radio) yet was secretly amused/fascinated by.

He does cut to the quick.

i lvoe this album so much, never thought theyd be able to release somthing on par w sparkle and fade (which i polled a few years back: Everclear - Sparkle and Fade - Poll)

for me its between:

so much for the afterglow - such a fun intro and i love when they rock, great breakdown
white men in black suits - jimmy eat worldish
sunflowers - sweet little riff

add why i dont believe in god to that list. prob his most poignant song? which is saying a lot. and the banjo really works.

really like the production on this album overall.

ranking the big singles in this order:

1 everything to everyone (great production job on this)
2 i will buy you a new life
3 father of mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2mORIDE7ak

Those two albums were grebt! But … this band still exists?

“I Will Buy You A New Life,” which I loathed at the time (along with any Everclear blasted at parties/played on the radio) yet was secretly amused/fascinated by.

Confessional that you can use.

So yeah, ivy and VG and frogbs otm.

Anyway will relisten to this one for the POLL.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

once passed Art strolling down nw 23rd on my lunch break, he seemed sad but who can say, it's a sad town

everything to everyone is perfect 90s power pop

a band whose seeming disappearance from any historical recognition/memory surprised me because those two albums, s+f and smfta, are imo v v good, incredibly effective and rocking— and were v v popular. just poof erased afa retro airplay and presence. at least in my world. one hit wonder is earworm city. hard for me not to vote there, but i’ll need to relisten first.

that arrangement of "why i don't believe in god" is really special for what their peers were putting out during that time. title track itself is a fantastic mission statement for the album.

Anyway will relisten to this one for the POLL.

Tbh it’s pretty much sure to be “Father of Mine” unless something else really jumps out at me.

Not relevant to this POLL but was “Santa Monica” really their biggest song?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderful_(Everclear_song)

Oh yeah, noticed that too.

one of those albums my mom had to hear all the time in the car but that didn't really make it out of the tape era. though I nearly went to the anniversary tour a while back.

“One Hit Wonder” sounding pretty good right now

“Amphetamine” too!

So upon release this one kind of suffered perception-wise from … the production not quite sounding appropriate based on the first one, similar to Field Day?

idk this album got good reviews!

Yeah, maybe I am speaking of my own personal reaction.

that arrangement of "why i don't believe in god" is really special for what their peers were putting out during that time. title track itself is a fantastic mission statement for the album.

album is refreshingly irony free for its time isn't it? and for later really.

i mean, for people who "care" about the wordsy bits ha.

"now c'mon, do that stupid dance for me" whooo, fucking brutal. not heartless, sorta horrible and real. love it.

here is the money that i owe you
yeah so you can pay the bills
i will give you more when i get paid again

i voted for "normal like you" (should've been a single) but i really meant to vote for "amphetamine" or "i will buy you a new life"

You are neurotic and depressed
It doesn't mean that you're sad

so erased they were that i truly couldn't recall wonderful at all. so i went and listened and got the "ohhhh yeah, when everclear went too everclear, and maybe were doing that little dance."

I once sat next to Art on a flight to Boston -- he was flying there to deal with a lawsuit, stemming from the fact that Drew Bledsoe was stagediving at his show, and a random fan got kicked in the head. I just googled it, and that ended up costing the band $125K.

Anyway, super nice guy, and he had no hesitation about sharing some truly tragic personal stories with some rando on the airplane (also, apparently someone optioned his autobiographical screenplay, and he was trying to get Gus Van Sant to direct it?)

To this day, I've never listened to an entire Everclear album (they weren't indie enough for me in 1997), but I'll rectify that today.

Wow, that is the most 1997 album cover ever.

once during a poker game we were listening to Smash Mouth radio on Pandora or something - right after Steve Harwell died - and I bet $20 that Everclear was going to come on at some point in the next few hours. they did not. a bunch of pop-punk stuff was played but no Everclear...guess maybe that's more for the grunge station? I thought it would've fit fine.

The font, the blurry photo... I'm listening on spotify, but i can feel the jewel case in my hands.

speaking of the album cover this once showed up at my local shop and I was considering buying it so I checked out the price and it turned out to be Around the Sun by R.E.M.

ha i was thinking "i don't really know much about everclear or art," and i sorta recall hearing he was a bit uber sincere douche-y (nice to read that airplane story). i googled to a 98 RS interview and scanned and will admit i enjoyed the final printed comment.

AA: "One of my idols is Neil Young, because he’s kept himself from being bored. Every four or five years he goes back to his shitty old band and makes a really great, nasty rock record.

RS: Everclear can be your shitty old band.

AA: Everclear’s a really good band. Those guys are way better players than the guys in Crazy Horse.

it's like, when you believe and you love yr guys. i'm not saying he's right or wrong in the fact at issue, and i don't have opinions there, just saying that's a decent play. i guess if it's factually true it's less a matter of loyalty i suppose.

or it could be douchey and he's just protecting his brand. votes?

nah I think its cool when frontmen give props to the band like that.

tempted to switch votes for e to e or widbig, but i cannot.

here's way too much for us, comin at ya right now--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEUWx4LA7jU

shit, wink martindale even. they really were close to on top.

Young Christina Hendricks!

needs marching band horn section tbh

a band whose seeming disappearance from any historical recognition/memory surprised me because those two albums, s+f and smfta, are imo v v good, incredibly effective and rocking— and were v v popular. just poof erased afa retro airplay and presence.

There was a rock festival in OKC a couple of years ago where Everclear was billed under Candlebox and I kind of couldn't believe it, Everclear felt way bigger for way longer to me

They made the fatal decision to follow-up Afterglow w/two, separately released, companion albums that had all of three hit singles between them (only one--"Wonderful"--being a big one), which landed right when their style of Rock was getting phased-out of radio.

"Wonderful" was also corny as hell with a equally corny video, felt one of those rare songs that is simultaneously a hit and a career-killer

don't think Everclear could've survived past 2003 as a hit machine but their music definitely got a lot shittier

Don't get me wrong, Art was always a cheeseball but there are some real greeting cards lyrics on "Wonderful"..."Promises mean everything when you're little / And the world is so big" etc

I mean yeah all his inspiration came from the struggle so once the band made it big and he was actually making money it makes sense they'd kinda lose the plot. happens to a lot of guys, Trent Reznor one of the few exceptions here

also in fairness to these guys, most rock bands only have a few good records in them, nothing on either of the two big everclear records indicated had the juice to go much further than that. Still they did go downhill really fast.

Yeah. Part of the narrative of this one was that a band from the Nerf Grunge Class of '95-6 actually could deliver a satisfying follow-up.

also in fairness to these guys, most rock bands only have a few good records in them, nothing on either of the two big everclear records indicated had the juice to go much further than that.

No kidding. Writing today about The Sundays reminded me.

"Wonderful" was also corny as hell with a equally corny video, felt one of those rare songs that is simultaneously a hit and a career-killer

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

What a turnout

feels v just and lol u old

james i posted that b4 u posted ha

Disappointed to have missed this poll -- I adored this album in junior high school. Think I'd have put "One Hit Wonder" over the top.

I've always had a weird soft spot for this band even though AA seems like a real piece of work and the music def isn't my thing but I heard them on the college radio station circa "World of Noise" and I was so charmed by their genuine "get in the van" hustle (my memory is that they were also playing a house (!!) show at the time as well though no way to verify it) that I have always sort of admired them?

I heard this album approx 1 billion times when I worked my terrible overnight warehouse job I should qualify for some sort of medical relief

My lone memory of this band other than the omnipresence of a few of their singles on MTV was a party my friend and his younger sister threw at their parents' house. My friend and I had to get up at 5:30 for work so we crashed a bit after midnight and then his sister and her friends took over the radio and played Santa Monica on repeat for what felt like hours. I wasn't able to sleep until they stopped. I always hated this band after that.

radiostereo

Trying to decide how I feel about “Wonderful.”

as i mentioned above i’d repressed it, but now it is back, sitting there, like a shit on the rim. it’s full of corn.

Willie Nelson to thread!

listening to this now, kind of a different experience than it was at 13. I grew up in rural Wisconsin with a lot of poor people and it's really apparent why this CD resonated with so many of them. "Father of Mine" in particular is just heartbreaking. also wanna say it sounds a lot better than I remembered, the drums in particular

also "El Distorto de Melodica" sounds an awful lot like "Futterman's Rule" by Beastie Boys but it does rock a lot harder