Everclear Vaults Into Pole Position In All-Time “Least Essential Album” Race

Dan Gibson | March 3, 2008 3:45 am
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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]

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