Wanna feel old? Everclear is currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of its breakout album, Sparkle and Fade. The album gave us the depressingly optimistic single “Santa Monica” and seemed to perfectly sum up the feelings of a generation at the time.
Like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” “Santa Monica” never seems to go away and remains the defining song for Everclear, despite other successful singles. It’s the ultimate story of a lover left behind. While the song was originally inspired by the death of an old girlfriend and lead singer Art Alexakis’ supposed attempted suicide, it didn’t necessarily feel quite as dark for listeners. You may not have wanted to fling yourself off a pier and into the ocean, but Everclear’s mix of Gen X and Millennial fans had seen enough of life to know of lost love and were aching for a Band-Aid.
So where are we two decades later? Maybe we’ve moved on. That heartbreak might feel like a joke now, haunting you only when you look back at goofy yearbook pictures. “Santa Monica” might have adapted itself 10 times over, reapplied itself to the dozen messed-up relationships that followed. That fuzzy, abrasive guitar originally earned the band comparisons to Nirvana. The biggest difference (and perhaps Everclear’s biggest downfall when catering to nostalgia) is that Everclear is still around. The band just released a new album, Black Is The New Black, which Alexakis has referred to as its hardest yet and a return to Everclear’s beginnings. But as long as we can turn up to a show and hear “Santa Monica,” nothing else matters.
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This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2015.