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Tonight Everclear visits the Wonder Ballroom on a tour that celebrates the 20-year-mark since the release of the group's breakthrough album Sparkle and Fade. In this week's issue, Santi Elijah Holley examined the LP on its china anniversary and whether it still holds up today. From Santi:
Everclear was an alternative rock band back when "alternative rock" was a thing. Many of the hundreds of albums released during this lost decade were dull, derivative, and disposable. But Sparkle and Fade was—in spite of the subject matter of its songs—fun. The melodies and choruses were catchy and memorable, all you could really ask for from a pop song. Alexakis has sustained a career with songs about drug addiction, broken families, and damaged women, but in 20 years he has yet to recapture the front-to-back brilliance of Sparkle and Fade. It remains proof that, at one point in time, Alexakis was—god help me—a good songwriter.
It's no secret that Everclear has historically been a divisive band in Portland; a few years ago, we ran an interview famously titled "The Most Hated Musician in Portland." I think it's clear that after Everclear's first big rush of success, they no longer fit in with the local music scene. Whether they outgrew it or they were never a good fit to begin with is a matter of speculation. Santi and I agree, however, that Sparkle and Fade is by far the most worthwhile thing Everclear ever did, particularly during the record's noticeably stronger first half. Alexakis' obsession with gutter romance—the heroin chic, the oh-so-damaged souls, the desire for Rimbaud-style oblivion—is still pretty childish, sure, but it works coming from a young, hungry band, as Everclear were in those days. (Side note: I remember specifically walking with eagerness to Blockbuster Music to listen to the band's 1997 follow-up So Much for the Afterglow. I despised it—its title summed up my feelings entirely. The trophy wife anthem "I Will Buy You a New Life" still grosses me out; Alexakis should have titled it "Okay, Now I Get to Make You Feel Like a Whore.")

But tonight Everclear, with an almost entirely different cast of characters, revisits its (sole?) triumph in the band's old hometown—and obviously enough Portlanders care to make tonight's show at the Wonder Ballroom a sellout. Check out Santi's reexamination of Sparkle and Fade here.