Alphabetical Order: Everclear - 'Sparkle and Fade'

How reflecting on the 30th anniversary of one of my favorite 90s albums made me realize nostalgia lies to us.

Apr 28, 2025

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I was talking to my friend Josh who wasn’t real. Josh was just a guy I made up. Three years ago I was spending a summer as a fill-in host for SiriusXM’s 90s alterna rock station and the producer told me I should pretend I was talking to one guy. “Just imagine you’re shooting the shit with your buddy as he commutes home from work,” he told me. “Don’t try to talk to the entire audience. Just speak to one guy.” So I named the guy Josh.

Josh was 40 years old and he had two kids. The kids were not real either but he loved them very much. Josh worked a job that wasn’t very fulfilling but at least he had a comfortable life in the suburbs. Sometimes Josh’s in-laws would stay for the weekend which was always annoying. In-laws, am I right, Josh?

I tried to relate to Josh about things we had in common. Remember back in the day when guys like us used to watch music videos on MTV? Those were the good old days huh Josh? Boy there were a lot of bands that had Jesus in their name in the 90s weren’t there Josh? The Jesus and Mary Chain, the Jesus Lizard, Jesus Jones. And why did everyone have a song called “Creep” in the 90s? Stone Temple Pilots, Radiohead, even TLC. Kinda funny right Josh? Hey this weekend is the 4th of July and I hope it’s a good one. Don’t forget to refill your propane tank Josh.

Every morning the producer sent me The Big List. These were the songs I had to tell Josh about that day. Hey Josh remember how hard “Sabotage” rocked well here it is right now. Oh man Josh I’ll bet you haven’t heard “I Got a Girl” in a while well guess what that’s about to change bud. Soundgarden, “Pretty Noose,” coming at ya on SiriusXM.

Over that summer I talked to Josh about a ton of songs I’d long forgotten about. Sometimes I’d see a song on The Big List and think, I have never even heard of this song. Then I’d hear the first note and realize that ah yes I have actually heard “Plowed” 8,000 times in my life.

Sometimes The Big List would tell me it was time to play Josh a song by Everclear. This was where I really shined. To me, Everclear was the quintessential 90s band. They released two perfect albums that captured the spirit of the decade but don’t get the credit they deserve in my opinion. They had songs about growing up broke and hating your dad and doing amphetamines. They were fond of saying the word “whore” which was the coolest word you could say in the 1990s. They had hit singles but also some banger B-sides. Their sound shot straight down the middle. Pissed off, but not so angsty that they’d get lumped in with shaggy grunge darlings like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Fast, but not in a way that pop punk breakouts like Green Day and the Offspring were. Everclear was all of it and none of it.

I would tell Josh as many of these thoughts as I could fit into 60 to 120-second intervals. That’s how long I was allowed to talk to Josh. I could have talked about Everclear for another ten hours, but after two minutes it was time to let the song roll. From Sparkle and Fade, here’s “Heroin Girl,” Josh.

When I was ten I wanted a Nirvana shirt so fucking bad it hurt. It was the black one with the yellow smiley face on the front. On the back it said Flower Sniffin, Kitty Pettin, Baby Kissin Corporate Rock Whores. But they didn’t sell Nirvana shirts at the mall and that’s where I got all my clothes. Instead I settled for whatever they had at Sears.

I remembered that pain of desire this morning while I was in Target, looking at their wall of graphic tees where all angles of nostalgic pop culture are immortalized. A Dr. Pepper tee, Super Mario, Deadpool and Spider-man, Dwight Schrute. And sure enough, there’s Nirvana. And Smashing Pumpkins. And Metallica.

You can buy a Nirvana shirt pretty much anywhere these days, in any style, on any kind of shirt. On tie-dye threads or vintage pink fabric. You can get a parody shirt that says Nirvana over a photo of Hanson. You can buy a torn-up original for $700 at a vintage shop.

The 90s are back but the way the decade is remembered is all wrong. It would be cool if young people wanted to revive Gen X’s hatred of rampant consumerism. Or its devotion to authenticity and disdain for selling out. But instead they just want the t-shirts. No one cares about the part about being against Corporate Rock Whores, just the part that says Nirvana.

It’s been very strange watching a formative decade of my life be reduced to a stack of t-shirts being sold two aisles down from Halloween decorations. There was so much more to this era than the handful of bands that pop culture has decided to canonize. Plenty of bands from the 90s did well for themselves, but not shirts-at-Target well.

Why do some bands from this decade get to bask in the nostalgic glory while others have to fight for their legacies? Is it their branding? Their logos? Did the lead singer have to die tragically to cement their place on the front table of JCPenney?

And if we are not keeping them alive in t-shirt form, will these things be remembered at all? Or will they be forgotten the minute the 90s trend has passed? What happens to the bands whose names are not being reprinted millions of times in factories in China? What happens to Toadies and Veruca Salt and the Presidents of the United States of America? What happens to Everclear?

I wanted answers to all these questions so I asked the man himself. To commemorate Everclear’s breakout album, Sparkle and Fade, turning 30, I talked to frontman Art Alexakis last month. He called my line of questioning “irritating.” Fair enough. No lies detected, etc.

And maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s a futile waste of time to wonder what the future of the past will be. Maybe the way we remember things isn’t how they really were anyway. “The light of nostalgia has a very rosy glow to it,” he told me.

Hey, Josh. Hope you’re doing well on this fine Saturday morning, wherever you are. Coming up we’ve got some Stone Temple Pilots, some Candlebox, and a little Silverchair with “Tomorrow.” Man, I was watching the “Tomorrow” video for the first time in forever the other day and I couldn’t believe how young those guys were. They always seemed so cool and mature when I was a kid but looking at them now I’m realizing they couldn’t have been older than 15 or 16. Isn’t that funny?

Does that ever happen to you, Josh? Have you ever heard a song from when you were a kid and it sounds different than the way you remember it in your head? Kinda makes you question everything you think you know, doesn’t it? Maybe our memories lie to us. Maybe they tell us things to trick us into remembering a better past.

The light of nostalgia has a very rosy glow to it huh Josh?

Anyway, here’s “Santa Monica” by Everclear.