NASHVILLE |DATE: JULY 20, 2000
FROM: TODD BRODGINSKI/MITCH SCHNEIDER/MARCEE RONDAN @ MSO BOBBIE GALE/MARIA MALTA/MICHELE MENA @ CAPITOL RECORDS
EVERCLEAR ENTER THE TOP TEN ON BILLBOARD ALBUM CHART WITH 'SONGS FROM AN AMERICAN MOVIE, VOL. ONE: LEARNING HOW TO SMILE AMID CRITICAL ACCLAIM
In what's the highest chart debut of a four-album career, EVERCLEAR's Songs From An American Movie, Vol. One: LEARNING HOW TO SMILE enters Billboard's Top 200 albums chart at #9 on the heels of critical acclaim and a top five Billboard modern rock single "Wonderful." The song is now strongly making its presence felt at pop radio, with a striking video impacting MTV and VH1. Coming off appearances last week on "The Tonight Show" and "Politically Incorrect," EVERCLEAR will perform an acoustic version of "Wonderful"–a subtly poignant kid's-eye view of divorce set against a defiantly upbeat melody–this Friday, July 21, on CBS-TV's "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn."
The album–which entered the Canadian albums chart at #3, the band's highest debut in that country–continues to earn critical praise from such outlets as Newsweek (in a feature headlined "Loud And Everclear"), People, the New York Daily News and Spin, the latter of which hailed the album as a "a ruminative, personal, poppy cycle of songs, decked out in horns and strings, that look back on the past with mixed emotions" (RJ Smith, August 2000). Elsewhere, the Detroit Free Press (Brian McCollum, July 9, 2000) called the album "surely its (Everclear) best effort yet," while the Portland Oregonian (Marty Hughley, July 9, 2000) raved: "Taking in everything from folksy balladry to funk groves, loops and samples to string sections and ukuleles, bitter diatribes to sweet expressions of devotion, the album sounds like Everclear–just not quite like the Everclear you've heard before. The album is the band's most varied and consistent, a work of impressive scope that's still immediately inviting and seems to go by in a pleasurable flash." Finally, Maxim (David Peisner, July 2000) noted that "this is an 'American Movie' worth getting in line for."
In the midst of the success of the album, EVERCLEAR–singer/songwriter ART ALEXAKIS, bassist CRAIG MONTOYA and drummer GREG EKLUND–are busy recording the follow-up disc Songs From An American Movie, Vol. Two: GOOD TIME FOR A BAD ATTITUDE in Los Angeles. Due out later this year, the album-according to Alexakis in an interview with Jim Farber in the New York Daily News (July 15, 2000)-is "harder, heavier and more malevolent…"
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