Stephan Jenkins designed
Thanks for Everything, a seven-song covers EP that doubles as a benefit for Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum, as a way to "amplify" music he and the rest of
Third Eye Blind find inspiring. His choices are telling.
Jenkins primarily concentrates on peers who are considered a bit edgier than
3EB: stark neo-folkie
Bon Iver, genre-bending indie-R&B icon
Santigold, shambling Brit-rocker
Pete Doherty, malevolent imps
Queens of the Stone Age, and upcomers
Happy Diving and
Chastity Belt. To this hip mix, a cover of
Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" is added. It's an eclectic mix and, in
Third Eye Blind's hands, they all sound like
Third Eye Blind: strident, earnest, urgent, and square.
3EB play for the rafters and
Jenkins sings in a straight line, so whatever idiosyncrasies that were in the originals are now flattened out, so these eccentric selections seem like clean, polished commercial rock from the glory days of Y2K. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine