News bites: Alanis Morrisette, Candlebox, Liz Phair, Extreme

Again, thanks to Tied to the '90s reader Chris for the tips.

* Alanis Morissette, fresh off a long tour opening for Matchbox 20, has a new single, "Underneath." Her album Flavors of Entanglement comes out on June 10, and if you go here, you can get it with five bonus tracks, six lyric art cards, and a big fat Alanis Morrisette autograph. Anyone else think of Alanis everytime How I Met Your Mother does the Robin Sparkles gag about the ex-Canadian teen pop star?

Alanis will also be on the Today Show Friday (May 23), then plays European festivals all summer.

*Candlebox, who reunited for some shows a couple of years ago, have a new album out July 22 called Into the Sun. The first single, "Stand," is now available on iTunes and is not a cover of the 1989 REM hit (if anything, the guitar riff sounds like "You," their second hit). It's their first album of new material since 1998's Happy Pills (a greatest hits came out in 2006).

Here's their last big rock hit, 1998's "It's Alright." I honestly do not remember this song at all, and I was living in Oklahoma City 10 years ago, where there was only an active rock station, and Candlebox came on tour (I specifically remember this because Feeder opened, and we contemplated going. I now realize that Feeder rule, and I should have gone).


* Liz Phair has left Capitol Records after two adult-pop albums, and signed with Dave Matthews' label, ATO. The first release will be a 15th-anniversary edition of her debut, Exile in Guyville, out June 24. She will reportedly perform the album in its entirety at a show in New York the next night. A new studio album will follow in the fall.

I never really liked Exile to Guyville, but the follow-up, Whip-Smart, was pretty good, and I really liked the single "Supernova."


* And finally, Idolator reports that Extreme are back together, with a new album to be released this year. And yes, Extreme had their biggest hit in 1991. The band's last album was 1995, after which lead singer Gary Cherone famously joined Van Halen for an album and lead guitarist Nuno Bettencourt not-so-famously joined Perry Farrell for an album.