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MAGNET Exclusive: Premiere Of Eric Hutchinson’s “Class Of 98”

Teenage angst has paid off well for Eric Hutchinson. Like many of us, the NYC singer/songwriter realized he’d been spending a lot of time thinking about his high-school days. So many life-changing things happen in those four years that it takes at least a couple decades to process them and make any sense of it all. And that’s exactly what Hutchinson does on his new album, Class Of 98, which is out today.

“This is me getting into the time machine and going back to the ’90s to think about the next 20 years of my life,” says Hutchinson.

Not only does he lyrically tackle all the important subjects on the syllabus from those times (dating, drinking, dating, rocking out, dating, parents, dating), Hutchinson also captures the sound of that era with Class Of 98. He again sought out Paul Q. Kolderie (whose production work with Radiohead, Hole, Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom, etc., helped define the sound of the alt ’90s) for “sonic guidance” in mixing the LP. Hutchinson also got former Soul Asylum guitarist Justin Sharbono to help party like it’s 1998.

“My favorite show ever is Mad Men,” says Hutchinson. “I was watching it and thinking, ‘Why can’t an album be a period piece the way a movie or a TV show can?’ Class Of 98 is a ‘period-piece album.'”

It sure is. If you have a soft spot in your pop/rock heart for the glory days soundtracked most prominently by Weezer (back when you could count the number of albums by Rivers and Co. on two fingers and didn’t need to ID them by the color of their covers), Class Of 98 will feel a bit like a reunion.

‘I wanted to make my homage to the ’90s alt-rock music I loved when I was a teenager,” says Hutchinson. “When I started writing the songs, it only made sense that they should all be putting myself in the mindset of my high-school brain.”

Eric Hutchinson went back to high school, and all you got was this awesome album. We’re proud to premiere Class Of 98 today on magnetmagazine.com. Check it out right here, right now.

School’s out forever.