Operating from 1994 to 2002, Ivy were one of several tremendous power-pop bands that featured the services of the late, great Fountains Of Wayne co-leader Adam Schlesinger. The band’s 2000 album Long Distance is about to get a reissue, which means we’ll soon get to hear a bunch of unearthed gems from those days. The 25th anniversary vinyl reissue will feature three bonus tracks, including the previously unreleased “All I Ever Wanted,” out today, while the digital also tacks on a demo of the hit “Edge Of The Ocean” to go along with the remix that’s also included. But let’s talk about this new song out today, yeah?

“All I Ever Wanted” is from 1997, when Ivy were working on Apartment Life. It’s fantastic. I can’t believe it never saw release before now. If you care about guitar-based indie-pop music at all, you should listen to this one. Surviving Ivy member Andy Chase explains how he and bandmate Dominique Durand dug the song up:

Dominique and I searched through the Ivy archives for any unreleased Apartment Life-era songs we might be able to use as bonus tracks. We put on one of the 2” 24 track reel-to-reel tapes we unearthed that had the title “Stupid Cat” scrawled across the outside of the box. This song started playing. It was so familiar to Dominique and I that we Shazam’d it, to see what it was called and which album of ours it was on. But when Shazam came up high and dry, we started remembering more and more of this song’s foggy, unresolved history. Back in 1997 the great Lloyd Cole had co produced a few songs for what would be Apartment Life. We released one called “I’ve Got A Feeling” and, for reasons lost on us today, we shelved the other one – this one – never even doing a rough mix of it. So the master tape sat in our storage locker for the next 24 years, fully forgotten from our memories. After its reemergence, we had it transferred to digital and I finally was able to do a proper mix of it in my studio in 2024. And yes, Lloyd is even playing some guitars on this song!

I love the idea of using Shazam to identify your own song. The human memory is a strange phenomenon. What’s more, it sounds like “All I Ever Wanted” is just the tip of the iceberg. In the process of poking around their archives, Chase and Durand found more than 21 unfinished songs they’d been working on with Schlesinger. They’re currently in the process of finishing those songs and putting together the first new Ivy album in over a decade.

That’s fantastic news, and “All I Ever Wanted” is a fantastic song. Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Undertow”
02 “Disappointed”
03 “Edge Of The Ocean”
04 “Blame It On Yourself”
05 “While We’re In Love”
06 “Lucy Doesn’t Love You”
07 “Worry About You”
08 “Let’s Stay Inside”
09 “Midnight Sun”
10 “I Think Of You”
11 “Hideaway”
12 “One More Last Kiss”
13 “Digging Your Scene” (bonus track)
14 “All I Ever Wanted” (bonus track)
15 “Edge Of The Ocean Duotone Remix” (bonus track)
16 “Edge Of The Ocean Demo” (digital only bonus track)

The 25th anniversary reissue of Long Distance is out 11/1 via Bar None. Pre-order it here.