Matthew Sweet Girlfriend
I’ve found that listening to WOXY Vintage on the weekend is a nice escape from the constant barrage of new music (not that I’m complaining) and a nice venue in which to rediscover some of the music that I tend to forget about sometimes. A track from the Matthew Sweet’s 1991 release Girlfriend sparked a memory that resulted in me putting the album on for a couple of spins reminding me how much of impact this recording had on me at the time.
In those days, discovering music was a whole different beast. I imagine that there was the internet, but most of us didn’t have computers, and you either heard a song on the radio, saw a video on t.v. , or got turned on by the recommendation of a friend. I believe that the video for the single “Girlfriend”, which was made up of anime clips from the movie Space Adventure Cobra, was the spark that lead me to this recording. It was a cool video and the song rocked, so why not?
I didn’t know anything about Matthew Sweet or his musical past, in which he was a part of the early Athen’s music scene, along with the B-52s and R.E.M, even recording with Michael Stipe. I just loved the record. The songs were great both musically and lyrically. As you listen to the album, you understand that Girlfriend is not just some partially attached titled, it’s the entire theme for the record. In fact, Sweet wrote the album after his divorce, and you can feel and hear all the aspects of being in hopelessly in love, being in relationships, falling out of love, and understanding the pains of love all over the record. As much as I highly recommend this album as a must listen, anyone in the throws of a break-up should approach with caution.
Aside from the lyrical content draped so well over the subject matter, the songs are exceptional musically. If you take into consideration the current band at the time, Lloyd Cole (Lloyd Cole and The Commotions), Richard Lloyd (Television, Rocket From The Tombs), and Robert Quine (Lou Reed, Lloyd Cole, Brian Eno, Tom Waits) it makes sense why this album is so diverse and amazingly played. Ranging from soft ballads with a country feel, to guitar driven rock, each song is solid and stands apart from any other song on the recording.
Rolling Stone named the album one of the top 100 albums of the 90′s, while the A.V. Club referred to it as Sweet’s magnum opus and labeled it the best power pop album of that decade. The cover photo is of the 1950′s actress Tuesday Wells, appropriately titled Nothing Lasts.
MP3> Matthew Sweet ‘Girlfriend’
MP3> Matthew Sweet ‘Thought I Knew You’
MP3> Matthew Sweet ‘Don’t Go’
