"Nothing Lasts" Matthew Sweet started his career as a power-pop songsmith out of the mold of Tommy Keene, Mitch Easter, or the dB's. Cultivating ties with Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd, he suddenly evolved into a fiery master of noisy guitar bludgeon, all feedback and thick reverb. But the pop sensibilities wouldn't let go, which is probably why this, his signature album, remains his enduring touchstone. Half Neil Young guitar blast fetishist and half smoov Paul McCartney girlthrob, he's loser enough to not get the chick in the end but lotharian enough to have her at least for awhile, and not necessarily the one left in most pain in the end. It takes a certain degree of cockiness, after all, to put Tuesday Weld in her prime on the cover of your Girlfriend album. The sound is always raw. Now and then so are the emotions. If it seems to reside most in a kind of studied intellectual place, paradoxically that only reinforces the sturdy structure, which is solid as concrete.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Girlfriend (1991)
"Nothing Lasts" Matthew Sweet started his career as a power-pop songsmith out of the mold of Tommy Keene, Mitch Easter, or the dB's. Cultivating ties with Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd, he suddenly evolved into a fiery master of noisy guitar bludgeon, all feedback and thick reverb. But the pop sensibilities wouldn't let go, which is probably why this, his signature album, remains his enduring touchstone. Half Neil Young guitar blast fetishist and half smoov Paul McCartney girlthrob, he's loser enough to not get the chick in the end but lotharian enough to have her at least for awhile, and not necessarily the one left in most pain in the end. It takes a certain degree of cockiness, after all, to put Tuesday Weld in her prime on the cover of your Girlfriend album. The sound is always raw. Now and then so are the emotions. If it seems to reside most in a kind of studied intellectual place, paradoxically that only reinforces the sturdy structure, which is solid as concrete.
I had seen the "Girlfriend" offering by M. Sweet many times...surprisingly at many used cd/pawn shops and never brought myself around to pick it up.
ReplyDeleteThe RnR famous Tuesday Weld was quite a looker. Never knew she was the one on the cover.
Nice post
Casey
http://thecollegecrowddigsme.blogspot.com/