Palo Alto Pop Overthrow

It was 1991, and Matthew had just released his album entitled "Girlfriend." The album rose though the charts, and was named one of the top 100 albums of the year by Rolling Stone. Life was good. It was the right time, musically, for Matthew to be on top. In 1991, the meteoric rise of Seattle grunge had just begun, and listeners were still open to the alt rock sound that Matthew wove in to his record. On the other end of the grunge crash, in 1995, Matthew yet again had commercial success with his album 100% Fun. The leading track "Sick of Myself," was a catchy guitar solo driven song whose main lyric was lifted, appropriately enough, from Kurt Cobain's suicide note. For the widespread success of these two albums, Matthew Sweet has often been singled out as the face of the revival of American Power Pop during the 1990s.

This week's featured album is "Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu", released in 2002 on RCAM Records. It's a unique album--not for its sonic qualities, necessarily--but because of its inspiration and reach. It all started with a trip to Japan. Matthew Sweet has a rabid fan base there, but due to his strong fear of flying, he rarely makes it across the ocean to tour. A rare visit to Japan was made in August of 2001, when Matthew visited Tokyo and Osaka. He was absolutely blown away by his fans, and because of this he spoke to the press of wanting to make a release exclusively for his Japanese fans. Over one short week that following January, he resolved himself to make that album in as spontaneous a fashion as possible, without relying on prior demos or existing song ideas.

During the intense week of songwriting and performing for "Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu," Matthew additionally produced, engineered, and mixed the entire album himself, in his home studio. He did, however, rely on the talents of a very special set of musicians, including Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, Velvet Crush drummer Ric Menck, and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz. Thus, the lineup on this album echoes much of that of the original 1991 album "Girlfriend."

What is Matthew Sweet up to these days? As we reported in April, Matthew is releasing a new album entitled "Sunshine Lies" this year. Here's an update (courtesy of our friends at the Too Poppy blog): The album is slated to come out on August 26th, and previews of a few tracks are up on Matthew's myspace page.

Favorite tracks: 10. Wait, 1. Dead Smile, 2. Morning Song, 3. The Ocean In-Between, 6. Warning

Label: RCAM Records, Ltd.
RIYL: Big Star, The Thorns, Splitsville
Four stars.

myspace, official site, wikipedia, AMG
Amazon: album
Rhapsody