Rolling Stone, November 28, 1991
Hard-edged album documents romantic turmoil
By Michael Azerrad
A year ago, Matthew Sweet was mired in a bitter divorce, he had no record label, and his entire record collection was warped. But Sweet emerged from the ordeal with Girlfriend, one of the most exciting albums of the year and the best of his career.
At eighteen, Sweet left his native Nebraska for the music scene in Athens, Georgia. Two years later, he had signed with Columbia Records and moved to New York. Featuring a stellar backing cast, his 1986 album Inside won over crtics with its disarming blend of catchy, high-tech pop and real-life sentiments but sold dismally; the same thing happened when Sweet moved to A&M for 1989's Earth.
But for all the acclaim, Sweet wasn't quite satisfied with his music. "There was something missing for me," he says. After discovering Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix, Sweet decided to throw away his drum machine and make "a really raw, totally blatant kind of record."
Meanwhile, Sweet had begun a painful separation from his wife. "It was one of the most terrible experiences of my life," says Sweet, 27. Just to make things more turbulent, he fell in love again. "Needless to say," he says, "I was really on edge when I went in to make this record."
Equal parts anguish and elation, the heavily autobiographical Girlfriend plays Sweet's impeccable pop sense off noisy, passionate guitar work, recalling the Beatles' Revolver, early Neil Young and Television. In fact, former Television guitarist Richard Lloyd played on three tracks, while downtown-New York guitar great Robert Quine did the rest.
Sweet and his friend and producer, Fred Maher, traded perfectionism for spontaneity, recording and mixing tracks the same day, using minimal studio tricks. Sweet found his fullest expression in Girlfriend's bluesy base and loose, jam-session feel. Alternating blistering rockers with lyrical acoustic numbers, the album documents both the torment of a disintegrating relationship and the giddy rush of a new one. Both feelings burst from the record's opening track, "Divine Intervention," a Job-like lament that finds redemption in a triumphant Lloyd solo.
The album was almost completed when Sweet's A&R man abruptly left A&M. Struggling at the time, the label was looking to cut its roster, and Sweet was forced to leave, too. "I got worked up to where I finally feel sure about something," Sweet says. "And then this happens. I felt like I'd stood up and then got punched down by life."
Lots of offers came, but no one would commit; the fledgling Zoo label expressed some interest, then backed out. Sweet, flat broke, considered returning to college to study paleontology; he even asked about work at the the local Toys 'R' Us. A flood at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, ruined all of his guitars and records. Then Sweet's luck changed - Zoo decided to release the album after the label's president happened to hear a staffer playing the demo tape.
It's indicative of Sweet's frame of mind that he changed the album title from the fatalistic Nothing Lasts to the more upbeat Girlfriend. Besides, Tuesday Weld, whose coquettish photo (circa 1957) graces the album cover, didn't like the title either.
Sweet discovered the old adage that what the blues is, the blues cures. "It's funny how the album ended up showing everything I needed to feel," he says. "Everything I needed as an antidote is there."