2020 Charity Shop Purchases 66 - Matther Sweet
Some power pop for you today as we feature Matthew Sweet with Altered Beast his 4th album from 1993 on the Zoo Entertainment label. The album cover comes in five different colours (yellow,blue, green, orange and purple). As the picture above suggests my copy came in blue.
The follow up to Girlfriend (which I've still to get) it was released to mixed reviews with a score of 4/5 from Allmusic and 3/5 from Rolling Stone.
Rolling Stone stated that it had inspiring moments, the problem is finding them. Allmusc felt that the album was all over the place and it takes a bit of time for all of it to make sense , but after a few listens it falls together.
That is somewhat reassuring as after being pretty chuffed to find it after a first listen I was not entirely convinced. It is certainly a bit of a curate's egg. I hold Mr Sweet in high regard so I shall persevere.
It joins it's successor 100% Fun (1995) and 1999's In Reverse on the shelves.
Matthew Sweet - The Ugly Truth
Two good tracks! On the shelves here are Girlfriend, 100% Fun and an album by Rachel Sweet
ReplyDeleteGirlfriend is a must. If you pick up that and manage to track down a copy of Blue Sky on Mars, for my money you'll have the five Matthew Sweet releases you need.
ReplyDeleteHuge fan. When I moved to Japan in ‘93, the first piece of music I bought was the Japanese version of this album just so I could have the two bonus tracks. With the passage of time, I concur Altered Beast is not as good as Girlfriend, but it’s still a keeper. I think Time Capsule might be my favorite from Sweet.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed both, thanks - Ugly Truth has the edge for me, but from all I've heard so far there's a compelling bittersweetness to his songs (no pun intended!)
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