Customer Reviews

Time Capsule: The Best of Matthew Sweet

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Matthew Sweet is unfortunately an overlooked artist who has recorded some the best power pop music in the last twenty years. After he released two albums in the late 80's, that were quite frankly not that good, he hit his stride with his third release, the brilliant Girlfriend, which is one the best albums of the 90's. That album mixed various styles from the Beatlesque "Divine Intervention" to the driving rock of "Girlfriend" to the Neil Youngish "Winona" (which is not included here, but should be) and it appeared that he was poised for a major commercial breakthrough, but that never happened. He continued to release fine albums that contained some of the excellent songs on this disc including "Ugly Truth", "We're The Same", "Someone To Pull The Trigger" & "Sick Of Myself". If you are not familiar with Mr. Sweet, this collection is a great introduction. As with any hits collection, there are some omissions, so I would suggest you also pick up Girlfriend & Altered Beast which are his strongest albums and two of the best released in the 90's.

Alas, Matthew Sweet will always be remembered for his happy-go-lucky tune, "Girlfriend". For those who have followed his career will know that "Girlfriend" is merely the tip of the iceberg. His talents have been showcased in many fantastic albums such as "Altered Beast" (in my opinion his best), "100% Fun", and most recently "In Reverse".

His genre of music, aptly dubbed power pop, is a distortion guitar drenched sound that mixes in one part southern rock, two parts ballads, one part noise, and the rest plain rocking music. His lyrics are simple and discernible, and his penchant for writing about dysfunctional relationships could be irritating at times, however, he was no doubt one of the best singer-songwriters around in the 90's. While his peers like Aimee Mann have been lauded everywhere and enjoying the limelight, it is sad to see Matthew Sweet goes largely unappreciated outside of "Girlfriend".

As far as the compilation goes, the song selection is right on. All his (arguably) best songs are in here. Not to say that the rest of his work are half bad, these are, in my opinion, the songs that are most accessible. If you detect the changes of moods in different parts of this compilation, don't be surprised. They songs are ordered by the time of release, and every one of his album has an overall tone. "Girlfried", "Blues Sky in Mars", "100% Fun" are his "happy" albums (simply put), while "Altered Beast" and "In Reverse" are the moody ones.

If you consider yourself a great music fan, do me a favor. Get this album, and see how fast you will get hooked to Matthew Sweet.

Seven years ago, I blindly picked up a CD called 'Altered Beast' by a guy I had only vaguely heard of. Within a week, I knew every word, and had rushed out to buy Matthew Sweet's previous albums. Catchy hooks, dark lyrics, captivating ballads - and that voice! This was unlike anything I had heard before.

He followed up 'Altered Beast' with a series of solid power-pop albums. Why Matthew has not had more radio hits is a complete enigma to me! This collection covers from his 'Girlfriend' album to his most recent, 'In Reverse'. It also includes 2 new songs - not his best, but they're definitely worth a listen or two. It's interesting to see how far he has come in the past 10 years.

This truly is the 'Best of' Matthew Sweet. If you're a new fan, start here!

You figure there are two kinds of people who buy greatest hits/best of albums: people who want a neat and tidy overview of an artist's work and diehard fans looking to complete their collection. Luckily, this collection should make both the casual and the loyal fans happy. I'm in the latter category myself, a diehard since I found Earth in a used cd bin around the same time Girlfriend came out and blew us all away.

Usually albums of this nature stir up some sort of debate about what songs SHOULD have been included that weren't (that's part of the fun of Best Of albums, isn't it?). But Time Capsule does a pretty decent job of including everything it should -- from Matt's bigger "hits" (Girlfriend, I've Been Waiting, The Ugly Truth, Sick of Myself, Where You Get Love) to some of his more recent, more mature works (Until You Break, If Time Permits, What Matters). For the casual fan, this is a good introduction although I would still recommend going straight to Girlfriend or, my favorite, In Reverse. You can't go wrong with any of Matt's albums, really.

For the completists out there, Time Capsule has two new songs, Ready and So Far. Now, if you're an artist and you plan on including new songs on an album called "Best Of", you pretty much better make sure those songs are pretty freakin' good. After all, they're going to be on your "Best Of" album for eternity. Well, these two ARE good. They're both your basic, straight forward rock songs -- nothing experimental -- with So Far, in my opinion, being the real jewel of the two. In fact, it stands out as one of the best songs on the entire disc.

For those who complained about the exclusion of the songs from Inside or Earth, please keep in mind the title says "Best Of... 1990-2000." That's why Inside (from 1986) and Earth (from 1989) missed the cut. Those two albums do have some good cuts on them but I think we can all agree this covers Matt's Golden Era.

At least, so far...

Why Matthew Sweet hasn't consistantly had hit records remains one of the mysteries in modern music. It looked like he was headed for stardom after "Girlfriend", but it never happened. This best of collection follows his excellent "Pet Sounds for the 90's" "In Reverse". And although fans will quibble at track selection this is a solid set. Those who are fans of Big Star, the Raspberries, Badfinger, Beatles, Beach Boys will love this cd. Not a bad song in the bunch. The two new songs fit in quite well. Listen to this over and over. Then go out and buy his other cds.

"Time Capsule" does a good job of collecting some of Matthew Sweet's best songs and putting them nicely on a 70+ minute cd along with two lovely pictures of Tuesday Weld (one on the front, the other on the back). You get 18 songs, two of which are new, none of which come off Sweet's first album, good liner notes with pictures of Matthew Sweet's albums (except for the first one), and you get two terrific pictures of Tuesday Weld. This is great guitar pop music with a great cover. Buy it. Listen to it. Look at it. Not a bad song in the mix.

Matthew Sweet is one of the best songwriters pop music has had in recent years ("pop" as in melodic, accessible music; not the TRL definition of the word). But his "Best Of" album is an insufficient look at his career thus far. If you think singles like "Girlfriend" and "Time Capsule" are Sweet at his peak, then maybe this album is for you. But to really get an idea of what this man is capable of, pick up "In Reverse", "Altered Beast", and "100% Fun".

It's a testament to Matthew Sweet's songwriting ability that this is a best-of that misses so many of his highs. In fact, his albums also miss some of his highs. Like many Sweet fans, this reviewer's favorite (and unfortunately omitted here) tracks include the soundtrack contributions such as "Happiness" (Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy) and "Farther Down" (Can't Hardly Wait).

This disc is, however, ideal for a casually interested fan of excellent power pop that owes something to the Beatles, Beach Boys and Byrds, as well as Television (Richard Lloyd is a frequent contributor to Sweet's songs), Neil Young, Big Star, R.E.M. and other more guitar-heavy and "crunchy" and/or "twangy" alt-rock power-pop acts.

"Girlfriend", "Sick of Myself", "Time Capsule", "I've Been Waiting", and "Where You Get Love" simply had to be included, and their appearance here make the disc worth the price alone. Yes, sadly, "Winona" and "Evangeline" were omitted, but Girlfriend, from which those two songs originate, is an album also worth it's price (and, in fact, an even more enjoyable musical experience, albeit demanding more time to reveal its true worth), meaning it's more lucrative to spread the disc space around more evenly across all five of Matthew Sweet's albums from the '90s, so that casual fans can get a taste of each album's offerings, in a more quickly digestible manner.

On that level, this compilation succeeds extraordinarily well. It's just that his best work doesn't fit into a mere eighty minutes, especially when some of his best songs, for whatever reason, don't even make it to albums or even those soundtracks (like "Strange Faces", a beautiful home-recorded piano ballad only found in demo form). This disc is also just a ridiculously enjoyable listen for fans of said guitar-heavy (and sometimes piano-based) power-pop/alt-rock. Only die-hard fans lament the omission of tracks like "Come to California", "In Too Deep", "Reaching Out" and the like. Casual fans who've never heard these songs and don't want to waste too much money on more than one disc shouldn't be disappointed with the music that is actually included.

A caveat: If your lyrical tastes are more geared towards, say, James Mercer (Shins) style oblique and nearly indecipherable poetry, Matthew Sweet's simpler (and for this reviewer's money, more charming) lyrics may not be for you. That said, his unpretentious lyrics can still frequently (especially on these tracks) lay bare stunningly honest emotion and/or fun conceits that play very well against the downright filthy-fun foil of the lead guitar of the excellent Richard Lloyd, Robert Quine and Pete Phillips.

Another caveat: Don't be surprised if, like me, you end up ravenously devouring everything else of his, eventually rendering this purchase practically redundant. In fact, Mr. Sweet's Girlfriend is one of my "desert island" albums, along with R.E.M.'s Murmur, Pixies' Doolittle, The Beatles' Revolver and Television's Marquee Moon. Kimi, Altered Beast and In Reverse are ridiculously awesome, too...

I've been a fan of this guy since the Specs, a great skinny-tie new wave band out of Lincoln, NE circa 1980 (he was Matt Sweet then, heh heh). Not a bad cut on this here compilation, although I agree that Sweet certainly derserves a 2-disc retrospective (Rhino are you listening?). Among the missing: the acoustic Byrdsy "Speed of Light," "Ultrasuede," at least ONE live Neil Young cover that he loves to perform, and at least SOMETHING off of the promo-only "Goodfriend" CD.

Still, an excellent collection.

Potential bummer: usually these "best-of" collections preceed the artist getting kicked off of the label roster. Hope it does not happen.

It's so nice having most of Matthew's best stuff on ONE CD. That's not to dismiss the rest of the songs that didn't make it. Still, I absolutely LOVE "Ready" & hadn't heard it before this album. (I know, some Sweet fan, huh?) "Where You Get Love" is amazing as I've also heard a live version of this one & it only gets better.

Don't wait another minute before picking up this album. You won't be disappointed! (unless you were wanting mushy gooshy bubblegum pop or death metal)