Line #9 Music/MatthewSweet


1	[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/matthew_sweet_01_4395.jpg]]
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3	Sidney Matthew Sweet (born 6 October 1964) is an American PowerPop musician who gained some success with the AlternativeRock boom early in TheNineties, tapered off, and instead settled into recording and touring for a devoted fanbase.
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5	Beginning to write and record songs as a teenager, Sweet moved to Athens, Georgia to attend college, attracted by the city's alternative music scene. After some stints in Community Trolls, Oh-OK and The Buzz of Delight, he was signed to Creator/ColumbiaRecords in 1985. After his debut ''Inside'' flopped, he was dropped and instead moved to [[Creator/AAndMRecords A&M Records]], where he made another unsuccessful album, ''Earth''. These albums suffered from severe cases of multiple producers and over-use of synths (with the first being recorded in [[IAmTheBand one-man band mode]]) and received given mixed reviews at best. A&M also gave him the boot after ''Earth'', and he moved to Zoo Entertainment instead.
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7	Suffering from a CreatorBreakdown after a divorce, Sweet entered the studio in 1990 to record a new album, with his new crack band formed of ex-Voidoids members Ivan Julian (guitar), Robert Quine (guitar), Fred Maher (drums) and ex-Music/{{Television}} guitarist Richard Lloyd. The third time proved to be the charm, as Sweet and Maher's straightforward production combined with the tension between Sweet's {{Epic Riff}}s and Lloyd and Quine's avant-garde chaos made ''Girlfriend'' a critical success upon release the next year. The two successful singles "Girlfriend" and "I've Been Waiting" didn't hurt either.
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9	For his followup ''Altered Beast'', Sweet recruited famous guest musicians such as [[Music/FleetwoodMac Mick Fleetwood]], [[Music/ElvisCostello Pete Thomas]], [[Music/BigStar Jody Thomas]], session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins and fiddle player Byron Berline, taking his PowerPop in a more diverse direction and supplying DarkerAndEdgier lyrics. Needless to say, this confused his newfound audience and attracted lukewarm reviews. The next album, ''100% Fun'', reduced the band to its key members but otherwise continued with the DarkerAndEdgier direction (the title comes from [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Kurt Cobain's suicide note]], for starters).
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11	Sweet's albums began reversing from the DarkerAndEdgier course with ''Blue Sky on Mars'', but its reception was lukewarm given that it lacked his earlier secret weapon: Lloyd and Quine's gnarly, edgy guitar work. It failed to spawn even an AlternativeRock hit like his previous albums, leaving him to the status of CultClassic. Not that that's discouraged him - to this day he continues writing hooky PowerPop albums for his fanbase. Well, okay, except ''In Reverse''. And he did reunite with Lloyd for ''Kimi Ga Suki''.
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13	Sweet has a ''huge'' following in [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Japan]], which can be attributed to the fact that he is JustForFun/OneOfUs: the videos for "Girlfriend" and "I've Been Waiting" used clips from ''Manga/SpaceAdventureCobra'' and ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'', respectively, before anime became really popular Stateside. ''Kimi Ga Suki'' was originally a Japan-only release as a "thank you" for his fanbase there before unexpected popularity also brought it to the USA.
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15	!!Discography:
16	* ''Inside'' (1986)
17	* ''Earth'' (1989)
18	* ''Girlfriend'' (1991)
19	* ''Altered Beast'' (1993)
20	* ''100% Fun'' (1995)
21	* ''Blue Sky on Mars'' (1997)
22	* ''In Reverse'' (1999)
23	* ''Kimi Ga Suki'' (2003)
24	* ''Living Things'' (2004)
25	* ''Under the Covers'' - {{Cover Album}}s recorded with [[Music/TheBangles Susanna Hoffs]]; the first volume (2006) focused on tracks from TheSixties, the second (2009) from TheSeventies, the third (2013) from TheEighties.
26	* ''Sunshine Lies'' (2008)
27	* ''Modern Art'' (2011)
28	* ''Tomorrow Forever'' (2017)
29	* ''Tomorrow's Daughter'' (2018)
30	* ''Wicked System of Things'' (2018; Record Store Day release)
31	----
32	!!Matthew Sweet provides examples of the following tropes:
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34	* CoverAlbum: Three of them.
35	* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: "Beware My Love" by Music/{{Wings}} is sung from the viewpoint of a jilted lover warning that his replacement will mistreat the woman he's leaving while the narrator in Sweet's version is an abusive lover apologizing for his misdeeds.
36	* CoverVersion: He contributed a cover of "Franchise/ScoobyDoo, Where Are You?" to the tribute album ''Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits'' (the same album with Music/TheRamones' breakneck cover of "Spider-Man", incidentally).
37	* CreatorBreakdown:
38	** ''Girlfriend'', ''Altered Beast'' and even ''100% Fun'', judging by some of the lyrics.
39	** The audio clip from ''{{Film/Caligula}}'' in the middle of ''Altered Beast'' would also seem to be a sign of this.
40	* CreatorCameo: [[Music/FleetwoodMac Lindsey Buckingham]] and [[Music/{{Yes}} Steve Howe]] play guitar on Sweet and Susanna Hoffs' covers of "Second Hand News" and "I've Seen All Good People", respectively. Dhani Harrison similarly fills in for his late [[Music/GeorgeHarrison father]] on "Beware of Darkness". Curiously, there's no sign of Richard Lloyd for "[[Music/{{Television}} Marquee Moon]]".
41	* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Altered Beast''
42	* {{Engrish}}: The title of ''Kimi Ga Suki'' is an inverse of this. As Sweet explains in the album's liner notes: "If I did it correctly, the title should seem a little strange or wrong, but still meaningful! The true definition is supposed to be a 'love you' life, one devoted to loving someone or something, even life itself!"
43	* EpicRocking: "Thunderstorm".
44	* FakeOutFadeOut: "Divine Intervention".
45	* [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Japanese Love Matthew Sweet]]
46	* LeadBassist: Matthew fills this role sometimes, whenever there are no other credited bass players on a song. (Of course, overdubbing still allows him to play guitar and a bunch of other instruments.)
47	* LongestSongGoesLast: At least three uses - ''In Reverse'' ends with 9:37 "Thunderstorm," ''100% Fun'' ends with 4:13 "Smog Moon," and ''Sunshine Lies'' ends with 5:07 "Back of My Mind." Inverted with ''Girlfriend'', which put its longest track, "Divine Intervention" at 5:37, first.
48	* LyricalDissonance: "Sick of Myself".
49	* ReligionRantSong: "Divine Intervention" isn't as angry as Music/{{XTC}}'s "Dear God", but it does pull a HoldingOutForAHero on God (the chorus goes ''We're all counting on his/divine intervention'') and voices doubts about his benevolence (''Now does He love us?/I look around/And all I see is destruction'').
50	* SelfBackingVocalist: Yes, all those harmonies on his albums (except the ones with Hoffs) are Sweet alone.
51	* ShoutOut:
52	** ''Altered Beast'' is also a [[VideoGame/AlteredBeast1988 video game]].
53	** ''100% Fun'' is an ironic quote from Music/KurtCobain's suicide note.
54	** ''Blue Sky On Mars'' is named for a line of dialog in ''Film/TotalRecall1990''.
55	** "Evangeline" is named for a comic book series, with the lyrics initially inspired by the title character.
56	* SpokenWordInMusic: "Intro," from ''Altered Beast'' is a clip of dialogue from the film ''{{Film/Caligula}}''.
57	* UntitledTitle: "Untitled," from ''In Reverse'', works the word into the lyrics.

Context Music / MatthewSweet