Matthew Sweet

For the writer and broadcaster, see Matthew Sweet (writer).

Matthew Sweet
Background information
Birth name	Sidney Matthew Sweet
Born	October 6, 1964 (1964-10-06) Lincoln, Nebraska, United States
Genres	Power pop, Grunge, Alternative Rock
Occupations	singer, songwriter, record producer, instrumentalist
Instruments	vocals, guitar, bass guitar
Years active	1980s–present
Labels	Columbia A&M Zoo Entertainment Shout! Factory
Associated acts	Community Trolls, Oh-OK, The Thorns, Susanna Hoffs
Website	matthewsweet.com
Music sample
Evangeline

Sidney Matthew Sweet (born October 6, 1964, in Lincoln, Nebraska) is an American alternative rock/power pop musician. He was part of the burgeoning Athens, Georgia music scene in the early and mid-1980s before gaining commercial success during the early 1990s. He continues to release albums and tour.

Early career

As a teenager in Lincoln, Sweet wrote and recorded songs on four-track cassettes, and in the ninth grade joined the band the Specs which resulted in his first recording on a battle of the bands LP produced by a local radio station. Sweet set off to Athens, Georgia in the early '80s after graduating from Lincoln Southeast High School in 1983 to attend college and join the vibrant Athens music scene, most famous as the home base for R.E.M. and The B-52's. In 1983, Sweet collaborated with R.E.M. member Michael Stipe under the name Community Trolls as well as being in Stipe's sister Lynda Stipe's band Oh-OK, and that year also formed the power-pop duo, The Buzz of Delight with drummer David Pierce (Oh-Ok). They released an EP Sound Castles on DB Recs later that year.

In 1985, he was signed to a solo recording contract with Columbia Records. One album, Inside, was released by Columbia in 1986 to good reviews, but limited success.

Sweet was then picked up by A&M Records where he released his second album, Earth (1989), again without commercial success. This period marked a personal and professional low point for Sweet, as A&M lost interest and his marriage failed.

Sweet quickly recovered and formed a new band including Richard Lloyd, Robert Quine, Greg Leisz, Lloyd Cole, and Fred Maher. The new group spent 1990 assembling Sweet's next work, originally titled Nothing Lasts.

Commercial breakthrough

In 1990, A&M released Sweet from his contract, and he signed with rival Zoo Entertainment. The album, still under construction at the time, was retitled Girlfriend and released in October 1991. This album featured a classic set of pop-rock songs, was considered by many to be an artistic breakthrough, and quickly garnered impressive U.S. sales (spawning a Top 10 single with the title track). The video for the title track was aired on MTV, MuchMusic and Night Tracks and features Japanese animation, of which Sweet is a fan. The animated clips in the video for "Girlfriend" are taken from the movie Space Adventure Cobra, and the video for "I've Been Waiting" uses clips of the Urusei Yatsura character Lum Invader, of whom Sweet has a tattoo.

Sweet's follow-up album, 1993's Altered Beast, was a more diverse and less immediately accessible album than Girlfriend; the album divided fans and critics who had mixed reactions to emotionally intense and brooding tracks like "Someone to Pull the Trigger" and "Knowing People." A second single, "Time Capsule", became a music video classic directed by Douglas Gayeton. The highly conceptual work featured extreme closeups of Sweet singing while supine on the grass. As he performed, his body was slowly covered with cockroaches that ultimately wrapped his body with twine. The final shot showed him pinned to the ground in a literary homage to Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels".

In 1995, Sweet released 100% Fun. The album mixed bouncy pop style with darker lyrics, including a leadoff track, the self-deprecating "Sick of Myself."

Later 1990s and 2000s

Sweet would issue a few more albums in the second half of the 1990s and maintain a devoted core audience, but received little critical acclaim or chart success.

Sweet's international success has been somewhat limited by his fear of flying; however he gained a significant following in Japan and his 2003 album Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu, was initially a Japan-only release.

In early 2002, he formed the supergroup The Thorns with Shawn Mullins and Pete Droge. He released a new album of solo material, Living Things in late 2004, though the material on the album was recorded in 2002.

In April 2006 he partnered with Bangles rhythm guitarist-vocalist Susanna Hoffs to release a collection of 1960s classics, titled Under the Covers, Vol. 1 featuring their take on such widely known 1960s hits as "Monday, Monday" and "The Kids Are Alright". The album represented a return to the accessible and melodic approach associated with Sweet's early breakthroughs.

Sweet's album, Sunshine Lies, was released on Shout! Factory on August 26, 2008. Accompanying the CD and download formats of the album is a 2-LP set featuring four previously unreleased songs.

On July 21, 2009, Sweet and Susanna Hoffs released their second collaboration Under the Covers, Vol. 2, which features covers of songs from the 1970s by such artists as Fleetwood Mac, Carly Simon, Yes, Todd Rundgren, and Rod Stewart.

In April, 2010, the Berkeley Repertory Theatre staged the world premiere of the musical play "Girlfriend," which used songs from Sweet's album of the same name, crediting Sweet with music and lyrics. The title of the play is ironic because its two characters are gay boys in their late teens.

Sweet's most recent album, Modern Art, was released on September 27, 2011.

Discography

• 1984 – Sound Castles – DB Records
• 1986 – Inside – Sony Records
• 1989 – Earth – A&M Records
• 1991 – Girlfriend – Zoo Entertainment. Later re-released as a Legacy Edition.
• 1993 – Altered Beast – Zoo Entertainment
• 1994 – Son of Altered Beast – Zoo Entertainment
• 1995 – 100% Fun – Zoo Entertainment
• 1997 – Blue Sky on Mars – Zoo Entertainment
• 1999 – In Reverse – Volcano Records
• 2000 – Time Capsule: Best of 90/00 – Volcano Records
• 2002 – To Understand: The Early Recordings of Matthew Sweet – Hip-O Records
• 2003 – Kimi Ga Suki – RCAM Records
• 2004 – Living Things – RCAM Records
• 2006 – Under the Covers, Vol. 1 (with Susanna Hoffs) – Shout! Factory
• 2008 – Sunshine Lies – Shout! Factory
• 2009 – Under the Covers, Vol. 2 (with Susanna Hoffs) – Shout! Factory
• 2011 – Modern Art – Missing Piece

Compilations

• Luxury Condos Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon – Coyote Records – 1985. Under the name "The Jacks," Sweet, Chris Stamey, and Don Dixon contributed a reworking of the dB's song, Ask for Jill, to this Hoboken anthology, with Sweet on lead vocals.
• In 1993 contributed to the AIDS-Benefit Album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization with his song "Superdeformed".
• A cover of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, performed by Matthew Sweet, is included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall for MCA Records.
• The 1998 film Can't Hardly Wait and its subsequent soundtrack features Matthew Sweet performing "Farther Down"
• Wild – 2007, from The Bigtop (soundtrack) (2008)
• Sweet performs a cover of "This Moment" by Victoria Williams on the tribute album for her, Sweet Relief.
• Sweet performed a cover of Walter Egan's "Magnet & Steel" for Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It can be found on the 1998 release Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Album.

Other work

• Sweet has contributed numerous tracks to compilations and soundtracks, ranging from the Carpenters tribute album If I Were A Carpenter to covering Tom Petty's classic "American Girl" for the popular 1980s compilation High School Reunion — a tribute to those great 1980s films, and to soundtracks for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (song: "Silent City"), Brain Candy, The Baby-Sitters Club and Can't Hardly Wait, as well as "Superdeformed" to the AIDS benefit album No Alternative and "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" to the compilation Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits.
• Sweet provided guitar, bass and/or vocals on a number of tracks on Lloyd Cole's albums Lloyd Cole (1990), Don't Get Weird on Me Babe (1991) and Bad Vibes (1993), as well as bass on Cole's recording of "Chelsea Hotel," on the Leonard Cohen tribute album I'm Your Fan.
• Sweet co-produced the Velvet Crush albums Teenage Symphonies to God and Free Expression and co-wrote two songs on the latter.
• Sweet and Jules Shear collaborated to write the title track for Everything's Different Now, the third and final album by 'Til Tuesday. Sweet and Shear also collaborated on Sweet's album Earth, which also included collaborations between Sweet and Shear's then-wife, Pal Shazar.
• Sweet was the bassist of Ming Tea, a band featured in the first Austin Powers movie, with Susanna Hoffs and Mike Myers.
• Sweet appeared as himself in an episode of Cartoon Network's hit TV series Space Ghost Coast to Coast
• Recently, Sweet composed the music for the opening and closing of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

External links

• Matthew Sweet on Myspace
• Official website
• Lazy-i Interview: October 2004
• 1997 TV Profile of Matthew Sweet – NET Television
• Exclaim Interview