Why is Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Matthew Sweet is a power pop master craftsman.
What does Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
The title track, “Girlfriend,” is an exceptional power pop song. Let’s break that down.
“Girlfriend” is powerful in that it genuinely rocks. And then on the pop side, it’s got a tremendous guitar hook that’s catchy as hell, strong song construction, and fabulous backing vocals that form a great meshing of 1960s and 1990s rock sensibilities.
It’s the kind of song that I can easily play on a loop and be perfectly contented.
The “Girlfriend” video is one of the strangest I’ve ever seen in terms of “the vibe of the song doesn’t seem to fit the video, like at all” sense, but the animation style used for whatever weird space-type adventure that’s going on is pretty cool. And you get to catch Matthew Sweet’s guitar chops in action here and there.
“I’ve Been Waiting” picks up influences of The Beatles and The Byrds particularly, rock music that’s precisely executed and with incredible vocal parts.
“Thought I Knew You” has a little bit of an acoustic Led Zeppelin or Eagles vibe, California rock and pop flavor with a little dusting of eastern mysticism thrown in. Matthew Sweet is a master craftsman of song writing, and it shows off here and throughout Girlfriend.
Pop culture stuff that has something to do with Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend
Since I mention the Eagles above, I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention (spoiler alert!) that you won’t be seeing an Eagles album on the best 1,000 albums ever list.
Growing up on Long Island, I heard songs on rock radio like “Take It Easy” and “Life in the Fast Lane” and (of course) “Hotel California” around nine billion times. So maybe there’s something about the band that just got overkilled for me, that never was able to get resuscitated.
I don’t hate the Eagles, and think that Hotel California the album is an achievement, but there’s so much else about 1970s rock that I’m excited and passionate about (and that’s just one particular sub-genre of music, of course) and looking forward to share as the best 1,000 albums ever continues to roll on.
Some stats & info about Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Alternative Rock, Pop Music, Power Pop
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Girlfriend released? 1991
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #747 out of 1,000
Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.