“You Don’t Love Me”
Matthew Sweet
Girlfriend
1991, Zoo
This Exit: Matthew Sweet is the Jackson Browne of grunge-era, “Alternative” power-pop. Based on one’s opinion of Jackson Browne and/or Matthew Sweet, this claim invites various interpretations. To me, Jackson Browne is a master of sensitive, confessional songwriting whose only artistic weakness might be his penchant for and desire to top the charts. It’s ironic, because creating chart-topping FM hits might be what he is most known for, the reason his music was heard in the first place, and why his songs are still played on the radio today, but I don’t think he was ever as good at being commercially relevant as he is at writing songs. Lyrically, Jackson Browne’s forty-plus-years of writing has produced hardly a dud, but two-thirds of this recorded catalog are wrapped up in albums that few new to his music might discover or celebrate, due largely to the fact that they seem dated. Two of Browne’s most recent releases, 2005’s Solo Acoustic Vol. 1 and 2008’s Solo Acoustic Vol. 2, dually demonstrate what a masterful writer and performer he actually is, and how easily he could have derided his FM career were he to ever create an entire studio album as sparsely produced as these two collections. The only times Browne’s albums seem as concerned with framing the songs as simply and respectfully as they deserve to be treated was in the 1970’s, when the sounds of an acoustic guitar and piano were still fashionable.
Sweet’s 1990’s discography doesn’t boast as impressive a string of classics as enduring as Browne’s 1970’s, and little on the poetic level to match near what Browne offers on the trilogy of masterpieces spanning 1974’s Late For The Sky, 1976’s The Pretender, and 1977’s Running On Empty, but 1991’s Girlfriend, 1993’s Altered Beast, and 1995’s 100% Fun certainly qualifies him among the most talented, sensitive, and accomplished singer-songwriters to emerge during that Nirvana era. Songs like “Someone To Pull The Trigger,” “You Don’t Love Me,” and “Until You Break,” (from 1997’s Blue Sky On Mars) will be there for fans of the craft of self-reflexive, confessional song poetry to discover for generations without disappointing. If Matthew Sweet ever decides to present a solo-acoustic career retrospective, it will be obvious that his more significant role and contribution comes as a singer and a songwriter, and less as a hit-making purveyor of “Alternative” power-pop.
