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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 to 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 1980s 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, Altered Beast (1993), 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 notable 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 which 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 issued a few more albums in the second half of the 1990s and maintained 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.

Sweet in 2006

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 with their version of 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 Hoffs released their second collaboration Under the Covers, Vol. 2, which has 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 "Girlfriend", which used songs from Sweet's album of the same name.

Sweet's most recent album, Modern Art, was released on September 27, 2011. In 2012, Sweet will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the "Girlfriend" album with a tour that features the entire album played from start to finish.

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 soundtrack have Matthew Sweet performing "Farther Down".
• Wild – 2007, from The Bigtop (soundtrack) (2008)
• Sweet performs a cover of "This Moment" by Victoria Williams on Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams.
• 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.
• Sweet performed a cover of "Let Me Be The One" (written by Paul Williams and originally performed by The Carpenters) on the 1994 A&M/ Polydor release If I Were A Carpenter.

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.

References

External links

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