1991: Girlfriend

Matthew Sweet: Girlfriend

[purchase]

1991 was a weird year for me. I finished college December of the previous year, and was out on my own for really the first time. I moved into a depressing attic apartment, and spent a lot of time feeling lonely and sorry for myself.

As others have mentioned, 1991 was the year grunge broke. But for me, it was the year popular culture started to pass me by. I never got into grunge, and a look through my 1991 releases shows a lot of boxed sets, best-ofs, and a few new albums from "established" artists.

One album, however, was a breath of fresh air for me: Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend. It had melodies and harmonies, but it also rocked when it needed to. And with guitarists Richard Lloyd (Television) and Robert Quine (The Voidoids) on board, how could it not?

In retrospect, it was probably the album that hooked me on power pop.

It was hard for me to pick just one song to represent it. While the ballad "Winona" is probably my favorite song on the album, I'm going with the title track, a first-rate rocker.