Girlfriend

Certain Songs #1187: The Modern Lovers – “Girl Friend”

April 16, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Modern Lovers
Year: 1976

At some point in 1973 — around the time The Modern Lovers were signed to Warner Brothers — Jonathan Richman had a change of musical heart. It wasn’t that he didn’t still love rock ‘n’ roll, but rather he didn’t want to make loud, noisy, overly electric rock ‘n’ roll.

Which meant that when it came time to properly record the songs that had been demoed for WB and A&M, Jonathan really didn’t want to. Which was a problem, of course, for his band, their producer John Cale, and eventually Warner Brothers records, who reacted to Jonathan’s compromise of recording the songs but not touring them by dropping the band.

Certain Songs #1105: Matthew Sweet – “Your Sweet Voice”

January 20, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Girlfriend
Year: 1991

Featuring:
Lloyd Cole – Electric Rhythm Guitar
Greg Leisz – Pedal Steel Guitar
Ric Menck – Drums

There were, of course, so many great songs on Girlfriend, it was nearly impossible to figure out which ones to write about. So at various points, I was going to write about the straight up jangle-pop of “I’ve Been Waiting,” the glorious but-mama-that’s-where-the-fun-is chorus of “Looking At The Sun,” but I didn’t wanna do the entire album, no matter how tempting it was.

Certain Songs #1104: Matthew Sweet – “Evangeline”

January 19, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Girlfriend
Year: 1991

Featuring:
Richard Lloyd – Electric Lead Guitar
Ric Menck – Drums

One of the things that came along with Neil Young’s late-1980s / early 1990s renaissance was a whole slew of younger artists paying tribute to him as the so-called “Godfather of Grunge,” but of course it wasn’t just the grunge acts paying tribute to him, but even artists who at least superficially had nothing in common with him.

Like Matthew Sweet, who slyly acknowledged the influence by making the cover of the the Goodfriend demo companion album a riff on Neil Young’s Zuma, the album of hook-filled songs and guitar freakouts that followed the ditch trilogy.

Certain Songs #1103: Matthew Sweet – “Winona”

January 18, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Girlfriend
Year: 1991

Featuring:
Robert Quine – Electric Lead Guitar
Greg Leisz – Pedal Steel Guitar
Fred Maher – Drums

The first of a small cohort of atmospheric songs I’m writing about called “Winona” — weird how that name was on the minds of Gen-X songwriters in the early 1990s — Matthew Sweet’s song is one of the few songs on Girlfriend bereft of any guitar pyrotechnics, but probably the one the most truly features the sadness that underlies the rest of the record.

Certain Songs #1102: Matthew Sweet – “Girlfriend”

January 16, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Girlfriend
Year: 1991

Featuring:
Robert Quine – Electric Lead Guitar
Greg Leisz – Lap Steel Guitar
Fred Maher – Drums

Along with Steve Wynn and Nicky Hopkins, Robert Quine is one of those guys who is going to show up in more than one artist’s Certain Songs entry.

I’ve already written about his work backing Lou Reed and Lloyd Cole, and will eventually discuss his work with Richard Hell, not to mention his semi-authorized bootlegging of The Velvet Underground.

Certain Songs #1101: Matthew Sweet – “Divine Intervention”

January 16, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Girlfriend
Year: 1991

Featuring:
Richard Lloyd – Electric Lead Guitar
Ric Menck – Drums

Where do you start with Girlfriend? How out of left field it was? The two ace guitarists that Matthew Sweet recruited? The amazing production? The fact that it was a standout even during my all-time favorite not just year, but season of record-buying, the Autumn of 1991, where it was surrounded with Nevermind, Achtung Baby!, Apocalypse 91, the Illusion twins, Weld, Trompe Le Monde and Bandwagonesque?

Maybe, but let’s start with where Girlfriend starts, the falling from heaven of Richard Lloyd’s guitar and Matthew Sweet’s vocals that crash land into a bass-heavy beat that is equal parts Revolver and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.

Certain Songs #748: The Jazz Butcher – “Girlfriend”

January 3, 2017 by Jim Connelly

Album: A Scandal in Bohemia
Year: 1984

The legend goes that Jay spotted this cover in the import section at Tower and told Kirk it looked like it was something that we should playing on KFSR, and so Kirk bought it for the radio station.

And just like that, The Jazz Butcher entered our lives with A Scandal in Bohemia (named, of course, after the first of the Sherlock Holmes short stories).

And while A Scandal in Bohemia didn’t quite attain the level of consistency that they’d start deploying on later albums, it still had a couple of great great songs, most notably the classic jangle-pop of “Girlfriend.”