Featuring:
Greg Leisz – Electric Guitar
Bruce Fowler – Reverse Trombone
Walt Fowler – Reverse Trumpet
Greg Kurstin – Organ
Ric Menck – Drums
After killing it in the first part of the 1990s with the 1-2-3 punch of Girlfriend, Altered Beast & 100% Fun, Matthew Sweet stumbled for with 1997’s Blue Sky on Mars, which replaced Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd with loads and loads of synthesizers, which was of course a good idea in terms of stretching out, but I didn’t think the songs were quite there to make up for the loss of the fun guitars.
And while the crazy guitars were still mostly MIA from 1999’s In Reverse, Sweet was taking even more risks, ditching the synths for baroque chamber pop psychedelia, which somehow turned it into a record that I wildly overrated at the time, mostly on account of its still stellar opening track, “Millennium Blues.”
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1113: Matthew Sweet – “Millennium Blues”