Matthew Sweet Coming To Town With His Girlfriend

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 8, 2011 7:40PM

In yet another in what seems to be an unending series celebrating the 20th anniversary of albums that were popular (and meaningful) when this writer was in college, Matthew Sweet will be touring his masterpiece Girlfriend. We could adopt the cynical stance and wonder loud why Sweet would depend on the past to sell tickets today but that would be ignoring two very important points:

• Sweet has continued to release strong work pretty much without pause between Girlfriend and now, and in fact this tour is also in support of his newest disc Modern Art, out September 27.
• Girlfriend is one of those albums that is not only at the peak of the power-pop mountain but also shares the distinction of being one of the few albums that is absolutely perfect from beginning to end.

One more important point:

• Ric Menck will be drumming on this tour. he provided the original beats for Girlfriend and is (we humbly add) a motherfucking monster behind the kit.

Look, we are not in the game of celebrating nostalgia. In fact if there's one thing we can count on heroes of yore to do it's disappoint us. In the case of Girlfriend though, we're willing to revisit it's land of hopeless optimism and broken bitter hearts.

Matthew Sweet plays Bottom Lounge on October 13 and 14.