I say that because you will never hear this excellent gem of an album on commercial radio. Actually, radio has sucked since the late 80's. Since this is not a review of radio all I can say is follow amazon's reviews by fellow music lovers and trust them. Buy this album and then try Under The Covers with Suzanne Hoffs. And please turn off your radio as it is filled with what the music industry wants you to hear, not this great stuff.

I own over five thousand CDs, Tapes and Records. This is my all time absolute favorite. I was in my early twenties when this came out. I don't know how many cracks I put on the steering wheel of my 74 Chevy Nova banging my fists to this album. The title track is great and gets you right into the record. He just plays great down home, grass roots rock and roll. No extra crap. Some of the songs are quite sad like You Dont Love Me and Winona. They could downright make you cry. Thank God for Matthew Sweet, as he tried to singlehandedly save us all from the deeply mired heavy Seattle Sound of the early nineties.

Thank God. I heard Girlfriend, the single, on the radio one day about a year or two ago. That lead to a download and the purchase of the album a few days later.
What seemed impulsive was overpowered by the feeling that a masterpiece had been uncovered. I hate the superlative language thrown around for these sorts of things, but this has proven to be no flight of fancy.
This guy, Matthew Sweet, writes songs that connect. You can feel it.
The twin guitar virtuosos who appear here deserve big credit. Big drive. Big. It sounds great. Gritty and foot stompin'.
And, what a recording.
Near 49 now. Sometimes its raw. Sometimes its ennui. This recording captures both ends.
It also rocks.
randolph wish

Hard to believe, but this album is just as fresh as the day I first opened it 15 years ago. I keep finding new ways to enjoy it. In the 90's it was with the top down in the car, in rotation with Mazzy Star, Nirvana, the Chili Peppers and whatever was playing on K-USF.

A few years ago, when I went to the gym, I had it in the walkman and discovered that IT IS THE PERFECT WORKOUT CD OF ALL TIME on any kind of step, treadmill or orbital-type machine. NO KIDDING. 'Divine Intervention' is the perfect warm-up, 'I've Been Waiting' picks up the tempo, 'Girlfriend' is a great fat-blaster. Just watch it or you'll find yourself singing out loud - at the gym. Anyhow, you'll be groovin' and rockin' out, up and down. Turns out the ups and down's of a break-up are an ideal pace for a work-out. Cooling down to 'Nothing Lasts' is bliss. By now, I must have listened to it over a hundred times just working out alone.

So now I'm forty, mom to a 2-year-old, wife to a guy who was six years old when I snuck out with my friend Jeff's big sister's friends to see the Sex Pistols when they were in SF. Seen a lot of bands and listened to a lot of different albums since and have to say, this album is as fresh as the day it was minted. Buy the album, and form your own relationship with it - you won't regret it.

This record was a revelation when it came out, and remains as vibrant and bracing today. It is one of the absolute best power pop records of the 90s, a decade in which that genre experienced something of a renaissance (Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Velvet Crush, Jellyfish etc.)

Sweet had made a couple of unremarkable records before this one. I think two things made it leap out of the CD player and into our collective conscious. One was the sublime twin guitar work of Richard Lloyd (Television) and Robert Quine (NYC downtown guitar hero and notably on some of Lou Reed's most powerful work.) These two guys blaze and smolder throughout these melodic, harmonic songs, providing more bite and panache than most records you will hear in any genre. The performances of Quine and Lloyd in service to Sweet's catchy numbers creates the illusion of two tigers tamed; you can feel the excitement of their ferociousness on every track, even the soft, cotton-candy-sweet "Your Sweet Voice."

The second thing that makes this record stand apart is the fact that it is a break-up record, and a great one. From the optimistic second tune, the infectious "I've Been Waiting," through to the desolate "Nothing Lasts," you can hear Sweet laying bare the gamut of emotions involved in a relationship and its dissolution. Like Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones or Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights-or perhaps most aptly, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours-a good break-up record transcends time and trends and endures.

Every subsequent Mathew Sweet record has a few gems, and some folks will even argue that the follow-up, Dinosaur Act, is the better album. It is a good one, but this is where the Mathew Sweet legend begins and reaches its fullest heights.