It's one of those albums that will always sound timeless. That's right, load up Matthew Sweet's 1991 power pop masterpiece, Girlfriend, which is seeing a rerelease today on Sony's Legacy Recordings imprint (comprised of the remastered Girlfriend and the previously promo-only Good Friend: Another Take on Girlfriend, along with a few demo tracks previously only available as single b-sides as well), on to your iPod and tell me I'm wrong. Go on, I can wait here while you do it. Not that we're all about nostalgia 'round these parts as a general rule, so you'll have to forgive us as we get to reminiscing again. It was one of those moments that lives in a tiny jeweled chamber in my memory, where all the special moments in pop music are stored: I was watching MTV one afternoon, probably after school and bored out of my mind and doing a great job of avoiding my homework, when I first saw the video for Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" in the fall of 1991. It completely blew my little mind; it looked and sounded like nothing I was familiar with, not at all. Well, that's not entirely true. I recognized the pop tropes Sweet wore proudly on his sleeve from my parents' record collection, but no one at that time was remotely interested in resuscitating that vintage pop sound of the 60's and 70's. This was at the cusp of when New Wave was tromped by Grunge; indeed, Sweet's sound stood out precisely because it was pure sugar-coated pop that was dark and melancholy to the core, instead of something parading around in all-black or flannel and distorted guitars, advertising its discontent with a sandwich board and a megaphone and smashed gear. It was way more subtle than that, and I really liked that. As for the visuals, I had friends who'd made me watch bootleg tapes of the Bubblegum Crisis anime series that summer, so I knew a little about Japanese animation, but at the time it all seemed so foreign and new, and goodness only knows how my friends knew about it back then, pre-Internet. Anyway, I was a broke teenager at the time, so I didn't run out and buy the record immediately; as a matter of fact, I didn't actually have a tangible copy of Girlfriend until I was babysitting for my junior english teacher (Ms. Wilde, if you're reading this -- thank you!). It was the same night I turned up my nose at the Singles soundtrack (save for the Paul Westerberg and Smashing Pumpkins tracks) but also discovered Sugar's Copper Blue in her CD collection as well. It was, in short, a goldmine -- I recorded everything meticulously (apparently, music pirating tendencies start early!), and I still have those tapes somewhere, warped by too many hot El Paso summers and too many rounds through the mechanical gears of car stereos cassette players and old-school Walkmen through the years. I loved the epic sweep of Sweet's feelings -- the album was written and recorded over the course of a divorce and falling in love again -- but the most wonderful part is the side-break between "Evangeline" and "Day for Night," where you can hear the record "flip" over even when you're listening on a cd. (Of course, that always leads me to add that it irks me that the CD "bonus" tracks -- "Holy War," "Nothing Lasts," and "Does She Talk?" have become known as part of the album proper and still feel bolted on after the finality of "Your Sweet Voice," but I know that's ultra-picky and weird of me to feel that way...) I remained a stalwart fan of Sweet's all the way through the release of his magnificent and sadly overlooked 1999 album In Reverse. I even, yes, wrote some plodding show reviews for the Matthew Sweet fanzine -- though the show in Bandera, Texas was an experience on par with seeing Interpol at Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom -- part of that whole "places I never thought I'd see a rock show" thing. Since then, however, I've been somewhat disappointed with Mr. Sweet's latest efforts: the mushy harmonies of Crosby Stills and Nash-esque side project The Thorns (with Pete Douge and Shawn Mullins) didn't catch my interest and 2004's solo album Living Things was his first release since 1990's Earth that founders, unfocused -- even with production assistance from Van Dyke Parks. Sweet's latest effort, a covers project with Susanna Hoffs also produced by Parks leaves me cold as well; this is an exceedingly difficult place to be as a fan, considering I respect the work of all three people involved. However, that doesn't detract in the slightest from my adoration for Girlfriend (and subsequent efforts Altered Beast (and Son of Altered Beast), 100% Fun, Blue Sky on Mars, and the aforementioned In Reverse). As a matter of fact, I've dug deep into my archive of Sweet rarities: I've got b-sides and covers galore for you -- I can't even begin to pick the best of the live and demo tracks that I have as well -- and this is the part of the story where I reveal that yes, it's true -- I have over eight hours of Sweet's material on my hard drive. Matthew Sweet -- My Pet Matthew Sweet -- If It's Happening You'll Know It Matthew Sweet -- Happiness Matthew Sweet -- Farther Down Matthew Sweet -- Dark Secret Matthew Sweet -- Silent City Matthew Sweet -- Do Ya (live) Matthew Sweet -- Lithium (live) Matthew Sweet -- She Said She Said (live) Matthew Sweet -- Let Me Be The One Matthew Sweet -- Magnet and Steel Matthew Sweet -- Speed Racer  (Links removed due to DMCA complaint.)

Pinkie would like to add the following (she emailed this over to me when I told her today's topic): When I dropped Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" during the middle of our SXSW party DJ set (right between The Waitresses' "I Know What Boys Like" and before Lush's "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" -- is there a theme here?), I realized that a) it had been at least ten years since I'd heard it (and that I still knew all the words including the exclamation of "alright!"), and b) that it's one of the greatest pieces of American powerpop ever penned. And because I'm not really a powerpop sort of girl, I don't bandy that title about lightly. In yesterday's discussion of The Hotness of Greg Dulli and the Legacy of the Afghan Whigs, Cindy outed me as former goth. While the Whigs made sense with the whole New Orleans connection and what all, the girl with a subscription to Propaganda wasn't exactly mixy with Matthew Sweet's ebullience and groovy jangle. In short, I should have hated "Girlfriend" and begged Dave Kendall to take me back to the Batcave, but the power of joy compelled me, and soon enough I found myself purchasing a cassette at the counter of Ear Doctor, wondering if I could ever master beauty akin to Tuesday Weld's covergirl grace. Several weeks ago, Girlfriend accompanied Cindy, her intrepid automobile friend Ted, and myself on a fantastic voyage from my apartment to Emo's, and I was struck by how well the entire album has weathered, and how -- more so than Sweet's early and later work -- Girlfriend has become part of the indie pop canon (that's pop, using "indie" as a modifier, not indiepop as a genre) alongside records like Big Star's Third Album, The Plimsouls' self-titled release, and early REM and British peers like Teenage Fanclub and the C86 and Glasgow school bands. Though Girlfriend's songwriting was nostalgic, looking back the Byrds and Beatles as well as Big Star, when Sweet seemingly burst onto the scene, his sound felt fresh and new to those, like myself, who were weaned on new wave, post punk, and -- as Cindy says -- "Twinkies and darkness." What I didn't know then (though I knew the Byrds and the Beatles, of course), was that Girlfriend was going to stay with me when most of the other American offerings of the 90s slipped away into oh-who-caresville, nor did I expect to be in the car with a friend fifteen years on, singing along with "Divine Intervention" and discussing the creepiness of "Winona," while speculating on whether the respective subject still has issues with sticky fingers. 

 For lack of more to say, the reissue of Girlfriend is neat, and hopefully through the miracle of modern marketing, Matthew Sweet's meta-nostalgic freshness will make the same dent in a mostly boring market that it did when it was released in 1991, and a host of kids lost in the drudgery and blame of emo (how bout that new AFI record?) will gain some musical context and interest in cruising around the neighborhood with the windows down instead of wasting time on MySpace. Then again, pigs might fly and hell may well freeze over (again, how bout that new AFI record? And is MAC sponsoring the new, improved Miss Havoc?), and we might be surprised by kids shaking it to something with a title as wonderfully insipid and wonderfully sincere as 100% Fun without a repeat of the sad event that inspired it. [N.B. See also: Kurt Cobain's suicide note.] Your next chance to hear "Goodfriend" [N.B. That's Cindy's seven-inch of "Girlfriend," btw, but you probably realized that...] is Friday, June 23 when TRGAW invades Emo's with New.Berlin and friends.