Matthew Sweet / Girlfriend (Zoo/Classic, 1991)

When I think about Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend, I think about Robert Quine. Eight years have passed since the guitarist took his own life after falling into a deep depression following the death of his wife Alice a few months earlier, but I find that his presence as a guitarist persists for me. I come back to his work frequently, especially his sides with Matthew Sweet on Girlfriend and Altered Beast, which to my (probably heretical) mind, represent the apotheosis of his playing. His soloing on "Girlfriend" might be the best known of this work, but give a listen to "Dinosaur Act" or "Superdeformed" from the No Alternative compilation record and you'll get a sense of just how explosive his technique can be, jagged and possessed, never quite tracing the lines of the rhythm, rather erupting from the speakers like a kind of primal scream.

Quine plays on about 2/3 of the tracks on Girlfriend (1991), which is by far Matthew Sweet's best record. Listening to his previous album, Earth, one can't help best suspect a kind of Faustian bargain at work, since though Earth is a pleasant record of decent tracks, Girlfriend is a remarkable leap forward in songwriting, performance, and recording. Sweet's achievement here is typically attributed to two things: the creative wellspring borne from the dissolution of his marriage while he was making the record, and the remarkable lineup of musicians who helped him record it. Along with Quine, Sweet also got fantastic guitar work out of Television's Richard Lloyd, as well as top-shelf backup from Ric Menck and Greg Leisz. Though he would work with these artists again, he never quite returned to the heights of Girlfriend, rather continuing to make records of varying quality while slowly putting on about a hundred pounds over the next two decades. When I saw Sweet play the album front to back at City Winery last year, his voice was virtually unchanged, but he no longer seemed a compelling narrator for the emotions on this record.

As far as the vinyl goes, without giving numbers I'll say that I've never spent more on a record than I did for this one. Judging by completed listings on eBay, there seem to be relatively few copies out there, but here's a nice bonus: Though Girlfriend was released by small independent label Zoo, now long out of business, Zoo apparently made a deal with high-quality reissue label Classic Records to press their vinyl. The results are apparent on Girlfriend, which has always sounded excellent on CD and sounds even better here, bright and punchy with excellent clarity. And the iconic cover photo of a young Tuesday Weld is even more entrancing at LP size.

Here's Sweet playing "Girlfriend" on the mercifully short-lived Dennis Miller Show with Quine on lead guitar: