Sweeeet covers
Matthew Sweet remains one of my all-time favorite guitar heroes although I've felt that some of his work in the last several years has been under-inspired. Girlfriend (1991) holds the record as the quintessiontial, must-have early alternative rock album, making Sweet the king of 90's jangle-rock. 
Sweet is well-known to play cover songs, some of which are unusual choices. I heard once, but do not have, his cover of the theme of the marine-mammal TV show, "Flipper." He is also an avid fan of cartoon art, especially Japanese anime. I have an anime drawing done by a fan depicting a "super-deformed" (SD) Matthew. I got him to autograph it at a concert in 1995.
This year Sweet got together with another icon of 90's rock, Susana Hoffs of the Bangles, to release an entire CD of cover songs, Under the Covers Vol. 1. Looks like Volume 2 is to be expected. I am more partial to the tracks of Sweet's vocals than Susanna's, but I think it's a matter of personal taste. It's not surprising that a guitar master like Sweet would want to cover the songs of another guitar master--check out all the Neil Young songs in this bunch! 
Cinnamon Girl
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
(Neil Young) from Under the Covers Vol. 1 (2006)
Don't Cry No Tears (live) (Neil Young) from Son of Altered Beast (1994)
Cortez the Killer(live) (Neil Young) from Girlfriend - Deluxe Edition (2006)
Magnet and Steel (Walter Egan)
American Girl (Tom Petty)
Ballad of el Goodo (Big Star) from Big Star Tribute (2006) available from eMusic
Visit (s)mall ages blog for "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?"
Visit All Time Champions blog for a truly excellent post on "Magnet and Steel" plus a download of the Walter Egan original.
Sid 'n' Susie's MySpace
Buy Under the Covers Vol. 1
Buy all Matthew Sweet at Amazon.
4 comments:
Great post, though I think Girlfriend is somewhat overrated. 100% Fun probably my fave.
Nice. 100% fun is a fave of mine too. Quick question, what web hosting service do you use? I'm in the market for something new.
Actually, we host our own files. We were on EZArchive when we started blogging in August, and you know what happened with that. I think half the blogging world is PO'd at them now.
We had already purchased our domain name and web service at 1and1.com before deciding to use Blogger for web publishing. With a little tech savvy and an FTP program, we figured out how to upload our files there. It's a piece of cake now, and bandwidth is not an issue.
I think the annual cost may be pretty similar to a file-hosting site.
My favorite Sweet album is "Kimi ga suki * Raifu," the one he made for his Japanese fans in 2003, but I also like "Girlfriend" and "100% Fun."
I've had trouble finding his cover of "Flipper" too. In the spring of '96 Sweet appeared on at least three movie soundtracks -- "Flipper," "Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy," and "The Craft."
Thanks for the covers!
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