03/28  Matthew Sweet: "Blue Sky On Mars" 11:00pm ET (AOL Live)

Dazzling guitars, vocals exuding heart, wit and yearning, songs that quickly
grip and yet gorgeously linger, "Blue Sky On Mars" is Matthew Sweet's
tour-de-force in a career already consistent in its achievement: this music
is his boldest, his most appealing. "I've always wanted to make an album that
really stood up for the pop idea," the singer/guitarist/songwriter says,
"something with both melody and strength. There's less lead guitar abandon on
this record. It may be the simplest one yet. I tried to go for something a
bit different from my last records, something with a hint of a space kind of
vibe. And while there are melancholy parts, and dealing with heartache, kinds
of songs I wanted the end result to be somewhat more upbeat, more
light-hearted."

Pure pop pleasure, in fact, is the result. A terrifically engaging performer,
Sweet broke through in 1991 with "Girlfriend," now a near-classic of soulful
popcraft; the remarkable "Inside" (1986) and "Earth" (1989) had paved the
way, alerting jaded ears everywhere of the advent of a talent gifted with
genuinely fresh melodies and lyrics that encompassed an audacious scope of
feeling. "Altered Beast" (1993) and its follow-up EP, "Son of Altered Beast"
(1994), took a more tumultuous turn. "100% Fun" (1995) again emphasized
glistening guitar and a tunefulness equally lustrous. "Blue Sky On Mars"
flourishes all of Sweet's skills -- it's instant gratification that's also
made to last.

With Brendan O'Brien co-producing "100% Fun," (also including Pearl Jam, Bob
Dylan, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots) the album based on Sweet's sturdy
home demos came together in a brisk month's time. Matthew handles almost all
guitar work (bass and keyboards, too), with his stellar six-string cohorts of
the last few albums, Richard Lloyd (Television) and Robert Quine (Lou Reed,
Richard Hell), sitting out. "Of course, I really love their playing," Sweet
enthuses, "I just felt it was time to do something different." O'Brien, a
multi-instrumentalist whose musical knowledge, Sweet insists, is even more
ranging than Sweet's own, joined in on keyboards (fans of vintage, monophonic
synthesizers, and the mellotron, the pair enjoyed dreaming up snaky, sinuous,
otherworldly sounds -- check out too, Matthew's spooky theremin and Brendan's
cool E-bow guitar). On drums, Ric Menck (Velvet, Crush) and Stuart Johnson
kept the backbeat resolute. With Sweet's music, rhythm and melody fuse
expertly, and it takes great drummers to pull the mix off.

Variety in approach is one of Sweet's strategies. For "Blue Sky," his
guitar's range from Epiphany Casino to Rickenbacker 8-string bass to paisley
Telecaster. In the past, he also employed a dizzying array of tunings. When
composing, too, he alternates instruments: these days, in his new house in
Los Angeles, he's writing not only on guitar, of course, but also crafting
songs on piano and on Hammond organ. But a fond emphasis on melody has
remained constant: "I remember in third grade sitting home sick from school
and going over these very melodic, but sad, pieces like the them from
"M*A*S*H" for laughs. Moving to Georgia from his native Nebraska to become
part of the nascent Athens scene in his twenties, he haunted the same clubs
as did Pylon and R.E.M., and debuted in two trailblazing postpunk outfits, Oh
OK and Buzz of Delight. His record company of the time encouraged him to go
solo and record under his own name. "It was great," he remembers. "My primary
motivation was getting more guitars and more gear." It was at that time that
he began focusing in earnest on "doing honest songs in my own voice."

"Blue Sky On Mars" showcases exuberantly the craft he's honed through the
years. Concise, distinctive, infectious, "Where You Get Love" virtually
defines the art of the single. Each clocking-in at under two minutes, "Over
It" and "Make Believe" are bite-sized epics -- power surges of sheer pop
energy. Its guitars moving from acoustic elegance to new psychedelic passion,
"Into Your Drug" punctuates its poetry ("Now how can I give you the world,
painted on the side of a pearl/when neither the pearl nor the world's big
enough/everything fits but the size of my love?") with dead-on drumming and
cowbell grace notes. Breath-stoppingly lovely, "Until You Break" and "Missing
Time," both recorded at Sweet's home studio, join the best of his slower
songs. Its ride cymbal ringing, "Hollow" simmers broodingly ("An evil bigger
than you could know has taken root"). "Back to You" explodes from a
descending scale ("You come looking for protection, a revolver in your
hand/and that puts it in a language that I think I understand"). The album's
opener, "Come to California," is signature Sweet: assured guitar riffing,
clean, instantly recognizable vocals -- and a touch of Hollywood-bound thrill
seeker is "little bit an endearment," Matthew chuckles, that he discovered in
"Girl's Town," a Mel Torme, Mamie Van Doren gang flick of the fifties. With
its shimmering mellotron and irresistible bridge, "Behind the Smile" offers a
simple lyric that may summarize the underlying spirit of "Blue Sky On Mars."

"I write a lot about relationships," Sweet says, "and sometimes the songs are
about my real life, sometimes about an alter ego, some are about joy, some
are about feeling helpless. They're all about living life -- how to
understand it, tolerate it, change it. I think these new songs have more of a
sense of resolution than some of my others. Here, whether a song is about
risking being an idiot or about trying to find an answer -- there's more of a
resolve. And, with a title and the mood of the record, the space thing
becomes a metaphor for the journey you're on -- where you have come to terms
with what your life  is and how to get the best out of it."

Now revving up for a return to touring, Sweet has enjoyed a rare break from
the road this year. Having moved four years ago to Los Angeles, ("It's great
because it's the home of so much of the pop culture I love -- old movies,
sci-fi, horror, and of course, Brian Wilson and Lindsay Buckingham-era
Fleetwood Mac"), he's fashioned one of his house's rooms into a music room
where, lately, he concentrated on "Blue Sky On Mars." Now, with that loving
labor complete, he's ready again, with a crack band of players, for concert
halls. "I try to be real with people I meet on tour, and that can get a
little draining -- I get a little sick of the 'me'-ness of it, all the
attention that's focused on me. But it's still amazing and a huge compliment,
when I meet people who say a song of mine has made them cry, or that another
song has just made them feel better about their day. It reminds me that music
can really mean something."

"Blue Sky On Mars" is that kind of music -- rich in multiplicity of meanings,
unified by skill and heart.

Event Keyword: "AOL Live"

Date: March 28

Time: 11:00pm ET

(C) 1997 America Online, Inc.




Transmitted: 3/25/97 8:32 PM