Altered Beast Matthew Sweet
We’re going to do this one a bit differently. I originally wrote this before I went back and listened to the album again. By the time I was finished, I realized I might have gotten much of it wrong so I’m writing a new intro and conclusion. I’m leaving the original stuff in the middle just to prove my point. Here’s what else we’re going to do differently: let’s talk about personnel. Matthew Sweet got great players on his previous record, and ups the ante here. Counting himself, there are 13 musicians consisting of six drummers including Jody Stephens from Big Star (one of Sweet’s touchstones) and Mick Fleetwood, three lead guitarists: Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd from the previous album are joined by Ivan Julian (only once do two appear on the same track), Nicky Hopkins stops by to play piano on a few tracks, one guy playing lap steel, pedal steel, and a national resonator (each instrument once on three different songs), and even a fiddle player who was in the Flying Burrito Brothers (Sweet himself plays guitar and handles all the bass duties.). Even a partial list of the acts these people played with over the years would take too long, but suffice it to say these guys are all legends in their own musical circles.*
I wrote about how much I love Sweet’s previous album Girlfriend and I was pretty psyched about the follow up. Honestly, initially it didn’t meet my expectations. That previous sentence makes no sense now, but it was true then. Here’s what might have happened. First, I was still listening to Girlfriend regularly and wasn’t as ready for new stuff as I thought I was. That also meant I was doing a direct comparison: time had passed for Sweet, but not for me. Second, it takes a few listens to get how the songs on this record go together. There is more variety in mood and texture than on the previous record and occasionally the change pulls you out of the moment. Third, while there are some great rockers on Altered Beast, there are fewer of them. Matthew Sweet’s greatest strength is writing melodies, and the ones on this record are just as good as any of Sweet’s other works, But like I just said the ratio of power to pop isn’t the same. Do you see what I just did there? Yep, this is definitely a power pop record. Girlfriend is more power, and Beast is more pop. The pop is fantastic and much of it could be hung with the jangle tab.
Interestingly enough, Beast contains one of the hardest songs Sweet’s ever recorded and that song may be the key that unlocks the real mystery of why I didn’t love this at first. Track #3 is “The Ugly Truth”, a crazy melodic tune full of chiming acoustic guitars and a fiddle solo (there’s always been some country influences in Sweet’s softer tunes). The music is gorgeous, but the lyrics are a cynical examination of our darker sides. On its own, the song would serve as a 3 minute and 18 second explanation of the album’s title and the core of what Sweet was trying to convey. However, track #9 is another recording of the same song and it rocks! The fiddle and a full 20 seconds of the song are gone and instead, we get screaming guitars and background vocals. It’s my favorite track on the record (although the opener is pretty close) and the one I will skip songs to get to. To make sure the two versions sound different, other than Sweet himself, no musicians play on both tracks. The first version has Robert Quine on lead guitar and Ric Mench on drums, replaced by Richard Lloyd and Ron Pangborn respectively – it’s even renamed “Ugly Truth Rocks”.
The two recordings of that same song are emblematic of this record. When you listen to the more “pop” songs, you think that it could just have easily been on the “power” side of things. Actually, when you listen to the pop ones, you wouldn’t be surprised if it turned into a power version halfway through, for no other reason that even those songs are overladen with great electric guitar riffs right up front in the mix. I think one of the reasons this record didn’t do as well as Girlfriend is that musical duality. Another reason is that this album is definitely not upbeat; no one’s going to put this on to get the party started.
After I listened to this again, I found another reason it didn’t immediately resonate the way the previous record had: production. On Girlfriend, Sweet and his co-producer intentionally used production techniques and style of George Martin around the time right before Sgt. Pepper’s. Rubber Soul and Revolver are my two favorite Beatles albums and so it captured me immediately and I think gave it a more timeless feel. For Altered Beast, Fleetwood Mac’s producer was brought on board and this production feels very much 1994; that’s certainly not bad, but it is different. The albums were even recorded in different places: the former in New York and the latter in Los Angeles. Maybe that matters. In any case, this is still a great album and it represents the second in what I consider Sweet’s three album arc.
Note: For what I assume was simply a gimmick, you could buy the album in one of five different colors: I chose orange for obvious reasons.
* OK, I can’t help myself: The Beatles, Big Star, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Fleetwood Mac, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, The Hollies, Jefferson Airplane, The Kinks, Steve Miller, Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones,Television, The Who – just to name a few.
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