Good find

Party Shuffle in iTunes (apart from many things in life) is such a great invention. I have a rather large music collection (200GB+), so for me to listen to it ALL, would require about 115 days STRAIGHT...so 115d*24h = 2760hrs of music...that's a lot. Anyway, I was making Tofu Paprikash tonight, for Amy & I for the week, and some Matthew Sweet pops its head in there. The song was titled "The Ocen In Between", off of the Japanese release Kimi Ga Suki * Raiku. (I dunno what that means...it's Japanese...but I think it's something like "Thank You"...I always thought thank you was Mush Mushi. Meh...who knows). This song is as pure jangly rock power sugar pop as it gets, and it freakin RULES. So, I ventured into the rest of the album. I'm only really familiar with his Girlfriend release, and a few singles off the next few albums (100% Fun & Blue Sky on Mars), mainly thanks to MTV.

A few things make this album pretty unique:
1. This was recorded in 1 week with NO real post production work
2. The lineup is identical to his Girlfriend lineup, which I guess hasn't been around since that album...obviously his strongest band
3. There are NO demos for this album. These songs were pretty much written, rehearsed a few times, then the record button hit. Sweet.

When listening, each song kinda has it's own personality. You definitely get a throw-back to Girlfriend with the production (or lack thereof). How? I dunno...maybe it's just the combination of the musicians, their musicianship, and the combination of it all. Either way, it's a great record. It's NOT Girlfriend though...damn that album is so flippin' good.

If you have Girlfriend, you'll love this. If you don't, then go buy both of 'em. Girlfriend especially!