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With a name like Matthew Sweet, it's hard not to pigeonhole the guy as a sugary popster and leave it at that; but to do so is to unfairly ignore the range of Sweet's abilities and the extent of his influence on Power Pop in the 1990s. Sweet, after all, is a redoubtable guitar player. On his best record, Girlfriend (1991), he turned loose two of the most innovative players to ever put pick to string, Robert Quine of the Voidoids and Richard Lloyd of Television. Looking over their shoulders, Sweet rounded out his own mastery of the instrument, subsequently playing all the guitar parts on his sixth full-length Blue Sky on Mars (1997). Sweet's concerts often feature the performer flanked by an arsenal of guitars -- using a different one for nearly every song, he evokes moods from jubilation to sorrow with pinpoint precision. With a deft hand and confessional lyrics, he scrupulously renders into song the entire spectrum of human emotion, from gushy sentimentality in "Girlfriend" to bottomed-out exasperation in "Sick of Myself.
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