Matthew Sweet - Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu
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CD Details
Artist: Matthew SweetEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-10-05
Music Label: Racm Records
Soundtracks:
- Dead Smile
- Morning Song
- The Ocean In-Between
- I Love You
- I Don't Want To Know
- Warning
- Spiral
- Love Is Gone
- Hear This
- Wait
- Tonight We Ride
- Through Your Eyes
- Silent Track 1
Music reviews of Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu
Music Review: Matthew Sweet's ROCK & ROLL masterpiece
Rating: 5 Stars
Kimi Ga Suki Raifu is really a fascinating item in the Matthew Sweet canon. Originally recorded solely for the Japanese fan base, and initially released only in that country, this album was simply too good to keep from the rest of the world! This may well be Sweet's most consistently powerful and EXCITING album, with special emphasis on the word "excitement." It's even more energetic than Girlfriend or 100% Fun, both of which have at least a couple of low spots, but there is nothing but brilliance here. This is what happens when a great musician places himself into a "pressure cooker" situation, writing and recording an entire album of material in one week. No demos, no excessive overdubs, no second guessing. Matthew brought together his old rock & roll cohorts: Richard Lloyd, Ric Menck, Greg Leisz, for a reunion of the original Girlfriend lineup. Without giving himself the luxury of making demos and reworking these songs, Sweet set himself the challenge of writing and recording 12 songs in one fell swoop, and he came up aces!
All of Matthew's natural gifts are on full display here: passionate hard driving rock and roll, stripped to its raw essence (but still with gorgeous vocal harmonies), with Sweet's acerbic wit in high gear. This is probably his most consistent set of lyrics on one record. His sharp irony and twisted sense of humor in matters of love and heartache is in full effect. No other songwriter can take a love song and make it so sad or angry, and yet so...outrageously funny at the same time, from the title track of "Girlfriend" to "I Almost Forgot" to every song on this record. Picture the romantically jaded Neil Young mixed with the dark humor of Peter Gabriel, and Matthew sits somewhere in that realm. He can make me cry or roar with laughter in the same song, and believe me, that is a RARE gift for a lyricist.
The band is rock solid and as tight as can be. Matthew plays typically great bass on the album, and Menck punctuates with power and intelligence on the drums. Of course, Lloyd's guitar solos are completely demented! Some reviewers have said that this album is under-produced, but I feel the opposite. It was meant to be a stripped down, bare bones rock album, and it was produced exactly as it should be. Concise and cohesive. Sometimes a rock and roll song doesn't need a guitar solo or a synthesizer. Sometimes all it needs is a driving groove, and the quality of the writing takes care of the rest. If there are good lyrics and catchy hooks, the song plays itself. No frills needed. And besides, Sweet's vocal harmonies are overdubbed to perfection here as with his other albums, so the production is spot on as far as I'm concerned. Anything more would have detracted from the visceral power and wit of these songs. Highlights are hard to specify, but Morning Song, I Love You (a scorcher!), and Wait are three of my personal favorites. But again, there is not one single piece of filler on this album, a stunning achievement for a set of tunes written and hammered out in one week.
On a sadder note, I must say that his recent album, Living Things, is such a terrible disappointment compared to this album. It's a sloppy, overproduced, poorly written record that is actually quite depressing and possibly qualifies as Matthew Sweet's worst album (in my opinion). Fortunately, the immediacy and sheer brilliance of Kimi Ga Suki Raifu proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that when Matthew Sweet makes up his mind to rock, he can produce an album of stunning power and personality like this one. This CD should be in every rock collection, and certainly no one who appreciates Matthew Sweet should be without it.
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