Matthew Sweet moved to Athens, GA at the urging of his pen pal, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe in the early 1980s. Sweet honed his craft in the flourishing alternative rock scene playing with Oh-OK, Lloyd Cole, the Golden Palominos, Buzz of Delight, and recording two critically-acclaimed solo records before emerging in 1991 as the leading figure of the American power pop revival with the release of his watershed album, Girlfriend.

Like his British counterparts Teenage Fanclub, Sweet adhered to traditional songcraft, yet subverted the form by adding noisy post-punk guitar and flourishes of country-rock, resulting in an amalgam of the Beatles, Big Star, R.E.M., and Neil Young.