Matt Sharp

Matt Sharp

December 10 , 2004

# 8

Probably my very favorite musical artist of all time is Lou Reed. From the first time I heard his raspy voice over the airwaves as a little kid in Bricktown, New Jersey, I just had to know, “who the hell is this guy?” Slowly, I built up a collection of his music, starting with a cassette tape of his hits package Walk on the Wildside: The Best of Lou Reed, and culminating most recently in every full length he has ever released up through the new millennium, the Velvet Underground box set Peel Slowly and See, and my favorite live set of all time, American Poet. Suffice it to say, I am a Lou Reed fan.

At this point, you are probably thinking, “just what the hell does this have to do with Matt Sharp?” Well, that is a very good question. And my response? Quite simply, in my estimation, Matt Sharp is the Lou Reed of the new millennium. And that is definitely alright.

The history of Matt Sharp begins with Weezer. Matt was the bassist and co-songwriter for Weezer’s first two releases, The Blue Album and Pinkerton. Although he rarely gets credit, he was there, and only the members of Weezer truly know how much he contributed to the first incarnation of that band. The songs and themes speak for themselves, and even then, there was an inkling of what was to come from Mr. Sharp. But alas, the Weezer story is merely phase one of our journey.

At the tail end of his participation with the before their time Weezer, Sharp was deeply involved in a side project he called The Rentals. They would go on to release two full length albums in 1995 and 1999, The Return of the Rentals and Seven More Minutes, respectively, and in my opinion, they are two of the best albums of that decade, and perhaps, ever. These albums deal with themes of hopeless devotion, lost loves, the humanity of technology, the technology of humanity, and the youthful wonderment of finding your place in this giant rock we call earth. The albums are loaded with screeching guitars, outrageous synthesizers, and sugary sweet male/female harmonies that certainly would have been more at home in the ‘80s than the late ‘90s. But being out of time is what Matt Sharp seems to do best.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your perspective, neither Rentals album did well on the charts aside from the fluky first single, Friends of P, and that lack of success led Sharp to retreat from the music business altogether. Following those releases, he literally folded back into himself and disappeared entirely from the music landscape. Without a peep from Sharp, I began to wonder if he might turn out to be more like Axl Rose than Lou Reed, as he eventually moved to a farm house in, of all places, Lepers Fork, Tennessee. It was a far cry from the Los Angeles days of Weezer and the Rentals honeymoon in Barcelona. But soon, I would learn, there would be more chapters to this very intriguing story.

Five years after his retirement, Matt Sharp is back, but this time, gone is the flash and circumstance of Weezer, retired are the coke bottle specs and oddly fashioned synth squeals of his Rentals days. In their place is Matt Sharp, Version 3.0, alone, acoustic, and pouring his heart out even more earnestly than on any of his previous incarnations. This is bare bones Matt Sharp, and in many ways, this is the next logical step in his evolution.

Matt Sharp’s self titled full length debut can best be described as music to put you to sleep. But don’t let that tag fool you. Lou Reed’s Berlin has been called, “the most depressing album of all-time,” but it is far and away a tremendous musical achievement, an essential part of his legacy, and a far cry from a calculated disappointment. The same goes for this album.

Matt Sharp is very personal stuff, and quite entertaining, although also rather mellow. Sharp carries the themes he mastered on his Rentals material (alienation, longing, and melancholy) with him, but rather than celebrating and sharing his decadence and misanthropy with others, he is now completely alone with his thoughts. The contemplation, the longing, the experiences he sings about are mostly images and feelings from his past, and if he sounds like he might be singing of days gone by, well, I think he is. Where his older works seem of the time when he was living, growing, partying, and reminiscing, now he is in full scale nostalgia mode. This is really just the next stage on his journey to self realization as he can now peer back on the consequences of his actions with clear hindsight, something that was muddled on his previous releases (but also essential to their greatness).

The music on Matt Sharp is dominated by slow acoustic strumming, and Sharp’s nasally voice is more whispery than ever. He now seems exhausted by his previous fame and revelry, at times almost whispering the words. Lyrics like, “do all those dreams really make you happy… what makes you happy?” float above the mellow musical melodies. Listen close enough, and it sounds as if Lou Reed decided to play acoustic guitar and sing about himself instead of all the misfits and neurotics who peppered his early works. Keep going, and it’s as if Reed pulled back his own layers, as he did here and there on many of his full lengths, but never could quite get himself to do over an entire album. Unlike Lou, however, Sharp is not afraid to look the fool, and this album is Sharp at his most bold yet, revealing his every insecurity, for better or worse. Matt Sharp’s albums may just be the lost Lou Reed he never owned up to on his own works.

Jack Johnson, Ryan Adams, Pete Yorn, John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper. These are the sensitive singer/songwriter names I have heard thrown around for the past five years. In my opinion, none of them can hold a candle to what Matt Sharp has done here, just like few, if any, can compete with Lou Reed and his lyrical wit. While this album may not be Sharp’s best work ever, it is filled with hidden gems and bits of life’s honest lessons that rarely find their way to the human ear. And like Reed, Sharp’s assertion that no matter one’s past or future, life is alright, is something you either get or you don’t. Earlier this year, I finally had the revelation…

It was this past October when I stood at T.T. The Bear’s Place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 25 people total in the place, and listened to Matt Sharp and Goldenboy tackle Goodbye West Coast and Thoughts From a Slow Train from the new album, and classics like The Love I’m Searching For and The Man With Two Brains from The Rentals’ releases, and finally, a karaoke version of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing as the Red Sox won the sixth game of the ALCS against the Yankees, that it all finally made sense to me, and as I stood there, basking in the music, I truly believed that everything was alright. And as I smiled, and mouthed the words, a warm feeling filling my body, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Rivers who?”