Matthew Sweet, "If Time Permits"

One of my very favorite albums of the '90s is the sorely overlooked In Reverse by Matthew Sweet. How overlooked? I had to trawl through several pages of YouTube clips to find anything decent to link to. ("What Matters," the lead single from the album and apparently the only video he made for it, is actually one of my least favorites on the disc.) The album's production technique is triple-chocolate cake for me: lots of backward-masked guitar; layers of ringing, jingling percussion and splashy drums; richly multitracked vocals; the thick, melodic bass work of the legendary Carol Kaye. And, of course, the equally melodic songcraft of Sweet himself, a master of concision who really made his Revolver with this album, even if no one recognized it as such.

I'd have loved to post a clip of "I Should Never Have Let You Know," but in its stead, here's an unusual and incongruous soap-opera-fan vid for "If Time Permits", an evocative love ode shrouded in fears of mortality. Sweet's best work since this album has been more directly Sixtophilic: namely, his 2006 Under the Covers album with Susanna Hoffs. Would that more artists today recognize the value of a strong melody and a rising refrain.