After being dropped from A&M Records thanks to Girlfriend's rough edges, Matthew Sweet might hardly have expected great commercial success when another label brought the album out toward the end of 1991. But an alternative-welcome climate at rock radio stations, along with undeniably great songs and aggressive lead-guitar work by ex-Voidoid Robert Quine and former Television member Richard Lloyd, made the disc an eventual gold-selling hit. Years later, Girlfriend's probe of romance found, lost, and found again continues to sound fresh and daring. --Rickey Wright