Sidney Matthew Sweet is an American alternative rock/power pop singer-songwriter and musician who was part of the burgeoning music scene in Athens, Georgia, during the 1980s before gaining commercial success in the 1990s as a solo artist. His companion albums, Tomorrow Forever and Tomorrow's Daughter, were followed by 2018's Wicked System of Things and 2021's Catspaw, his 15th studio effort.
Sweet performing in 2011
Sweet (middle) with his first band the Specs, c. late 1970s
Sweet in 2006
Power pop is a subgenre of rock music and a form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and cheerful sounding music underpinned by a sense of yearning, longing, despair, or self-empowerment. The sound is primarily rooted in pop and rock traditions of the early-to-mid 1960s, although some artists have occasionally drawn from later styles such as punk, new wave, glam rock, pub rock, college rock, and neo-psychedelia.
Todd Rundgren's work with Nazz in the 1960s and as a solo artist in the 1970s was significant to the development of the genre.
Cheap Trick playing in 1978
The Posies, 2000
Weezer plays Musikfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, August 2019
