3 Minutes, 49 Seconds

Here's the drill: Twelve songs to summarize an artist's career, in chronological order. This one features... Pete Droge was an unlikely discovery in the early 1990s Seattle music scene: a folk singer with a twang. He released three albums on major labels between 1994 and 1998, got a couple of songs on film soundtracks, made a cameo in Almost Famous, joined supergroup The Thorns, and released two albums and two EPs independently.  Here's a primer, though I'd recommend seeing out 1996's Find a Door in its entirety. It's one of my favorite albums of all time. (If you've got Amazon Prime, listen along here .) 1. "If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)" ( Necktie Second , 1994) Works as both a parody of a certain type of song as well as a good example of that same type of song, namely the romantic lament. 2. "Beautiful Girl" ( Songs from the Miramax Motion Picture Beautiful Girls , 1996) This played over the credits of a movie that...

Sometimes a huge part of an artist's career has not been summarized. Case in point... Matthew Sweet has a couple of compliations out there, but neither of them cover the past couple of decades, a span that has seen him release 8 albums of original material and 3 albums of covers.  I followed Sweet's career religiously early on, with my ardor gradually diminishing after the magnificant one-two punch of In Reverse (1999) and The Thorns (2003) That's not to say he hasn't produced some great work since then, it's just that it requires bit of effort to pick out the gems. Here's my college try: (Two of these albums are not available on streaming servies, so here's a slightly modified version of the playlist on YouTube .) 1. "I Can't Remember" ( The Thorns , 2003) The Thorns was a rootsy, close-harmony early-aughts version of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, featuring Shawn Mullins (of "Lullaby" fame) and Pete Droge (of "If You Don't Lov...