A Sweet Alternative

If you knew that Matthew Sweet (who opens for Toni Childs at the Palace on May 11) is a product of the much-hyped alternative music scene of Athens, Ga., you’d hardly be expecting his new album, “Earth,� to be filled with lucid lyrics about love, with pop hooks and harmonies. It has considerable mainstream commercial potential, and makes much use of synthesizers and drum programming. In other words, it’s not exactly R.E.M.-like.

“I was in bands in Athens and I was on records that have ‘the Athens sound,’ � says Sweet, who has since moved from that musical mecca to the shores of New Jersey. “But living there and watching what happened in the wake of R.E.M., with all the bands falling in and trying to do it exactly like they did . . . I wanted to consciously break away from that and not play the alternative game by the set rules.�

And what are the set rules of what Sweet calls “the alternative shackle�?

“You had to be accepted by all the other alternative bands as part of the clique. You had to make sure that your record didn’t sound really good, or you’d be commercial or selling out or too produced. Even if you go in and make the simplest record, just throwing everything down once, if you make it sound really good, you’re ‘too produced’--which seems crazy to me.�

“Earth� is definitely produced--by Fred Maher of the English dance-pop band Scritti Politti. It’s also well-served by the edgy guitar of ex-Television member Richard Lloyd. That element, along with Sweet’s appealingly high and slightly nasal vocals, makes the album sound a bit like a cross between mid-’70s Bowie/Ronson and modern-day Jules Shear (another friend and occasional writing partner of Sweet’s).

“I don’t mind those comparisons,� he says with a laugh. “But someone the other day was comparing me to Joe Walsh.� Too commercial for his compatriots or no, Sweet is still “alternative� enough to be a bit rankled by that one.