Self-titled

Sweet 75
Geffen

Review by Darren Gawle

Given his musical pedigree, you just know that Krist Novoselic could have looped the sound of a three year-old shitting his pants and gotten a $125K advance for it. But, while former bandmate Dave Grohl continues to travel the road most profitable with Foo Fighters, at least Krist took a decent amount of time of to really figure out what he was going to do. Unfortunately, it's not good.

Teaming up with Brazilian chanteuse Yva Las Vegas was a shrewd move, ensuring that Sweet 75 won't be cursed to be known as "that guy from Nirvana's band" the way Foo Fighters were at first; Sweet 75 is as much Yva's band as it is Novoselic's, and it sounds like it. But the novelty value of a couple of songs sung in Spanish can't disguise the generally amateurish quality of the songwriting. Though Yva is probably contending with English being (probably) her third language, you get the impression that the lyrics wouldn't be any good in their original Portuguese or Spanish, either. Take the the chorus of "Ode to Dolly," for example: "I don't have big hair / And I don't have a country dress to wear / But I'm going to buy one." What's your point, Yva?

Ultimately, Sweet 75 sounds like any number of sub-standard local bands that will never get signed, and just because Krist Novoselic used to play for the most important band of the 1990's doesn't mean that Sweet 75 is any more worthy.

First published in Drop-D Magazine on February 1, 1998

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