A sinusoidal shear generator developed by Miles (1962) is used to measure viscoelastic complex shear moduli for bovine articular cartilage. The shear loading mode uncouples the measurement of matrix properties from the flow of interstitial fluid and thus provides flow-independent measurements which are highly sensitive to biochemical alteration of the matrix constituents. Increased cross-linking causes significant increases in the matrix storage modulus while proteoglycan depletion and collagenase digestion cause significant decreases. Highly significant differences in complex shear moduli are also observed between the proteoglycan depletion group and the collagenase digestion group.