Sweet - The Best of Sweet
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Free Music Notes for The Best of Sweet
Free Music Review: The American Hits Of Sweet
Hit: 4 Stars
Like so many UK acts it took Sweet a few years before they "crossed the shores" and scored a USA hit. Bell records (later known as Arista Records) did us little favors by not releasing or promoting thier great early bubblegum singles. "Little Willy" was a huge USA hit but the equally great and super hooky "Wig Wham Bam" and "Blockbuster" wern't.
Its interesting that most American rock fans think of Sweet as a "Metal" band because Capitol was a bigger label and promoted the band better than Bell ever did. While the band floundered in the UK and Europe during the mid 70's, losing most of their teen audiance to the Bay City Rollers and other pre-fab teenybopper acts, Sweet were gaining a new group of hard rock fans via Album Rock radio in America.
Later more progressive and softer albums like "Level Headed" and "Cut Above The Rest" got a lot of AOR airplay here in America, and I'm glad Capitol added the prog-ish "Mother Earth" and "Sixties Man", to show the group could do more than knock out 3 minute singles.
But I always thought the LP version of "Love Is Like Oxygen" was a little over-arranged (especally the disco ending) and its good the hit single version is here. I kinda wish the silly "Funk It Up" from the "Off the Record" LP could have been included. It was released as a single in 1977, and surprisingly got some airplay on Black R&B radio stations!
If you just want a beginner's overview of Sweet or "just the hits" this one is OK and the low price is a bonus. But if you want a better compilation, I highly reccomend looking at the many imports available here. Just stay away from anything from "Andy Scott's Sweet" which are knockoff remakes without Brian Connolly.
Free Music Review: In the words of Fire Marshall Bill, "Lemme show ya somethin"
Hit: 4 Stars
OK. Here's the deal. Yes, most of these Ten Best albums suck because they leave off essential material. This one is no exception. So why, you ask, does it get 4 stars? Because, dear reader, it has the long, album version of "Love Is Like Oxygen." That's right! I know of no other Sweet collection which does. So unless you care to pay full or import prices for "Level Headed" pick this cheapo up and bask in 7 minutes of 'Love!' Free Music Review: Sweetness
Hit: 5 Stars
Now if you ask me, and many glam rock fans do now and again, this here Sweet is probably the finest overlooked glam band to ever emerge in the music recording industry. I type that with an absolutely straight face because, truth be node, I done overlooked them myself until very recently. See, my musical taste, while varied and erudite, has not often trodden the path of the glam band. I mean, I always thought T Rex was innovative, and David Bowie looked good in mascara, but I had never even heard of Sweet until recently when I saw a piece in Psychology Today that mentioned a study in The Journal of Modern Music Ethnology that featured Sweet in a case history. So I got me that article and commenced to reading and became interested in discovering what all the fuss was about and before I knew it I had their music coming out the speakers in my pickup while I drive down the road to the feed store to get some dietary supplements for the chickens.
I liked what I heard. This will be particularly surprising to folk around me in Chesterfield County who are more used to the twang of more traditional sounding Country and Western and, in fact, the CD I have is probably the first and only Sweet CD to ever enter Chesterfield County. But when I pass by the Chicken Shack, or Cooter's Beer Hall, or any locale that tends to attract a lot of the locals, I often roll my windows down and turn the volume up just to kind of educate my neighbors and display to them that there is another form of music out there what they might could be exploring with me. So far, no takers. However the twins were looking at the cover last night and said the guys in the band were kind of cute... so that may be the inroad that gets Sweet in to Chesterfield County all these years after they disbanded and went their separate ways.
If you are going to put together a "Best Of" collection, then this is the way to do it - by selecting songs that are actually the best of what the band produced. Them folk what slap together a "best of" compilation and actually depend on a lot of B sides and unreleased junk tracks to stretch the product out and make it marketable to a small fan base are doing a disservice to the citizenry and the practice ought to be illegal and have attached to it severe penalties.
Little Willy is quite possibly suitable for some sort of civic anthem of some description... or possibly a theme song for a professional sports team or meat packing conglomerate.
Free Music Review: The SWEET sound of success
Hit: 4 Stars
The Sweet went through three very distinct periods, and this Greatest Hits paints a picture for each segment. There was the early bubble-glam period, where the Sweetshop shortened their name to Sweet and churned out Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman insta-hits like the insanely catchy "Little Willy" and the inane "Wig Wam Bam." The band was soon tired of being pop pretty boys and really wanted to rock. Chinn/Chapman fed them "Ballroom Blitz," but with "Fox On The Run," Sweet proved they could make international hits fine on their own.
After that, the band broke off with Chinn/Chapman and recorded "Give Us A Wink," a sly glitter rock album that featured the incendiary "Action." That was the roar that inspired 80's pop metal from Def Lepard to Poison, with "Stairway to the Stars" and "The Lies In Your Eyes," while not American Hits, are just as tasty.
Then the band decided that hits alone weren't good enough, and they took a shot at musical "credibility." "Level Headed" sounded less like Sweet and more like Alan Parsons, but "Love Is Like Oxygen" (included here in the single edit) was a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the following album was without Brian Conolly and pretty much was a forgettable work. ("Mother Earth" was ok, "Sixties Man," better.) But most of these songs are guilty pleasures, and still sound fresh now. After all, almost 30 years later, how can you resist that opening call of "Ballroom Blitz?"
.....all right fellas, let's Goooooooooooooo!
Free Music Review: Stay away...
Hit: 1 Stars
...from this record - there are just remakes on it. Ever since leadsinger Brian Connolly left the group in 1979 the rest of those guys recorded the titles new, maybe for some copyright-reasons or whatever. BUT: There ist no Sweet-sound without him. These are not the hits I heard in my teen-time. So: If you wanna get the spirit of Glam, try to reach original recordings of that time - it'll be worth it.