The Sweet: Find a "Fox On The Run" during a "Ballroom Blitz" on "Desolation Boulevard"
Written: Mar 08 '04 (Updated Oct 07 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: Gold-selling album with U. S. Top 10 hits "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox On The Run."
Cons: Weak CD booklet is a minor complaint.
The Bottom Line: Classic rock tracks from a band whose music has been covered by Def Leppard and Pat Benatar. Includes the worldwide Top 10 hits "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox On The Run."
Don_Krider's Full Review: Desolation Boulevard by Sweet
For me, rock 'n' roll both died and then was reborn in 1975.
I was 18, newly graduated from high school, my beloved Raspberries and Mott The Hoople had broken up, the lead singer of my equally beloved Badfinger (the late, great Pete Ham) had hung himself and things just didn't look very good for the future of the kind of rock music I adored.
Then, The Sweet, those glam-rock-pop-bubblegum musical darlings who dressed in drag, glitter and sometimes parts of Nazi outfits, hit the American airwaves with "Ballroom Blitz" and all was once again right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) with the world.
The band remains popular, despite the deaths of two of its members (Mick Tucker and Brian Connolly), today. Guitarist Andy Scott has continued on as Andy Scott's Sweet for many years (finally getting the legal right to call his band "The Sweet" in 2003).
The band's tunes have been covered by a number of artists, including Def Leppard, who covered the band's Top 20 hit from 1976, "Action," a few years back, and Pat Benatar.
The band:
The Sweet, whose beginnings go back to the late 1960s (depending on your source, they were once known as The Sweet Shop or The Sweet Shoppe, with or without the word "The"), had been huge in their native England since hitting the British charts with the first of 16 Top 50 hits between 1971 and 1978 ("Co Co," which hit # 2 , and "Funny Funny," which peaked at # 13, were the band's first British hits in 1971).
The Sweet's drummer, Mick Tucker (who died at age 54 on Valentine's Day of 2002 of leukemia), had been in the '60s band Wainwright's Gentlemen with lead singer Ian Gillan. When Gillan left the band in 1965 to join a group called Episode Six (he later, of course, joined Deep Purple), he was replaced by a blonde-haired Scotsman named Brian Connolly (who died on February 10, 1997, at age 52 of kidney failure).
Wainwright's Gentlemen folded in 1968. Tucker and Connolly decided to form a new band, so they brought bassist Steve Priest and the first of several lead guitarists, Frank Thorpy, to form The Sweet Shop, eventually shortening the name to The Sweet.
Though The Sweet were a great live band in concert, their earliest records featured only Connolly's voice singing with studio musicians (not an uncommon practice in those days, as The Monkees can attest) on their first few singles.
By the early '70s, the band had settled on Andy Scott as lead guitarist and the foursome's most famous lineup was born.
British hit-men:
The U. S. always seems to lag years behind in catching on to British hit-makers, but The Sweet did (who had hit # 99 in the U. S. with "Co Co" in 1971) finally hit the U. S. Top 40 in 1973 with a catchy-as-heck bubblegum music ditty called "Little Willy."
The tune (which hit # 4 in England that year) employed Who guitar power chording with silly bubblegum lyrics ("...little Willy, Willy won't, go home, you can't push Willy round, Willy won't go...") and rose to # 3 on the Billboard U. S. Hot 100 Singles charts in 1973.
Unfortunately, the band's U. S. label, Bell Records, lost whatever momentum The Sweet had stateside, despite "Little Willy" selling over a million copies to earn the band a Gold Record Award (a single 45 rpm record in those days got the award for sales of over one million copies; these days, a Gold Record for a single is issued for selling a half-million units).
Their follow-up single, "Blockbuster" (which had been # 1 on the British charts in 1973), peaked at # 73 in the U. S. in 1973, and their debut American album, "The Sweet," peaked at # 191 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums charts.
Though the band continued to score Top 10 hits across Europe and was especially popular in Japan, The Sweet were quickly forgotten in America. When Clive Davis started Arista Records in 1974 out of what had been Bell Records, he dropped a number of former Bell Records' acts, including The Sweet (he kept Barry Manilow and The Bay City Rollers, however).
In 1973-1974, The Sweet had a string of British Top 10 singles following their # 1 British hit, "Blockbuster," including "Ballroom Blitz" (which hit # 2 in the UK), "Teenage Rampage" (which peaked at # 2 in Britain) and "The 6-Teens" (which the British took to # 9).
Capitol Records in the U. S. took note of The Sweet's popularity overseas and compiled the band's second U. S. release, "Desolation Boulevard," for a 1975 album --- an album that was half-written by songwriters-producers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (famous for having songs written by them, but performed by three different acts (Mud, The Sweet and Suzi Quatro), holding down the Top 3 positions on the British charts the same week in 1974), while the remaining half of the album was written by the band's members.
The compilation featured songs that the band considered "old material" and they weren't happy about "Desolation Boulevard," mainly because they had severed their relationship with Chinn and Chapman (who went on to write and/or produce hits by The Knack, Blondie, Pat Benatar and Tina Turner, among others) and The Sweet's members were now writing their own material.
They weren't unhappy with the success of "Desolation Boulevard" in the U. S., however --- the album rose to # 25, spent 44 weeks on the U. S. charts, earned a Gold Record Award (for an album, that was 500,000 copies sold), produced two Top 10 singles ("Ballroom Blitz" and the million-seller "Fox On The Run") and launched the band on a headlining U. S. tour (with former Raspberries' singer Eric Carmen as opening act).
The Sweet continued to have hits in the U. S. (and Europe) through 1978, including "Action" (# 20 in 1976, it's from their wonderful "Give Us A Wink" album, which itself reached # 27 on the charts) and "Love Is Like Oxygen" (# 8 in 1978; the main guitar riff was recently used by the band Sugar Ray in their hit, "Mr. Bartender (It's So Easy)").
"Love Is Like Oxygen" was their fourth U. S. Top 10 hit. Their final and ninth Hot 100 hit stateside came in 1978 when "California Nights" peaked at # 76.
The band also charted with six Top 200 ranked albums between 1973 and 1979 ("Cut Above The Rest" in 1979, was as a trio without Connolly and eeked its way to # 151).
Connolly left the band in 1978 to go solo. The band members continued to record as a threesome, but eventually went their seperate ways, with Brian Connolly and Andy Scott eventually forming new, competing versions of the band around themselves to record and tour (aka Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's Sweet).
Bassist Steve Priest put his memories down in his book, "Are You Ready, Steve?," a few years ago. In October of 2003, a DVD of classic Sweet video performances, "The Very Best Of The Sweet," was released by Weinerworld (the details are at: http://www.wienerworld.com/Sweet.html ).
The CD:
I consider "Desolation Boulevard" to be a classic album of the 1970's --- something of a bridge between the power pop movement (The Raspberries, Badfinger, Big Star, Stories) and the the glam-rock/progressive rock years (T. Rex, David Bowie, Slade, Queen).
The 10 tracks featured various producers, including Chinn and Chapman, with Phil Wainman (co-writer of The Yardbird's "Little Games" and later producer of The Bay City Rollers, Mud and Generation X) and The Sweet also producing various tracks.
The cover shot is one of the most memorable in rock 'n' roll, faithfully reproduced as the CD booklet's cover from the original LP --- four guys looking like you wouldn't want to be caught in an alley with them because they might attack you against an image-heavy backdrop of the advertising jungle of a modern city. Connolly, in fact, lived the lifestyle of a hard-drinking, barroom brawler, apparently, reportedly having his throat kicked in during a fight at the band's peak in popularity.
The CD booklet is weak at four pages --- the first and last pages are reproductions of the original two sides of the LP, page two is a track listing with songwriter and producer information, and page three is simply an explanation of what a compact disc is (the CD was first issued in 1988 when the technology was new, but one would think Capitol Records would have updated the booklet by now).
The 10 tracks on a single CD are:
"Ballroom Blitz," "The 6-Teens," "No You Don't" (later covered by Pat Benatar), "A.C.D.C.," "I Wanna Be Committed," "Sweet F. A.," "Fox On The Run," "Set Me Free," "Into The Night" and "Solid Gold Brass."
Recommendation:
Fans of 1970's Top 40 radio will love this classic rock album, featuring the Top 5 U. S. hits "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox On The Run." Though two members of the band have sadly passed from our ranks, the music lives on in the cuts on "Desolation Boulevard."
Fans of glam rock, power pop, T. Rex and Slade will love this collection.
The best songs:
"Ballroom Blitz":
With lead singer Brian Connolly calling out each band member's name and the band members each responding to Brian's calls over drummer Mick Tucker's rock-steady drum beat, Chinn and Chapman's "Ballroom Blitz" opens with a moment that blasted out of Top 40 AM car radios in June of 1975:
Individual band members trade lead vocal jabs ranging from sweet-sounding to hysterically insane while Tucker's backbeat, Priest's throbbing bass and Scott's wind-milled guitar power chords power the tune along, all making the tune's insane lyrics sound pretty cool as the band sings in unison:
"... and the man in the back said / 'everyone attack' and it turned into a ballroom blitz / and the girl in the corner said / 'boy, I wanna warn ya, it'll turn into a ballroom blitz'..."
"Ballroom Blitz" spent 25 weeks (nearly six months) on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and peaked at # 5.
"Fox On The Run":
Written by the entire band, "Fox On The Run" first appeared in the Billboard Hot 100 in November of 1975 while "Ballroom Blitz" was still charting. Though it spent only 16 weeks on the chart, "Fox On The Run" went on to sell more than a million copies in the U. S. and became the band's third U. S. Top 10 hit, peaking at # 5 in 1975-76.
Propelled by swirling synthesizers, bass, drums and guitar, this was a different Sweet than most Americans knew, with near Queen-like vocal harmonies and powerful wall-of-sound production by the band members themselves.
Connolly's lead vocal is more gritty here --- his sweet voice from the "Little Willy" days now more mature and tough-sounding in a tune about a girl named Foxy:
"I, don't wanna know your name / 'cause you don't look the same / the way you did before / okay, you think you got a pretty face / but the rest of you is out of place / you looked alright before / fox on the run / you scream and everybody comes a running / take a run and hide yourself away / Foxy is on the run / F-Foxy / fox on the run..."
"No You Don't":
More insanity from songwriters Chinn and Chapman, "No You Don't" was later covered by singer Pat Benatar. The Sweet's original version, appearing here, is definitive, with a glorious instrumental bridge at its center that seems inspired by The Who.
Lamenting being fed up with a girlfriend "putting me down while you're playing the town," the band sings in unison "no you don't" on the chorus, followed by the lead singer telling his lover what she doesn't have to do:
"...no you don't - have to treat me like a fool / no you don't - have to be so bloody cool / no you don't - have to make up all the rules / no you don't - no, no, no you don't..."
"A.C.D.C.":
Nope, "A.C.D.C." wasn't about an Australian band or electrical current, but it was about a guy becoming concerned that his girlfriend might be having other interests sexually. With a melody that harks back to the band's British hit "Wig Wam Bam" from the group's bubblegum period of the early 1970's, Connolly laments:
"She got girls / girls all over the world / she got men / every now and then / but she can't make up her mind / on just how to fill her time / but the only way she can unwind / A.C.D.C. / she's got some other lover as well as me / A.C.D.C. / she's got some other woman as well as me..."
Pretty unusual subject matter for a song in 1975, I might add.
"Solid Gold Brass":
Written by all four band members, "Solid Gold Brass" has a cocky swagger to its aggressive hard rock/jazz/blues melody mix --- a true showcase for Andy Scott's tasty, sizzling lead guitar work. All the band's members shine here:
"Heart of a woman / but she's a child / something inside that's gonna drive you wild / ... / solid gold brass gotta mean streak / and it's running though my veins / solid gold brass gotta green streak / and it's going to my brain / but she helps me hang on in there / solid gold brass..."
"Ten Best Series - The Best Of The Sweet" features 10 tracks on a $5.99 list CD and little else, but six of the songs hit the Top 10: http://www.epinions.com/content_262214946436
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