Take Five: Great Songs from Sweet

Initially a vehicle for the bubblegum-meets-hard rock songcraft of the ChinniChap songwriting team (Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman), London-based glam rockers Sweet scored an impressive run of hit singles during their heyday. The group started out with somewhat lightweight fare but soon shifted to more substantial material, maintaining its fan base and earning some measure of critical praise.

It’s generally agreed that Sweet’s pinnacle was their third album, Desolation Boulevard. Released 50 years ago this month, that album showcased the band’s stylistic breadth, earning them a Gold record in the U.S. and charting in the Top 20 in seven other countries. In celebration of a half century of musical enjoyment from Desolation Boulevard, here are five standout tracks from Sweet.

“Little Willy” (single, 1972)
Sweet’s biggest hit in the U.S. (#3) was featured on their American debut album; in the band’s native England it was a non-LP single. With its insistent, stomping beat and catchy lyrics, “Little Willy” might not have impressed critics, but it demonstrated a surefire recipe for a hit, and helped usher in the over-the-top glam rock subgenre. Many 21st century listeners would be reintroduced to the song thanks to its use on the soundtrack for popular UK television series Life on Mars.

“Block Buster!” (single, 1973)
Sweet’s seventh charting single in the UK, “Block Buster” was also the band’s first #1 there. The tune also soared to that spot on the singles charts in Austria, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, but in the U.S. the single only made it to #73. Written by Chinn and Chapman, “Block Buster” bears a strong resemblance to David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie,” a single released two months earlier; everyone involved insisted that any similarity was purely coincidental.

“Fox on the Run” from Desolation Boulevard (1975)
Among the hardest-rocking singles from Sweet, “Fox on the Run” was also among the best work from the band. The song was featured on both the UK and U.S. releases of Desolation Boulevard, even though the track listings for those albums were otherwise quite different. “Fox on the Run” is notable for being a group-written and -produced track, helping to make the point that Sweet were not wholly the product of the ChinniChap musical factory. Released as a single, the song went Top Ten in 14 countries.

“Action” from Give Us a Wink (1977)
The rousing hit single from Sweet’s fourth studio release, “Action” was the breakout release that found the band working without involvement from Chinn and Chapman. All of Give Us a Wink’s songs were written and produced by the group. A Top 20 hit in ten countries (#20 in the U.S.), “Action” has demonstrated remarkable staying power: Def Leppard covered the song nearly 20 years after its initial release.

“Love is Like Oxygen” from Level Headed (1978)
By 1978 Sweet had moved beyond the “bubbleglam” of their early work, continuing to write and produce their own material. For 1978’s Level Headed, the band arguably created a new subgenre: “bubbleprog.” The impossibly catchy “Love is Like Oxygen” served up all of the ear candy that characterized Sweet’s previous work, adding ambitious songwriting and arrangement to the mix. While the single edit of “Love is Like Oxygen” is superb – going Top 40 in eight countries – the nearly seven-minute album version is superior, a masterful synthesis of subtlety, sophistication and relentlessly hard rock.