{"id":28846,"date":"2025-02-03T05:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28846"},"modified":"2024-12-23T10:55:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T15:55:37","slug":"take-five-great-songs-from-sweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/03\/take-five-great-songs-from-sweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Five: Great Songs from Sweet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s generally agreed that Sweet\u2019s pinnacle was their third album, <em>Desolation Boulevard<\/em>. Released 50 years ago this month, that album showcased the band\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cLittle Willy\u201d (single, 1972)<\/strong><br \/>\nSweet\u2019s biggest hit in the U.S. (#3) was featured on their American debut album; in the band\u2019s native England it was a non-LP single. With its insistent, stomping beat and catchy lyrics, \u201cLittle Willy\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NM6I-pmV0RA?si=LPQC80z8o9mQjL4Z\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cBlock Buster!\u201d (single, 1973)<\/strong><br \/>\nSweet\u2019s seventh charting single in the UK, \u201cBlock Buster\u201d was also the band\u2019s 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, \u201cBlock Buster\u201d bears a strong resemblance to David Bowie\u2019s \u201cThe Jean Genie,\u201d a single released two months earlier; everyone involved insisted that any similarity was purely coincidental.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WNXFtVWB47E?si=1HM2iZFUJNYVfQxi\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cFox on the Run\u201d from <em>Desolation Boulevard<\/em> (1975)<\/strong><br \/>\nAmong the hardest-rocking singles from Sweet, \u201cFox on the Run\u201d was also among the best work from the band. The song was featured on both the UK and U.S. releases of <em>Desolation Boulevard<\/em>, even though the track listings for those albums were otherwise quite different. \u201cFox on the Run\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qBdFA6sI6-8?si=hoPTPjTusDgZXRte\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cAction\u201d from <em>Give Us a Wink<\/em> (1977)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe rousing hit single from Sweet\u2019s fourth studio release, \u201cAction\u201d was the breakout release that found the band working without involvement from Chinn and Chapman. All of <em>Give Us a Wink<\/em>\u2019s songs were written and produced by the group. A Top 20 hit in ten countries (#20 in the U.S.), \u201cAction\u201d has demonstrated remarkable staying power: Def Leppard covered the song nearly 20 years after its initial release.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zM0IWyQ5zcg?si=--blhKi0J9MXTYUh\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cLove is Like Oxygen\u201d from <em>Level Headed<\/em> (1978)<\/strong><br \/>\nBy 1978 Sweet had moved beyond the \u201cbubbleglam\u201d of their early work, continuing to write and produce their own material. For 1978\u2019s <em>Level Headed<\/em>, the band arguably created a new subgenre: \u201cbubbleprog.\u201d The impossibly catchy \u201cLove is Like Oxygen\u201d served up all of the ear candy that characterized Sweet\u2019s previous work, adding ambitious songwriting and arrangement to the mix. While the single edit of \u201cLove is Like Oxygen\u201d is superb \u2013 going Top 40 in eight countries \u2013 the nearly seven-minute album version is superior, a masterful synthesis of subtlety, sophistication and relentlessly hard rock.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oc1sgCT7X2c?si=0yMHCqeNuNJziFdf\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2104],"class_list":["post-28846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-sweet","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28848,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28846\/revisions\/28848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}