Sweet - Any Love?

Sure. Tremendous band. I know the audio doesn’t sync up properly, but this is still great:

 

The American Desolation Blvd was one of the soundtracks of my high school days for sure. I love the singles from their albums and even some album cuts although those to me tended to be a bit 'samey' sometimes. Level Headed is a weird one over all... but still sounds great.

Undeniably though "Fox on the Run," "Ballroom Blitz" and "Love is Like Oxygen" are evergreens.

 

I love Sweet. Well, I'm not a huge fan if the early bubblegum stuff...but their albums Sweet Fanny Adams and Desolation Blvd. were fantastic. Give Us A Wink was a notch below...and it went downhill from there IMO, but man they could rock. They did make some pretty critical errors in judgement I think. They changed their sound too much....got away from their bruising riffs. They also had some lapses in taste..."Someone Else Will" (which was on Strung Up as well as a 45) was just embarrassing.

 

Horrible record!

 

Why were they a poor man's Queen? They were having hit records years before Queen ever troubled the charts.

 

Loved them when I was six years old.

The early singles are basically Chinnichap bubblegum, but they have some great deep cuts and the later albums are an ear-opener to those who only know them for the 'hits'.

 

They where like Queen but the other way round.

Queen started as a great rock band and ended up being a mediocre pop band

The Sweet started out as a very good pop band but ended up being a great rock band

 

Hm, I actually didn't know that.

I guess my comment was more towards this: less ambitious arrangements but the same great harmony vocals. That's all I meant.

 

I love the American version of Desolation Boulevard.

 

What with those high pitched harmonies, more like a rich man's Uriah Heep.

I just love this band. I have a soft spot for the bubblegum stuff as well as the glam/heavy rock era. I think everything from "Sweet Fanny Adams" through "Off the Record" is pretty darn essential. I like "Level Headed" as well, but they sound more like The Eagles than Sweet at that point. And even the Brian-less records had some good stuff as well.

 

I only have a best of......

 

Little Willie is a fun song, but weren't they forced into the bubblegum route on that one, with studio players? I thought that was why it always seemed to be left off their anthologies.

Anyway, I do like the band.

 

I remember getting a VA compilation CD for my 9th birthday which contained songs from the fifties through the nineties, and Fox on the Run was on it. It was the loudest, heaviest thing I had heard up until that point. I thought it kicked so much ass but I was often a bit apprehensive about playing it with decent volume, which looking back was quite odd as my mom was and is quite a big fan of the Sweet. In recent years I've gotten into them in a more straightforward fashion via albums and singles, and I enjoy them a whole lot. Their bubblegum singles - which I personally think, in some instances, could count as power pop - their glam singles, their hard rock/heavy metal anthems and their more experimental side all show that this is a great, cohesive unit. Mick Tucker is an awesome drummer, very underrated. Big fat beat all the way and crazy fills. Brian Connolly, a most versatile singer. Sad he went so soon. Bass and guitar also sounds cool but I always thought that Brian and Mick Tucker stood out the most.

The coolest thing I heard was, at parties in the 70's, all the guys who liked heavy metal and hard rock, all the girls who liked glam and pop, and more ordinary guys who just liked all sorts of music all pulled together and dug the Sweet. Everybody knew all the songs. And as my mom said, you didn't bring their singles to a party - you brought their albums. Again, certain bands that embrace multiple genres and feels often gets remembered for their hits if this versatility doesn't convince the general public. But for a short while in the seventies it did. At least around here.

 

I really like their three U.S. albums, The Sweet Featuring Little Willy, Desolation Blvd and Give Us a Wink. The 1st two being U.S. compilations. I still have many mix CD-Rs with Sweet that I play all the time.

 

I only owned the original comp and loved it. Never owned any of their albums...

 

Some favorites other the obvious ones:

AC/DC
I Wanna Be Committed
Sweet F.A.
Into the Night
Yesterday's Rain
White Mice
Fever of Love
Lost Angels
Stairway to the Stars

 

Hell yes!!!

 

Some Sweet/Queen connections:
Mercury Paradise Audio Files »

(I have nothing to do with this page other than having it come up in a google search a few years ago.)

Nothing major, and the title of the webpage is a strain.

 

My first concert. Eric Carmen opened, alone at the piano for All By Myself then proceeded to roll the piano off the stage and said to the audience "I know that's not what you came to hear". He brought the band out and played a mix of Raspberries tunes and songs from his first album. Sweet opened with Ballroom Blitz and put on a great show as well.

 

I would disagree with that, they were a great pop band and a very average rock band, that's why they sold tons of their fantastic singles whilst their (rock) studio albums sold dismally.

 

Wig Wam Bam, baby!

 

The US version of Sweet's Desolation Boulevard is pretty good. I definitely like Side 2 more, which has the heavier songs that they themselves wrote (just switch out the poppier version of "Fox On the Run" with the harder rocking version). The songs written by outside writers are just OK in my book, though "The Six Teens" is pretty good.

 

Surprised no one has mentioned their appearance on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 trailer and (soon to be) soundtrack. Fox on the Run is predominantly featured and people are digging it.

 

A big fan of Sweet since the mid 70's.
Off The Record is my favorite.