The Sweet has a somewhat controversial reputation. Most of their hits were written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who wrote so many hits for many musical acts in the 1970s that they were commonly called "Chinnichap." These songs typically were in a poppy "bubblegum" style. But the Sweet were really a harder rocking band at heart. They grew increasingly proficient with their own songs for B-sides and album tracks, and eventually parted with Chinnichap around 1974 and still had success.
Here's their Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:
The songs here show the conflict the band was having between the successful poppy hits and the harder rocking stuff they preferred. With these BBC sessions, they could let it all hang out more than TV appearances where they only played their hits. So there are some B-sides, as well as cover versions that they generally didn't put on their albums. One can especially see the influence of the Who. They played two songs associated with the Who in full ("I Can't Explain" and "Summertime Blues") as well as a medley of many Who songs (track 10). They also did covers by the Doors ("Love Me Two Times"), the Move ("I Can Hear the Grass Grow"), Jimmy Reed ("Baby, What You Want Me to Do"), and the Beatles ("Paperback Writer"). Out of all those, I believe only the last one was done on their albums at the time.
Most, but not all, of these have been officially released. In 2017, a box set was released called "Sensational Sweet." That included most of their BBC recordings. Most of the songs here are from that. Only three weren't included, "Co-Co," "Funny Funny," and "Alexander Graham Bell."
However, there's a problem with the box set versions: for the songs with BBC DJs talking over the beginnings and/or ends of songs, which are many, those parts of the songs were simply cut out. Nowadays, we have the technology to do better. In those cases, I found unreleased versions (with the same sound quality) and used the UVR5 program to wipe out the DJ talk while keeping the music. That's why many of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.
There were just two songs where I couldn't find the uncut versions: "Love Me Two Times" and "Summertime Blues." For "Love Me Two Times," I found a good instrumental section in the middle of the song and pasted it at the start of the song. That worked well. However, for "Summertime Blues," for some reason, most of the first verse was missing on the box set version. I don't know why that is; it seems extremely unlikely the DJ would have talked over that much singing. But since I couldn't find the missing section, I deleted about the last ten seconds of the first verse to give it an obvious starting point with the beginning of the second verse. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles too. In the end, only three songs were included from the box set without any changes ("I Can Hear the Grass Grow," "Baby, What You Want Me to Do," and the Who medley).
By the way, there's one song on the BBC portion of the box set that I considered so terrible that I left it off entirely. That's "The Lollipop Man," which they performed for the BBC in 1969. It's a really embarrassing bubblegum pop song that wasn't even good at being bubblegum, completely failing to make the charts. This album is stronger without it.
This album is 41 minutes long.
01 Time [Edit] (Sweet)
02 The Juicer [Edit] (Sweet)
03 All You'll Ever Get from Me [Edit] (Sweet)
04 Love Me Two Times [Edit] (Sweet)
05 I Can't Explain [Edit] (Sweet)
06 Funny Funny [Edit] (Sweet)
07 Paperback Writer [Edit] (Sweet)
08 I Can Hear the Grass Grow (Sweet)
09 Baby, What You Want Me to Do (Sweet)
10 Substitute - Daddy Rolling Stone - Happy Jack - Pictures of Lily - My Generation - I'm a Boy - I Can't Explain (Sweet)
11 Summertime Blues [Edit] (Sweet)
12 Done Me Wrong All Right [Edit] (Sweet)
13 Co-Co [Edit] (Sweet)
14 Mr. Businessman [Edit] (Sweet)
15 Alexander Graham Bell [Edit] (Sweet)
16 Santa Monica Sunshine [Edit] (Sweet)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/3DAUaVvf
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/3kHZTUDBl8Hn6wf/file
The cover photo comes from an appearance on the "Top of the Pops" TV show in June 1971. The band name at the top was taken from one of their albums.
Thank you for this and the rest of the music that you present here - I love it. On the subject of 'The Sweet' - the band that got me into music in about 1973, I really do think that your perspective (although hugely valid) as an American is rather at odds with mine as a Brit. Personally, I love "The Lollipop Man", but also it did make me chuckle that your list of three hits didn't include "Blockbuster". I appreciate that this is due to the two sides of the Atlantic being involved, but over here, "Blockbuster" was by far their biggest hit, and the one that the man in the street remembers.
ReplyDeleteI looked up what you said about Block Buster, and you're right. It was their biggest hit in Britain, going to Number One. Whereas in the US it only made number 73 on the charts.
DeleteBut as for Lollipop Man, that song truly pains me to even think about. Here are the actual exact lyrics for the first verse and chorus. A five year old could have written them in the time it took to write them (note the lack of rhyming):
You go to the girl's school
And I go to the boy's school
Both separated by a lollipop man
I must cross the street to
Get around to meet you
Therefore I have to pass a lollipop man
Lollipop man, there's a lollipop man
Who stands in the middle of the street
(Ain't he sweet)
There's a lollipop man, yeah a lollipop man
Hey, good golly there's a lollipop man
---
That makes bubblegum hits like "Yummy Yummy" and "Sugar Sugar" seem like Shakespeare in comparison!
Thank you for this!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I was lucky to see Sweet open for Cheap Trick in 1979!
ReplyDeleteNice to hear the heavier side of Sweet.
ReplyDeleteHi, Alexander Graham Bell is definitely the studio version,
ReplyDelete