Search - The Sweet :: The Sweet

Pre Blitz Gold!

Ralph Quirino | Keswick, Ontario Canada | 06/03/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"How infuriating for us Sweet fans! Trying to find that 1 essential collection with all the key hits on it proves to be both costly and confusing! Too often, imported titles run us a pretty penny with only a handful of really amazing tunes while far inferior so-called "hits" sets contain trashy rerecordings. Here, Razor & Tie have done fans a service: this set collects the band's pre-"Blitz" hitz on a single, very affordable, very listenable glam-rock disc that's a hoot at parties. From the silly stuff like "Co Co" to "Wig Wam Bam" and "Blockbuster", this set is the missing link for fans who only know Desolation Boulevard. They'll be amazed at how much more fun the band was before they went all fake-metal trippy. Add this one to Desolation Boulevard and Give Us A Wink and you've got the best stuff they ever set to record. Kudos to Razor & Tie!"

Sugar and Spikes

Tim Brough | Springfield, PA United States | 10/24/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I owned the original "The Sweet" Bell album as a teenager and loved it, wore it out completely. I had a mid-life crisis a while back and HAD to have "Hellraiser" again (the band I fronted in high school included it in our sets), so I sprung for one of Amazon's used copies of Sweet's American debut. It's interesting to listen to it again with older and more seasoned ears, with all the silly bubblegum double entendres the Chinn/Chapmann team were so wickedly good at. I mean, "Wig Wam Bam," REALLY!



On the otherhand, the fact that Sweet was bristling at their forced bubble-glam image early on is obvious on this CD. The Connolly-Scott-Tucker-Priest originals mixed in with the Chinn/Chapman insta-hits show the band champing at the bit to escape the silly Indian headgear so they could get on stage and rock. "New York Connection" and "Need A Lot Of Lovin'" show that Sweet were far more interested in sounding like Slade than the Bay City Rollers.



While certainly not indispensable, "The Sweet" show just how fun workmanlike songcraft could be, and also provides an interesting P.O.V. into Sweet's evolution."

My first introduction to Sweet, one of my favorite bands

Thomas Muckinhaupt | Erie, PA United States | 10/15/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I remember hearing "Little Willy" back when I was 12. It seemed pretty "bubble gum" at the time, but I had read that Sweet wrote great heavier music. This album is in no way as good as "Desolation Boulevard" or "Give us a Wink", but is a very good representation of the transition to harder rock. "New York Connection" is an excellent song with a great lead from Andy Scott, one of the most underrated guitarists ever!! "Done Me Wrong Allright" is a barnstormer, as is "Man From Mecca". The early tunes that are bonus tracks such as "Poppa Joe" and "Jeannie" are too poppy and cheesy for my taste. They should have included the original "Need A Lot of Lovin" that was on the original 1973 album version on Bell and also one of the greatest hard rock songs in the Sweet canon, "Burning", a true classic. Still an essential purchase though."