Sweet “Desolation Boulevard” 1974/75. Today, July 17th, would have been Sweet drummer Mick Tucker’s 70th birthday (b. Michael Tucker, 1947, d. 2002). Sweet is one of my glam guilty pleasures and Desolation Boulevard, their third album, is “an addictive slice of bubblegum glam rock” (Allmusic). The album is big, swaggering, glitzy, 70′s over-the-top awesomeness:  songs like “Sweet F.A.” (I imagine if written today it would be renamed “Sweet AF”) have it all – hard driving guitar hooks and solos, swirling synths, stadium sized drums. The LP  includes one of my favorite 70′s singles, “Fox on the Run,” an ode to groupies which first hit the US charts in ‘75 at #5. After the track’s inclusion on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 trailer, it reentered the charts again in 2016. (It also has a great place on the ‘93  Dazed and Confused soundtrack.) Our copy of Desolation Boulevard is the US release that includes the single “Ballroom Blitz,” the hit song (#2 UK, #5 US) inspired by a Sweet concert in Scotland where the band was driven offstage in a barrage of hurled bottles.

And the man at the back said
Everyone attack and it turned into a ballroom blitz
And the girl in the corner said
Boy, I wanna warn ya, it’ll turn into a ballroom blitz

Oh yeah, it was electric, so frightfully hectic
And the band started leaving, ‘cause they all stopped breathing

Oh yeah, it was like lightning, everybody was frightening
And the music was soothing, and they all started grooving

It’s it’s a ballroom blitz, it’s it’s a ballroom blitz
It’s it’s a ballroom blitz, yeah, it’s a ballroom blitz