Sweet “Give Us a Wink”

sfilzen — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 18:57:01 +0000

Sweet “Give Us a Wink” 1976. Today, February 23rd, would have been Sweet founding member and bassist Steve Priest’s 75th birthday (b. 1948, d. 2020). Give Us a Wink was Sweet’s fourth studio LP and the first to be entirely written and produced by the band members. It hit #27 in the US but didn’t chart in England, Sweet’s home country. Hard and fast glam rock, Give Us a Wink is overblown 70’s awesomeness with intricate guitar solos and sometimes wailing operatic vocals (“White Mouse” has all of that and more), it’s what the UK punk movement was directly rebelling against. But it’s a really really good time! Our version is the US Capitol Records release, which flipped the European RCA sides A and B and adds the song “Lady Starlight” which originally appeared on the European versions of Desolation Boulevard (1974). Sweet released three singles from Give Us a Wink: “Action” (which leads off the US version) which went to #20 in the US and to #15 in the UK; according to Wiki it’s a criticism of the music press’s coverage of Sweet and has a “masked backwards vocal with the words ‘You kiss my arse.'” The other two singles were “The Lies in Your Eyes” (#35 UK) and “4th of July” (only in Australia where it failed to chart).

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Sweet “Desolation Boulevard”

sfilzen — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 20:32:44 +0000

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

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Sweet “Give Us a Wink”

Sweet “Desolation Boulevard”