Best Of Sweet, The

Is Sweet nothing more than a time capsule from the bell-bottomed '70s? Surely, the band's fey appearance doesn't do much for ensuring a legacy of pride. All glam pretensions aside, when one lines up all the band's best singles in a row it's an indisputable feast of delirious hooks, pop throwaways, and car-radio screamers. Sweet was something like a hard pop version of the Monkees in that producers-songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman dictated the group's output with an eye on the teen market. The early '70s saw a flurry of immediate singles blast out of this "collaboration": "Little Willy", "Wig Wam Bam", and "Blockbuster" all crackle and zap with hard pop confection.
After the band broke away from Chinn and Chapman with DESOLATION BOULEVARD, Sweet took on a decidedly harder edge, shying away from its bubblegum beginnings. As evidenced here, the decision was a smart one as it culminated in the band's signature song "Fox on the Run" which packed an FM-ready wallop. Elsewhere, "Lost Angels", "The 6-Teens", and "Love Is like Oxygen" demonstrate the band knew its own way around a pop hook and could create songs as accessible as their earlier work with considerably more texture to boot.|