Sweet

The early 1970s excesses found a vivid embodiment in the Sweet, whose sugary melodies collided with gritty, distorted guitars to project a heavier image than their actual pop restraint permitted. This tension fueled a string of chart entries in both Britain and the United States. Aligning with Britain’s glam rock wave, they shaped a streamlined, radio-friendly, youth-focused counterpart to Queen, T. Rex, and Gary Glitter. Although their peak chart years closed by the decade’s end, those singles endured as period artifacts and as clear forerunners of the pop-metal style that emerged in the 1980s. Rival lineups of the band—one steered by bassist Steve Priest and the other by guitarist Andy Scott—kept touring and issued the occasional recording well into the early 2020s.

Formed originally as the Sweetshop, the group comprised Brian Connolly on vocals, Mick Tucker handling vocals and drums, Frank Torpey on guitar, and Steve Priest on bass. After shortening the name to Sweet in 1970, they secured a Fontana/EMI deal and issued four singles that failed to register. Torpey’s departure soon followed, with Andy Scott stepping in on guitar. The refreshed quartet joined RCA Records in 1971 and fell under the guidance of songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. The pair supplied a series of bright bubblegum tracks, beginning with “Funny Funny,” which climbed to number 13 in the U.K. Five further Top 40 entries followed—“Little Willy” and “Wig-Wam Bam” among them—all buoyant numbers laced with suggestive lyrics. Meanwhile the band contributed their own material to B-sides and album cuts, compositions marked by harder-edged, riff-driven rock. Recognizing the contrast, Chinn and Chapman shifted toward tougher material. “Blockbuster,” the initial product of this glam-leaning approach, became the Sweet’s sole U.K. number-one single in early 1973 and later earned platinum status. Over the next two years further Chinn-Chapman songs kept them charting, among them the Top Ten entries “Hell Raiser,” “Ballroom Blitz,” “Teenage Rampage,” and “The Six Teens.”

By summer 1974 the members had grown weary of Chinn and Chapman’s oversight and chose to record independently. The resulting Sweet Fanny Adams reached number 27 in Britain yet produced no hit singles. Their first self-written success arrived in spring 1975 with “Fox on the Run,” a Top Ten entry on both sides of the Atlantic. The track appeared on Desolation Boulevard; its American release in turn revived “Ballroom Blitz,” which entered the U.S. Top Ten that summer. Strung Up, issued in autumn 1975, signaled a continued tilt toward album-oriented rock. Subsequent releases through the decade each sold less than the last. A return to the charts came in 1978 with “Love Is Like Oxygen,” though it marked their final Top Ten showing in either territory. Connolly exited after the single, replaced by keyboardist Gary Moberley. The band persisted another three years, releasing three more albums that met little commercial response before disbanding in 1982.

Various reunion attempts followed in the ensuing decade. A 1985 dance-club medley titled “It’s the Sweet Mix” reached Britain’s Top 50, prompting a tour that drew modest interest. Later that decade Scott performed with Paddy Goes to Holyhead. In 1989 Scott and Tucker reassembled Sweet for a live album recorded at London’s Marquee Club, though Tucker’s illness soon forced his departure. With Scott the sole original member remaining, the group released the album A in 1991.

Thereafter Scott’s version of Sweet—distinct from a separate incarnation led by former bassist Steve Priest—appeared with rotating singers and lineups, releasing the single “Join Together” in 2011. The following year brought New York Connection, a covers collection incorporating samples and references to earlier work. Steady touring continued, and 2017 brought the lavish box set Sensational Sweet, Chapter One: The Wild Bunch, which gathered the band’s albums and singles from 1971 to 1978. Steve Priest died on June 4, 2020, at age 72. That same year Andy Scott’s Sweet issued Isolation Boulevard, featuring reimagined versions of key songs recorded under COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Four years later they delivered Full Circle, an album of new material that merged classic and contemporary production approaches.