It's A Teenage Rampage

Most people are familiar with Sweet from their '70s U.S. radio hits like "Ballroom Blitz," "Fox On The Run" or "Little Willy." But as the late Paul Harvey always said, there's the rest of the story, and it's here on the just-released two-disc collection entitled Action: The Sweet Anthology.

A simple nomenclature would put Sweet under "Seventies U.K. glam-rock" and be finished, and there's some good evidence for that, especially on the first disc. Their first few singles saw the Sweet finding their way, and it's not until "Alexander Graham Bell" (a b-side, no less) where the boogie begins in earnest. But once it's found, it's shaken to the ground, especially on "Blockbuster," their British #1 hit from '73; starting off with an air-raid siren and launching into a beat pulled from Bowie's "The Jean Genie," it's amazing to hear something that so clearly should have been an American smash.

The biggest revelation in Action is how quickly they found their artistic footing from "Blockbuster" on, crafting some devilish intersection between Queen, Electric Light Orchestra, and Chess Records electric blues. It's there in the hits (pop music doesn't get much better than "Fox On The Run") but it's in the DNA of the album tracks as well; the anarchic thrust of "Hellraiser," the naughty sentiments of "A.C.D.C." and "Teenage Rampage," and the soaring testicle-vice harmonies of "Action." As usual, band tensions led to the creative gutting of Sweet as the '80s rolled around, and with age and mortality culling the group, Action: The Sweet Anthology is the best monument to the greatness that was and is and always will be Sweet.

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