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Sweet

The Sweet, or Sweet as they were known after 1974, was a British glam rock band. Their best known line-up consisted of lead singer Brian Connolly, bassist Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker. Formed in 1968 in London, Sweet started out as a bubblegum pop group making songs such as “The Lollypop Man”. This proved to be a bad business move as the genre was well on it’s way out by the late 1960’s, and their first few singles did not chart well.

The band’s fortunes changed in March, 1971 with the release of the single “Funny, Funny”, which fused the softer pop sound of artists like The Hollies and The Archies with the edgier sound popularized by The Who. Lyrical content was of much higher quality than their previous singles thanks to the efforts of writing duo Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who would pen a number of top 20 hits for the band and other popular groups throughout the 1970s. “Funny, Funny”’s success, however, was only matched by the single “Co-Co”. The rest of Sweet’s other 1971 singles along with their album Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be failed to chart.

Through 1972 and 1973 the Sweet had multiple top 5 hits and released their first album in the US, simply titled The Sweet, which saw moderate success. By 1974 the band members were weary of the commercialized, artificial image and sound typical of glam rock. On their next album, Sweet Fanny Adams, the band experimented with the bold, rock-oriented instrumentals and shrill backing vocals that would define their music from this point forward.