Love Is Like Oxygen
The Sweet – 1978
It was the 70’s and the Glam Band was a thing, but what a lot of folks have forgotten about is how influential those bands were and how much talent the musicians embodied.
Known mostly for their insane track “Ballroom Blitz,” which has been featured in tons of films and covered like a trillion times, The Sweet appears quite often in my 45 collection. These guys were a Billboard single making machine putting out 13 top 20 hits during the seventies.
With the Billboard charts overflowing with tracks from the Bee Gees and the movie Grease, it was pretty impressive for anything in 1978 to squeeze it’s way in to an increasingly dominant market of pop and disco.
Vowing never to become part of the Disco degeneration, I was always seeking out other forms of music to wet my whistle and I have to admit, I totally loved the sound of this band. The hard rock guitars mixed with the high pitched ELO-esque vocal harmonies were a total recipe for success. Even today, these songs have stood the test of time grabbing new fans all over the world with their simple but addictive hooks.
The song “Love Is Like Oxygen” is probably my favorite of the bunch (with “Fox On The Run” a close second) and represents the last of the The Sweet’s world-wide success. While most of the band’s hits were written by the song writing team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, this song was actually written by band member and guitarist Andy Scott with another musician/engineer Trevor Griffin.
There were two versions of the song, a 3:46 single version and a 6:57 album version which I must say goes a bit long and incorporates strings into the mix which is cool if you are into more of a disco thing. I am all about the single version and still whip out my Capitol 7-inch Jacksonville pressing and throw it on the platter once in awhile just to crank out the air guitar (seriously, there are kick ass air guitar moments in this).
The B-side ain’t too shabby neither. Written by Sweet, (by this time the band had shortened their moniker) the flip-side “Cover Girl” is a pretty kick ass tune that has a cool guitar driven groove and a chorus that might remind you of a certain Beatle’s tune.
“Ooh I need your love, babe
Guess you know it’s true
Hope you need my love, babe
Just like I need you”
– Eight Days A Week – The Beatles
Just saying.
Lead vocalist – Brian Connolly, guitarist – Andy Scott, bass player – Steve Priest and drummer – Mick Tucker will be forever linked with other British Glam Rock artists like David Bowie, Gary Glitter, Mott The Hoople and Roxy Music, but The Sweet would also influence many rock icons to come including Elton John, Rod Stewart and Freddie Mercury.
Most of The Sweet are gone now, leaving only guitarist Andy Scott who, at the time of this writing is 71-years-old. Rock on dude!
The Sweet rocked the world and totally left their unique mark on music!
“Are you ready Steve? Uh huh.
Andy? Yeah!
Mick? Okay.
All right fellas, let’s gooooooo!”
– Brian Connolly, Ballroom Blitz
The Sweet is not easy to find on vinyl, but there is still some out there floating around, so if you don’t have any you can still get your Sweet wax fix.
Check your collection for The Sweet and drop the needle!
Thanks for dropping by.