Sweet: Level Headed Alternate Mixes and Demos

Ah, (The) Sweet. Alongside Slade, Mud, Showaddywaddy, Suzi Quatro, Bowie, T Rex and others (The) Sweet were a central plank of any young music fan who grew up in the ever-so-drab Britain of the 1970s. They certainly had some enormous hit single on this side of the pond, hits such as "Blockbuster!", "The Ballroom Blitz", "Fox on the Run" to name but a few. Oh go on, "Little Willy" as well.

Interestingly, although the band never truly broke the US market they did manage three top ten singles on the Billboard chart; namely the aforementioned "Little Willy" and "Fox on the Run" as well as "Love is Like Oxygen", which came from Level Headed in 1978. Despite containing "Love is Like Oxygen" which hit no.9, Level Headed completely missed the UK chart and only scraped to no.52 in America. The album can definitely be described as a flop in sales terms but as an artistic endeavor, it’s a very different story.

Level Headed is a very fine album in and of itself, full of great late period Sweet tunes including the aforementioned "Love is Like Oxygen", presented here in, I believe, in an elongated version but superb deeper cuts such as the Eagles-like "California Nights" with Steve Priest on vocals (Brian Connolly was pretty much out of the door at this point in the band’s career) and "Strong Love" make this an album well worth searching out. Level Headed doesn’t sound remotely like the glam version of the Sweet and is possibly all the better for it. I’m not overly sure that the bonus tracks add much at all especially the Brian Connolly interview but that might just be me as I have virtually no interest in rock star interviews but you might be.

If all you know of the Sweet are the hits, take a gander at this and find out that they are so much more than a pop band.

Track Listing:

1. Brian Interview 1978
2. Dream On
3. Love is Like Oxygen
4. California Nights
5. Strong Love
6. Fountain
7. Lady of the Lake
8. Silverbird
9. Lettres D’amour
10. Air On a Tape Loop
11. Unused Idea
12. Cover Girl

Added: June 20th 2025
Reviewer: Simon Bray
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 166
Language: english

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