Sweet - Desolation Boulevard

I was still in elementary school when this record came out and took the airwaves by storm.  Man, we thought Ballroom Blitz was beyond cool.  I remember hearing the album in my friend's sister's room while that song was still super new, and I immediately thought Fox on the Run was the best song on the album.  Hey, I was 12.  When I finally got my own copy of this LP (which is long gone, eaten by cheap record players and youth's grubby hands), my favorite song turned into Sweet F.A. and it still is today, for several reasons.

First of all, it's easily the best song on the album, even if lyrically it's by turns repulsive or downright stupid.  It's also the first song my mom completely freaked out about.  We used to have a little Webcor stereo that my dad ordered from a catalog (I loved my dad but good sound didn't mean anything to him so he ordered a stereo because it looked like it would do what he wanted it to, not because it sounded great).  The Webcor sat out in the family room and even with it's minuscule speakers I could turn it up way louder than my plastic GE record player.  I think mom tolerated side one.  She probably correctly figured I'd just think A.C.D.C. was the usual rock lyrics where they couldn't keep things like tense and subject straight so the words would rhyme and that I didn't have any idea what the subject was really about.  But when I flipped the record over and played Sweet F.A. and If she don't spread I'm gonna bust her head came blasting out of the Webcor, that was it for Sweet!  I think the only way I kept it was I told her it was someone else's record so she couldn't throw it away, and then I listened to it in my room after that.  I think this was the first record I had that had this power.  So even today I remember that day every time I hear that song.

I still think the first side is better than the second side (even though mine is on a CD now).  probably because the guys that wrote most of Suzi Quatro's best songs, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapmann were behind the songs on side one of Desolation Boulevard.  I never cared much for Sweet after this album.  Not because I'm some big Glam Rocker, but because the band's in house songwriting sounds too much like watered down Queen, or maybe 10cc with a distortion pedal.  I think everything good they had came out on side two of this album, and it slowly loses its luster.  It's not like it slowly turns to crap, but Chinn and Chapmann had a great formula and I like their big, dumb riffs.

I don't have a lot of albums left from when I was 12.  Probably because my tastes have changed drastically (hopefully), but there's a handful of them.  I think the ones I still like aren't considered necessary or particularly cool these days, but I don't care.  I like this stuff.  I know it's kinda dumb and it's definitely made for a teenage audience that doesn't even exist anymore, but it makes me happy.  How can it not?  It's like a Snickers bar, all sweet and crunchy.  And do you know how big a Snickers was in 1974?  Way bigger than now, that's for sure!