Old Enough to Forget

This was the shit when I was a kid. The album was legendary, and the two killers "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" were so good they were essentially career defining. I could stop right now and that would be enough. Mic drop and walk off.  ... I'm back.  I wanted to just jot down a few things because it's sort of my thing. It may be worth it. Maybe not, you never know ... this isn't a cheese shop, I could be deliberately wasting your time. Regardless, pull up a chair, or at least watch where you're walking if you're on your phone. I have vague memories of the cool kids talking about the song "A.C.D.C." and "Sweet F.A." and then giggle knowingly. I didn't have the album and I never heard them so I wasn't in on the joke. I knew what the album looked like. I would see it when I would browse through records dreaming about what I'd like to buy. Even then it was a long list ... it seemed long to me at the time. That ...

As a kid "Ballroom Blitz" was one of the coolest songs I'd ever heard, followed closely by "Fox on the Run." Those two songs more or less cemented Sweet's reputation for me. In the '80s I finally bought Desolation Boulevard and that more or less scratched that itch. Then in the early '90s I picked up their best of CD and got "Action" and the radio edit of "Love is Like Oxygen" and as a bonus "Little Willy" a song I knew but honestly never associated with The Sweet, or simply Sweet. During my formative years though it was the 45 of  "Action" that rocked my world. I was never a big fan of 45s and only had a few as I hated having to change the record after one song. However, as mix tape fodder they were awesome, except I didn't have the ability to make mix tapes until I was in my late teens. What does all this meanderambling have to do with anything? Not much, it's just me sitting here while listening to ...

Ladies and gentlemen, MUD. I had no idea these guys existed until the early '90s when one Christmas I saw Bernard and the Genie . It's probably the greatest holiday movie ever. With Lenny Henry and Alan Cumming and an incredibly nasty Rowan Atkinson. I taped the movie from the television broadcast and for years and years we'd re-watch our spotty copy, complete with the cheesy commercials. The soundtrack to the Richard Curtis film was absolutely amazing, and among the many, many classics was "Lonely This Christmas" by MUD. Okay, to be fair I didn't know who sang the song at the time, but I really, really liked it. When I found a CD called Instant Christmas Collection that featured a lot of UK artists I finally knew. It was MUD. Of course it was produced by the kings of Glam, Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman. Goodness gravy them there two dudes were a gold spinning dynamic duo. Oh, the remake simply called Genie with Melissa McCarthy ... um.  Pass. I tried, and ...

Sweet was always a weird band for me to categorize, were they hard rock, were they glam, were they just a Chinnichap bubble gum act? I mean these were the guys who rocked my world as a kid with "Ballroom Blitz" and melted my face with "Fox on the Run" both from the North American version of Desolation Boulevard on Capitol Records. Much later I heard "Little Willy" and couldn't reconcile that this was the same band. It was written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn names I'd later associate with an awful lot of really questionable glam tinged rock, and some face melting goodness. They were the kings of bubble gum glam but they were so much more than that. However, let's be honest "Little Willy" is just a head scratcher, but "Ballroom Blitz" was sheer wonderfulness, and the stuff with Suzi Quatro was wicked. To me, they were a hard rock act, I had no idea what glam was a kid. Music was either good or it wasn't. By 1976 the la...

This was mostly written and in my queue to post when I found out that Tina Turner passed away May 24, 2023. She was 83. Hard to imagine that almost forty years had passed since Private Dancer was released. It's always fun to revisit albums that you thought you disliked. I suppose the backlash was inevitable as "What's Love Got to Do With It" was pretty ubiquitous on MuchMusic and the radio for what seemed to be forever. I managed to keep up my dismissive airs for a long time, and even though I really liked "Better Be Good to Me" featuring the stellar guitar work of The Fixx's Jamie West-Orem and backing vocals of Cy Curnin. I stubbornly held my ground.  It didn't help that everyone was trying to make a then ancient in pop years Tina Turner who was all of forty five or six when this came out a sex symbol. "Look at those legs!"  This was right up there with trying to ogle the church organist. I'm looking through the album jacket and lin...

Well, I am a little ashamed to admit that 11 year old me generally didn't think girls should sing rock songs. I mean, I liked some Olivia Newton John songs I heard on the radio, and will even admit that when Helen Reddy sang "I am a Woman" in 1972 I sang along. It was catchy, shoot me. Our shitty AM radio station where I grew up would occasionally play rock songs, and for what seemed like an eternity, "Devil Gate Drive" got special treatment and was played over and over and over. I really liked it. I remember my mum turning off the radio - that just made it better. I mean, it wasn't B.T.O. but she had a growl and she was killing it. I don't think I ever really thought of it again after that brief period of time. Sure, like a lot of other kids when she showed up as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days it was like, "Ooh." In hindsight I think this pushed her into the realm of caricature and used up any rock credibility she has accumulated. This may ex...