SWEET — Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be (review)

SWEET — Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be album cover

Album · 1971 · Non-Metal

3.5/5 · 2020-11-11
siLLy puPPy

SWEET was one of the UK’s most successful glam rock bands in the 70s racking up thirteen top 20 hits in the UK and finding a good bit of international success as well. Starting out under the moniker Sweetshop the band went through a few members before the classic lineup of vocalist Brian Connolly, bassist Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott and drummer Mick Tucker took the band into huge success. This band formed in the greater London region in 1968 and began crafting their own catchy tunes while paying their dues in the club circuit. SWEET (also known as The Sweet) are most famous for having started as an Archies inspired bubblegum pop band as a result of hooking up with the blockbuster hit making machine duo of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn before morphing into the more Who inspired hard rock band starting with the 1974’s “Sweet Fanny Adams” album.

FUNNY HOW SWEET CO-CO CAN BE was the band’s debut release that came out in 1971 right at the tail end of the bubble gum pop craze that had started in 1967 and ended about 1972. SWEET is one of the rare cases of a band that started out in the typical assembly line process of appealing to tweens and kids with an upbeat irresistibly catchy run of tracks and then later actually shed its skin and became a really good band in its own right on its own terms. However on this album the band hadn’t branched out into hard rock and was a pop band all the way. The album produced two UK hits, “Co-Co” hit #2 and “Funny Funny” made it up to #13, the latter of which displays a strong influence from The Archie’s 1969 hit “Sugar Sugar” which was a huge chart topping sensation.

The marketing strategy of SWEET resembled the British Invasion bands of the 60s with this album sporting different titles and album covers in different countries and many non-album singles appearing in the early 70s before the band transmogrified into a hard rock band. Many CD reissues will have many of the non-album singles (and B-sides) from this era but the original release of FUNNY HOW SWEET CO-CO CAN BE featured twelve tracks with most being quick eruptions of sticky sweet pop overload. The track “Tom Tom Turnaround” is the most glaring exception inching past the four minute mark and less saccharin than the other straight forward bubblegum pop tunes that sound a lot like late 60s band like The Monkees, The Arches and a harmony style adopted from the Hollies.

If you are only interested in the hard rock albums of SWEET then this is definitely one that you should skip as there are scant traces of rock whatsoever. This is pure sticky sweet pop through and through however if you have a sweet tooth for bubblegum pop which i do from time to time then this isn’t a terrible album at all. While all tracks aren’t created equal, there are more than enough excellent melodies laced with infectious vocal harmonies to hook you in and keep you engaged for the album’s run. My favorites include “Co-Co,” “Reflections,” “Jeanie” and the track that prognosticates a move to more rock influenced material with “Spotlight.” This last example actually displays rock chords and lead guitar and almost sounds like the band had already decided the direction it wanted to pursue only it was held back by selling their soul to the pop music machine which kept them cranking out the hits for the next several years. Overall this isn’t a bad album as i would’ve expected but obviously pales in comparison to the band’s peak years of “Sweet Fanny Adams” and “Desolation Boulevard.”