Saturday, August 8, 2009

IT'S IT'S...THE SWEET MIX - THE SWEET

The UK group The Sweet had a big connection to Oz as all their early hits were co-written by an Ozzie, Mike Chapman. Partners Nicki Chinn and Mike Chapman wrote songs for Suzi Quatro, Mud, Smokie, Blondie, Starship, Exile and many other big groups.

Mike's first hit that he wrote was Soft Delights in 1970 which was sent into the top 20 by local Oz group The New Dream in 1971. Mike had originally released the song with his own fledgling UK based group called Tangerine Peel. Just as Soft Delights was charting another Mike Chapman song hit our top 40 airwaves, a similar sounding bubblegum track called Funny Funny by The Sweet.

In 1983, Sanny-X a European club DJ from the remix organisation called The Disco Mix Club (DMC), made an outstanding Sweet Megamix. In 1984 it was a top 20 hit in many countries and got to position #83 in the end of year Australian top 100 chart. The 7" was released locally on RCA and ran about 3:30 mins. The single as shown in the accompanying picture contained only 3 songs: Blockbuster, Teenage Rampage and Hell Raiser.

The extended 12" was another issue altogether!
There are at least 3 known versions of the 12" mix. One is over 8 mins, one is 6 mins (called The Blitz Buster Remix) and one is just under 5 mins. They all consist of the same songs but have been overdubbed and edited in different ways. I recently asked Sanny why this happened and he said that songs once sent to DMC can be further edited by staff DJs who make regional or market variances.

Since The Sweet Megamix has not been on a commercial CD anywhere in the world I made my own new 12" using the old vinyl mix as a guide. All the basic song tracks have been lifted from CD so the quality is really great.

The file is in a zip. There is a password: http://tommixmusic2.blogspot.com/

Songs include:

Blockbuster
Teenage Rampage
Hell Raiser
Ballroom Blitz
Fox On The Run

http://rapidshare.com/files/265079964/tom_mix_sweets.zip

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