Thin Lizzy: "Wild One: The Very Best Of Thin Lizzy"
Vertigo 528 113-2 (77 mins) Dial-A-Track Code: 1201
Released just in time for last week's 10th Anniversary Vibe For Philo, this compilation pulls together all of Lizzy's greatest hits, from 1972's Whisky In The Jar to 1985's Out In The Fields and all points in between. It's a timely tribute to the Lynott legend, showing Philo and the boys at their battering ram best For this 1970s dinosaur, Lizzy, epitomised the glory days of dirty denim jeans and unkempt long hair. Long before U2 played the Baggot, an entire nation of scruffy youth was banging its head and playing air guitar to the sound of Jailbreak, Bad Reputation and The Boys Are Back In Town. Sadly, the day came when we all had to grow up and get a bath, but Dancin' In The Moonlight will remain our adolescent testimony.
Wild One opens with five of Lizzy's best known hits in quick-fire succession, and in their remastered form, they kick ass with swiftness and accuracy. It's hard to believe that Don't Believe A Word clocks in at Just over two minutes - when it assaulted my unwashed ears back in 1976, it felt like 15 rounds with Muhammed Ali. 1983's Cold Sweat and Thunder And Lightning, by comparison, sounds like heavyhanded thugs, while the final single, Out In The Fields, showed that Lizzy had by then succumbed to metal fatigue.
Gary Moore's guitar comes to the fore in the evocative Parisienne Walkways, while the seven and a half minute long Still In Love With You stands as one of the best hard rock ballads of the era.
Emerald predated Big Country's Celtic jiggery by at least five years, while 1973's The Rocker sounded like a tougher, more tooled up version of T.Rex's The Groover.
Sarah saw Lynott's songwriting develop beyond the riff `n' rumble, and it's interesting to note that as Lizzy began to sound more like Motorhead towards the end, Lynott was already recording such excellent solo tunes as King's Call and Old Town (not included here). The album closes with Whisky In The Jar, the true traditional anthem of Ireland's spotty youth. In the greater scheme of things, Thin Lizzy was just another guitar grinding rawk band, but to a generation of bedandruffed Irish teens, they were something really worth banging your head about.
The Sweet: "Ballroom Hitz - The Very Best Of Sweet"
Polygram TV 535 001-2 (80 mins) Dial-A-Track Code: 1311
Altogether now: "Are you ready, Steve?" "Uh-huh." "Andy?" "Yeah!" "Mick?" "OK." "Alright, fellas, let's gaaaoaaaaoaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" Thus opens the definitive Sweet collection, a chronicle of the band's chequered, lacquered, lip glossed and lycra'd career, and it's as colourful - and probably as sickening - as a packet of Spangles. However, being the sweet toothed sort, I just can't resist having another taste of 1970s sucrose. The Sweet was the ultimate glam rock band, kitschier than T.Rex, heavier than Mud, and more outrageously dressed than Gary Glitter. But it was not always thus: as bubblegum popsters stuck on the bedpost at the end of the 1960s, they had a string of cheesy hits like Poppa Joe ("Poppa rumbo, rumbo, hey, Poppa Joe coconut!"), Co-Co ("Ho-chi ca-ca ho! Co-Co!") and Wig Wam Barn ("Wig wam, bam slam-a-lam!"), manufactured for candy chewing prepubescents by the songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. Who could forget such sugar coated classics as Funny Funny, Alexander Graham Bell and Little Willy (nudge! nudge!)? I know I can't, and I've even tried hypnosis.
Somewhere along the line, thank the Lord, the band decided they wanted a harder sound, so Chinn and Chapman obliged by knocking off Blockbuster, Hellraiser and Ballroom Blitz, three of The Sweet's finest moments. Fox On The Run proved that the band themselves could write a hit tune, but The Lies In Your Eyes proved they could also rewrite the same tune with less success. As glam rock lost its sheen, The Sweet were trying to emulate their contemporaries Queen in sound and production, but songs like The Six Teens and Lost Angels got left behind while Mercury's boys took custody of the kids who had now grown out of such anthems as Teenage Rampage. In the big bad arena of heavy rock, The Sweet just couldn't compete, and Love Is Like Oxygen was their last gasp at the Top 10. Up till now, problems with The Sweet's three different labels have prevented a complete compilation - now that all their dubious delights are finally gathered together in a single box, we can once again make ourselves well and truly sick.
