{"id":1582,"date":"2012-04-17T11:58:42","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T11:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skylight.gr\/administrator_wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/04\/17\/rock-legends-sweet-return-with-new-album-new-york-connection\/"},"modified":"2012-04-17T11:58:42","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T11:58:42","slug":"rock-legends-sweet-return-with-new-album-new-york-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/2012\/04\/17\/rock-legends-sweet-return-with-new-album-new-york-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Legends SWEET Return With New Album ‘New York Connection’"},"content":{"rendered":"


One of the most legendary, influential and enduring names in the history of rock music, SWEET release a brand new studio album \u2013 their first since \u2018Sweetlife\u2019 \u2013 on April 27.
With worldwide album sales of more than 55 million copies, SWEET have notched 34 Number One smashes across the globe as part of a run of timeless hits that includes \u2018Blockbuster!\u2019, \u2018Hell Raiser\u2019, \u2018The Ballroom Blitz\u2019, \u2018The Six Teens\u2019, \u2018Action\u2019, \u2018Fox On The Run\u2019 and \u2018Love Is Like Oxygen\u2019. Seen on Top Of The Pops on what felt like a weekly basis throughout the 1970s, their \u00fcber-harmonious, multi-tracked guitar work and layered production was to provide inspiration to other acts such as Queen, the Electric Light Orchestra and, in later decades, Def Leppard, M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce and The Darkness.<\/p>\n

Now comes \u2018New York Connection\u2019. Recorded by original member Andy Scott (guitar and vocals) and his current line-up of Pete Lincoln (lead vocals and bass guitar), Tony O\u2019Hora (guitar, keyboards and vocals) and Bruce Bisland (drums and vocals), the new album is a selection of material originally penned by other artists awarded the band\u2019s instantly recognizable thumb-print. So it\u2019s a boring covers album, then? Well, no. Not really. This time there\u2019s a bit of a twist.<\/p>\n

Besides some fairly inevitable selections \u2013 Andy Scott, who handles lead vocals on this version of \u2018Sweet Jane\u2019 has long declared his admiration of The Velvet Underground \u2013 SWEET have not only tried their hands at some unexpected choices such as \u2018All Moving Faster\u2019 by the New Jersey punk band Electric Frankenstein and The Black Keys\u2019 \u2018Gold On The Ceiling\u2019, but where appropriate they have also mashed in riffs, drum beats or vocal lines from some of their own classic songs. \u201cIt\u2019s a case of buy one, get one free!\u201d laughs Andy Scott.<\/p>\n

Thus their interpretation of \u2018It’s All Moving Faster\u2019 interpolates the guitar line to SWEET\u2019s own \u2018Burn On The Flame\u2019, while \u2018Blitzkrieg Bop\u2019 by The Ramones is teamed up with a snippet of \u2018The Ballroom Blitz\u2019. Several other examples of this phenomenon abound on the record \u2013 see whether you can spot them all! \u2013 though the most obvious example is the fusion of the Russ Ballard chestnut \u2018New York Groove\u2019 (previously covered by both Hello and former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley) with Jay-Z\u2019s \u2018Empire State Of Mind\u2019. Astonishingly, it works.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people hear that one in particular, often they have a solitary word: \u2018Wow!\u2019\u201d smiles Andy Scott proudly.<\/p>\n

However, the equally convincingly rocked-up inclusion of \u2018You Spin Me Right Round (Like A Record)\u2019, a UK chart-topper for Dead Or Alive in 1985, perhaps begs the question of how seriously \u2018New York Connection\u2019 is intended to be taken. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek,\u201d acknowledges Scott. \u201cThe whole point of doing something like this was to enjoy it. We had a stab at \u2018You Spin Me Right Round\u2019 as a bit of a wind-up, but it came together so well and sounded so right that it was very hard to turn our backs on. We definitely gave it the SWEET stamp.\u201d<\/p>\n

If a central thread unites much of the material on \u2018New York Connection\u2019 it\u2019s that of songs by New York-based artists, songwriters or material that name-checks the Big Apple in its title. \u201cObviously, some don\u2019t fulfill that criteria, but most of them do,\u201d explains Scott.<\/p>\n

Covered many, many times through the years, \u2018On Broadway\u2019 is perhaps best known as a hit for both The Drifters and George Benson. The band likes to think it fits the album\u2019s overall concept by having been recorded by The Foxboro Hot Tubs, a side-project of the American punks Green Day. For these purposes the song concerned has been cross-pollinated with SWEET\u2019s 1977 chart hit \u2018Love Is Like Oxygen\u2019. Reveals Scott: \u201cThat one almost didn\u2019t make it onto the album as nobody except me could imagine how a hard rock riff could possibly be merged with a pop-soul song. But I think we managed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project was born when Scott\u2019s son Damian started messing around with a looped sample that was later integrated into a version of the song that closes the album, namely The Who\u2019s 1972 standard \u2018Join Together\u2019. This was fitting as back in the 1970s the latter\u2019s guitarist, Pete Townshend, had gone out on a limb as an important backer of SWEET\u2019s crossover from the pop singles market to a harder-edged, more album-based direction. Fans will know that they had also recorded a version of \u2018My Generation\u2019 on their 1970s album \u2018Desolation Boulevard\u2019. <\/p>\n

When SWEET elected to perform \u2018Join Together\u2019 on the German TV special Fernsehgarten and realised that it fitted their own style so well they began looking around for other tunes to cover. Gradually the project took on a life of its own.<\/p>\n

SWEET are on the road for most weeks of the year. They will tour the UK in the autumn to promote \u2018New York Connection\u2019. <\/p>\n

The song \u2018New York Groove\u2019 will be available as a single prior to the album\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

The complete track listing of \u2018New York Connection\u2019 is as follows:
1) \u2018New York Groove\u2019 (written by Russ Ballard)
2) \u2018Gold On The Ceilings\u2019 (The Black Keys)
3) \u2018It’s All Moving Faster\u2019 (Electric Frankenstein)
4) \u2018New York Connection\u2019 (originally the B-side of Sweet\u2019s \u2018Wig Wam Bam\u2019)
5) \u2018Shapes Of Things\u2019 (The Yardbirds)
6) \u2018You Spin Me Right Round (Like A Record)\u2019 (Dead Or Alive)
7) \u2018Because The Night\u2019 (Bruce Springsteen, also recorded by the Patti Smith Group) Lead vocal: Tony O\u2019Hora
8) \u2018Sweet Jane\u2019 (The Velvet Underground) Lead vocal: Andy Scott
9) \u2018Blitzkrieg Bop\u2019 (The Ramones) Lead vocal: Bruce Bisland
10) \u2018Broadway\u2019 (written by a team including Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller)
11) \u2018Join Together\u2019 (The Who)
SWEET – \u2018New York Connection\u2019 is available via www.thesweet.com, iTunes and Amazon<\/p>\n

Source:<\/p>\n

www.thesweet.com<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most legendary, influential and enduring names in the history of rock music,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}