The 20th of February 1974
Official U.K. Singles Chart results from Sunday the 17th to Saturday the 23rd of February 1974
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 16th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 17th,
published on Tuesday the 19th,
and broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 1 on Sunday the 24th of February 1974.
The Sweet
Teenage Rampage
At No.11, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Singles Chart”, the week of my 2nd Birthday, are The Sweet with Teenage Rampage.
The very last…
…UK hit single from “The Sweet”; not that they were splitting up anytime soon. I’ll explain later on.
After hitting No.1 the previous year which coincided with my 1st birthday; since then, they’d had another couple of massive hit singles which had both reached the No.2 position.
Now, they were back once again…
…for another shot at the top spot, with this call to arms for the next generation who would one day be taking over the world.
The single…
…had entered the chart, straight in at No.6 on the 13th of January, and had rocketed to No.2 the following week, only being stopped in their tracks by another Chinn & Chapman composition which we’ll meet further up in this very chart, and in a later post.
Try as they might, The Sweet couldn’t knock that chart-topper off its perch and so ended up having to sit at the No.2 position for 3 consecutive weeks instead, before faltering back to No.4, which was last week’s position, and from where we now witness it dropping out of the Top 10.
From here,..
…it will really let go, all the way out of the Top 20, before falling ten more places, sending it out of the Top 30 which, following a total of 8 weeks on chart, will be its last; disappearing after the 9th of March.
So, back to that explanation.
After this single, they will drop “The” from their group name, and with their growing urge to not get mired in the Glam era, which even by this point, had seemed to have peaked and was quickly running out of sparkle, to instead focus more on the Rock side of music, and therefore make inevitable sacrificial decisions in this direction.
The whole next chapter would be a hell of a gamble, but one they were determined to take for the sake of simply staying relevant. This then inevitably meant their days of involvement with the Chinn & Chapman writing partnership were well and truly numbered. “The Sweet” would, along with the Glam, be consigned to history. The band were shedding a skin. This is evident with the (in my personal opinion) the far stronger, band-led B-side of this single.
In a way, this single was almost like a fitting epitaph to their past. It sensed that time was rapidly moving on towards something new, and those kids who were starting big school back then were now about to leave to embark on grown up futures in a few more months. It was already proving to be evident, with the new bands like the poppy Rollers springing up to meet the challenge of the new wave of pre-teens rampaging into the schools just like their predecessors had done. (The) Sweet from this point on, didn’t really want to have any part of that. Give themselves a load of new young recruits by all means, as long as they didn’t want the band the same as before, but it seems to me what they really wanted was to accompany the ones who were about to embark on their own uncertain futures, whether that be further education or straight into work.
That partnership they’d had for the last couple of years, with arguably the biggest songwriting duo of their generation was (pun intended) sweet; however, the success came with a bigger price, and that of course was their own artistic freedom. Because of this, the relationship was unfortunately about to sour; but they had a lot to be thankful for. A couple of years ago, they hadn’t even been able to play on their own songs. Now as a fully integrated band they were, just like their loyal followers, ready to take that next stride into a new uncertain but exciting future of their very own.
The “A” Side
The “B” Side
The Sweet – Teenage Rampage (Promotional Video)
The Sweet – Teenage Rampage (“Crackerjack” TV Performance – 18th January 1974)
The Sweet – Teenage Rampage (“Musikladen” TV Appearance – 20th February 1974)
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