My Top 1000 Songs #961: Dyna-Mite

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

As described in both my book and previously in this blog, I have enduring, unapologetic love for Sweet, whose bubblegum-pop-glam with an (increasingly over time) hard rock energy made them one of the first bands I fell in love with as a nine-year-old getting lost in Top 40 radio back in 1975. And that love extends even to one of their cast-offs. The songwriting/production team of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, who'd written most of Sweet's early hits, intended 1973's "Dyna-Mite" as their next big single, but the band--starting to move in a more hard rock/metal direction--gave it a pass.

So Chapman/Chinn instead handed it to Mud, another UK pop-glam they were producing. Now, Mud were... ok. They mined the same bubblegum-glam as early Sweet, albeit with a penchant for 50s music as well, with Elvis and Buddy Holly covers and some throwback doo-wop. But at their best, they sounded... well, just like Sweet. So I can't help but hear "Dyna-Mite" as a great lost Sweet track, right down to the helium-voiced harmonies and the cowbell, capturing the silly joy of their early work. It's dorky enough to reside in the Guilty Pleasures file, but enough of an earworm you'll still want to sing along to the chorus.

Live 2001:

Updated (ok, not really, not at all) by Tigertailz:

And I don't know what this is...