BEGINNINGS / PLAY IT LOUD (EXTENDED / RE-MASTERED REISSUE)

All Music Guide
Inaugurating Union Square's much-praised series of Slade reissues and compilations, this single-disc gathering of the band's first two albums represents one of the must-have bargains of the CD age, two solidly excellent albums that were surely combined only because both are so underrated that they might otherwise have been lost. Representing the band as it struggled to come to grips with its own talent, with the Noddy Holder / Jim Lea songwriting team of the future more likely to be supplanted by Lea and Don Powell, 26 tracks round up both LPs, plus two non-album singles, "Wild Winds Are Blowing" and the debut hit "Get Down and Get with It." There is little here that will strike an immediate chord with listeners who know only the hits.

Dig deeper, however, and any number of Slade classics are on hand, beginning with Beginnings' opening instrumental, "Genesis" -- which reappears later in the set as Play It Loud's "Know Who You Are." "Dapple Rose," "One Way Hotel," "Pouk Hill," and covers of "The Shape of Things to Come" and "Journey to the Centre of Your Mind" are all dynamite, with the originals as indicative of the band's innate ear for a melody and the covers representing Slade at their floor-shaking, foot-stamping hardest. The excellent packaging includes a picture-packed booklet, fun liner notes, and illustrations of all the original 45s and albums that you are unlikely ever to collect for yourself. And the rest of the series is just as good as this one.
Dave Thompson

THE SLADE LIVE ANTHOLOGY

All Music Guide
Although the American rock audience largely shrugged Slade away, the anthem-slinging hard rock quartet was positively huge back home in the U.K., in no small part due to the band's rep as a total live experience. This U.K. double-disc assembles the band's three live albums -- Slade Alive!, Slade Alive, Vol. 2 and Slade on Stage, then tacks on six previously unreleased tracks from their Slade Alive at Reading '80 performance. That's a lot of live Slade, but it's solidly packed with consistently strong, no-nonsense rock. The first live album, released in 1972 and the only one of the three to score chart points in the U.S., finds Slade in a transitional stage: having recently shed their skinhead look for one more in tune with the era's glam fashions, Slade had developed into a sizzling, audience-embracing performing band. Slade Alive! finds Slade one step removed from the pub rock boogie of bands like Humble Pie and Status Quo, and on their way to formulating a larger-than-life arena rock persona. Mixing choice covers like Ten Years After's "Hear Me Calling" and Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild," with originals by lead vocalist Noddy Holder, Slade has already got their audience in thrall here. The quirkiest number is their take on the Lovin' Spoonful's ballad "Darling Be Home Soon," which starts out as sweetly as the original before cranking up the volume.

By the time the second live album was released in 1978, much had changed in music. Punk rock was the rage, Slade's era as a steady contributor to the British singles and albums Top Ten charts had faded, and many young punters had no use for their like anymore. Ironically, much of Slade Alive, Vol. 2 was recorded in America in the fall of 1976, and while the rest comes from British performances in early 1977, Slade's star had fallen so far down by then that the album charted in neither country. Strange, because it's certainly the best of the three. With burning run-throughs of Slade trademarks like "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," "Gudbuy T'Jane," "Everyday," and "Cum on Feel the Noize" (Slade had long ago taken to altering spellings in their song titles), along with a passable tribute to Elvis Presley's Sun Records era that fuses "My Baby Left Me" with the uncredited "That's All Right, Mama." Even if the general public had lost interest, Slade's influence had spread far and wide enough to attract upcoming heavy metal/hard rock musicians unencumbered by the trendy punk baggage of the day.

Quiet Riot would eventually score a number one hit with "Cum on Feel the Noize," but before that Slade began a bit of a comeback as the so-called "hair bands" looked to them for inspiration, and a new wave of Brits, embracing the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, saw Slade as forefathers. For sure, Holder's nuclear-powered screech was a prototype for countless shaggy maned frontmen to follow, and both Slade on Stage (from 1982), comprised almost entirely of original material both old and (then) new, and the 1980 Reading material, find Slade, by then a full-fledged metal outfit, as wound up as ever. After all, any band of heavy rockers that could get an audience of drunken rowdies from Newcastle to croon the old standard "You'll Never Walk Alone," a cappella, en masse, pretty much owned their audience.
Jeff Tamarkin

A couple of covers break the Holder/Jim Lea songwriting domination. A bass-heavy blues boogie through Janis Joplin's "Move Over" had graced a Slade BBC session earlier in the year, and provoked such a great response that they had no option but to re-record it, while the closing medley of "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Feel So Fine" was the closest you could come to the mania of a Slade live show without actually going out and buying a ticket. Of course, listeners don't have that option today. But stick on Slayed?, crank the volume well up -- and the whole world will be going crazee all over again. [The 2006 reissue features four bonus tracks and an interview.] Dave Thompson

GREAT SOUNDTRACK TO A CAREER-KILLING FILM

By 1974 Slade had been a pop sensation for three years, famously being the first band to take three songs into the charts at Number 1. They were, however, exhausted from endless touring, so they chose to embark on a film project. The result, Flame, which covered the rise of a fictional band of that name, hit cinemas in November of that year. But with its casual sexism and a darkly bitter plot, the film proved a jarring experience for fans of the band's simplistic, good time approach.

It was a flop commercially and a far cry from how the band had encapsulated the festive spirit with their Merry Xmas Everybody single in 1973. Later retitled Slade In Flame, the film has today acquired some degree of cult status, but it marked the end of Slade's glory years.

The accompanying album did slightly better and has long been subject to critical re-evaluation. Recorded in under a month, on the hop between touring and filming , it showcases a band at their peak and broadening their sound. there's filler, such as perfunctory rockers Heaven Knows and So Far So Good, but this evolution yielded a handful of fine songs. Most famous is the wistful optimism of Noel Gallagher favourite, How Does It Feel?, replete with raucous strip-show brass. Among the more traditional highlights were This Girl, which has the Wolverhampton stompers in unlikely funk mode, Lay It Down wherein they morph into The Rolling Stones and Far Far Away strums its wayto a melancholic, epic end. Those after Slade's usual scrf-waving boogie anthems will not be disappointed either, with Them Kinda Monkeys Can't Swing and OK Yesterday Was Yesterday showing off giant riffs and Noddy Holder's tonsil-shredding bawl. Thirty Years on, Slade In Flame has retianed both its charm and punch. Rarely has a career-ending adventure sounded so good.

4 Stars
Thomas H. Green
Q Magazine

A similar fate greeted the 12-inch E.P. Six Of The Best (June 1980). Very good value at £1.49, it contained three tracks from Return To Base and three new songs including “Night Starvation”, a lusty piece of oompah rock and “9 To 5”, a smart acoustic rocker about the trials of low-wage work. The key track on the E.P. though was “When I'm Dancin' I Ain't Fightin'”, a catchy rock song with a sing-a-long hook. The track made no impact upon release but when Slade found themselves in front of 65,000 rock fans at the Reading Festival in August, it was part of a deliriously received set that reversed their fortunes and turned them from a band on the verge of splitting up to hot property once more. In the aftermath of the Reading triumph, Slade recorded the rollicking, terrace-rousing chant that was “We'll Bring The House Down” (January 1981). It made top 10 in the UK charts and the album named after it (which repackaged the rockier Slade tracks of the previous 18 months plus the southern 12-bar boogie Dizzy Mama) made number 25. Slade returned to the theatres and TV screens like conquering heroes, with a familiar strut and a twinkle in their eye. It was great to have them back, but in the wake of the fresh attention, the cognoscenti who had witnessed the bone-crushing splendour of their live show in the wilderness years were falling over themselves to inform anyone who would listen, ‘I told you so!

From the HMV website.

Since then, of course, Slade had found themselves the heroes of a new rock audience. Or, probably more accurately, they had reconnected with their original audience who as early ‘70s kids had loved Slade and as early ‘80s heavy metal fans found they still loved them. The unrelenting rocking nature of the Till Deaf Do Us Part album couldn't help but reflect that. It didn't exactly burn up the UK album charts –peaking at number 68 – but a few of the songs became highlights of their new live set. “Rock ‘N' Roll Preacher” was carefully designed as an expectation-raising, audience participation epic and was the perfect choice to displace the long-time opener “Hear Me Calling” as the start to Slade's show. The express train of “A Night To Remember” was rearranged to segue into Lea and Powell's drum/bass/violin spot while the mighty “M'Hat M'Coat” heralded Dave Hill's echo-drenched guitar solo feature. Anyone who saw a Slade show at this time agreed that as rock ‘n' roll entertainment, they were second to none. And if they hadn't yet translated the fresh interest following their post-Reading renaissance into an all-conquering hit, they would crack that particular nut very soon.

From the HMV website.

Whatever Happened To Slade, titled by Chandler after a piece of graffiti spotted painted on a London bridge, followed in March 1977 to no airplay and very little press. It was the group's lowest-selling LP to date. However, those faithful few who took the trouble were amazed by the record. The heaviest, dirtiest (in all senses), most decadent Slade music ever made, Whatever Happened To Slade made “Gypsy Roadhog” sound like “The Teddy Bear's Picnic” and remains many Slade connoisseurs' favourite of all their albums. Indeed, much of the album sounds like an update of the complexity and latent heaviness of their 1970 album Play It Loud, made before they embarked on their hit-making run from 1971-75. As joyous as much of that peak period was, from the viewpoint of the Slade of 1977 it almost feels like all those hits just interrupted where Slade were actually heading, which was to here, to the intricate, power-guitar riff-fest of Whatever Happened To Slade. And as the lads stand by mock-ups of their Play It Loud skinhead selves on the cover, they seem to answer the question posed by the album's title themselves. Whatever happened to Slade? Slade picked up from where they left off in 1970, that's what happened. With accomplished, hard-hitting tracks like “The Soul The Roll And The Motion”, “Be”, “One Eyed Jacks With Moustaches” and the non-album single “Burning In The Heat Of Love”, they had evolved into an unassailably powerful and precise hard rock group.

From the HMV website.

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And now we come to the 10th release from Union Square Music. The first batches of these Salvo releases were announced back in mid 2006. At the time most of us Slade fans were apprehensive. After all, the last time Slade's back catalogue was released was back in early 1990's and this was a very sorry affair. No added tracks, bad re-mastering and no sleeve notes.

Union Square did not go down that road, instead deciding to (re)-remaster the entire album cannon by using the expertise talents of Tim Turan. New booklets, new sleeve notes, unseen pictures, slipcases and most importantly, they listened to fans. By consulting fans about what they want, we now have the ultimate Slade back catalogue. Resulting in Union Square Music winning the ‘Catalogue Marketing Campaign' of the year at the Music Week Awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Thursday 15th March 2007. Seeing off competition from music giants like Sony and Radio 1's Live Lounge campaign. A well-deserved award.

And so now we have the next batch starting with this 1977 Slade album. Slade at this time had been in the USA for nearly two years and arrived back to the UK shores slap bang into the mayhem of Punk Rock. Slade were greeted like rock dinosaurs. But the USA sojourn had cost a hefty amount of their cash and Slade were in no mood to quit.

Their live act was now tighter than it had ever been. The USA had also give Slade a much harder edge. The chart placing's would now have to wait while they (literally) clawed their way back. Going back to smaller venues was the order of the day, as now they could no longer fill the big halls. Many would have (and did) call(ed) it a day. However, for us few diehard fans, Slade were about to give us better gigs than ever before. Slade were working harder than ever and for the fans, we were up close to our heroes (resulting in this fan finally getting backstage to meet the boys).

This album starts with ‘Be', surely Slade's fastest lyric singing ever. Nod and Jim spitting out the words with hardly a breath (even more so live). First thing we noticed at the time was this was Slade at their heaviest. The lyrics were more intelligent. The musicianship was so much adult, no doubt influenced by their USA visit. Without a breath and no gaps ‘Lightning never strikes twice' starts with blistering guitar from Dave Hill. By now, Slade's fans must have been realising that Slade had changed and never sounded quite like this before.

‘Gypsy Road Hog' a song about a cocaine dealer went almost unnoticed on an edition of the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The single barely made a dent in the charts peaking at number 48. Production was as ever superbly done by the late Chas Chandler (for the last time). Tim Turan's tweaks improve the overall sound yet again.

Tracks like ‘Dogs of Vengeance', ‘One Eyed Jacks With Moustaches' and especially ‘Big Apple Blues' are just so aimed and heavily influenced by their two year stint in the USA

Slade lyrics had always been a bit risqué and very much tongue in cheek. Read between the lines for the naughty bits but not with ‘When Fantasy Calls'. Noddy is hiding nothing here with him definitely singing about the pleasures of the flesh on this much improved sounding track.‘Dead Men Tell No Tales' a sort of acoustic rocking tune all about a bank raid is again very American but a great track. Great lyrics, Slade were growing!‘She's Got The Lot', ‘It Ain't Love But It Ain't Bad' and ‘The Soul, The Roll and Motion' carry on the same rocky feel. So much so, this album became one of my most favourite Slade treats.

Bonus tracks this time total an amazing 9. A few singles and b-sides that was not originally available on CD. Along with booklet, slipcase and many unseen pictures this makes for great value for money. Buy this and listen to a different and very rocky sounding Slade and as for Union Square Music, take yet another well deserved bow. Look out for the next three releases We'll Bring The House Down, Till Deaf Do Us Part and a double compilation of their hardest rock tunes called ‘Rockers'. Keep on rocking!

Banginman
The Slade Archive Forum

FEEL THE NOIZE - THE VERY BEST OF SLADE

Barnes & Noble
Slade were the noisy boys of glam rock. Evolving from an unheralded late-'60s skinhead band, the British quartet (whose lineup remained unchanged for 25 years) hit it big in the early '70s with a series of raucous, good-time, faintly silly sing-alongs. In addition to their curious spelling, "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," "Cum On Feel the Noize," "Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me," and "Gudbuy T'Jane" were united by boogie guitar riffs, endlessly repeated choruses, and the heavy shouts of frontman Noddy Holder. After the evergreen "Merry Xmas Everybody" threatened to turn them into a cartoon, Slade attempted to branch out in the mid-'70s with excellent singles like "Everyday," a ballad, and "Thanks for the Memory," a piece of retro honky-tonk. A concerted effort to break America with the movie SLADE IN FLAME only served to weaken their British fan base, and after the arrival of punk they seemed vaguely passé -- though they finally broke America in the mid-'80s with "Run Runaway" and "My Oh My." All these songs and more are collected on this 1997 compilation, a prime example of how pop music can be frivolous and masculine at the same time.
Tony Fletcher

All Music Guide
The finest collection ever assembled on Slade's hit-making heyday, Feel the Noize: The Very Best of Slade contains all of the group's hit singles from the early '70s, from 1971's "Get Down and Get With It" to 1975's "Thanks for the Memory (Wham Bam Thank You Mam)." In between those two songs, all of the group's big, dumb, irresistible, and misspelled hits -- "Cuz I Luv You," "Take Me Bak 'Ome," "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," "Gudbuy T'Jane," "Cum On Feel the Noize," "Skweeze Me Pleeze Me" -- are featured. Though it is missing latter-day hits like "My Oh My," Slade never got better than they did at their stomping glitter-rock peak, and Feel the Noize captures the essence of that era. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

All Music Guide
While there has been an enormous number of Slade collections over the years, Shout Factory's 2004 release Get Yer Boots On: The Best of Slade is the first comprehensive U.S. compilation, containing both their '70s peak and their early-'80s comeback. If the track listing looks vaguely familiar to Slade-heads, that's because it does share numerous similarities to the 1994 British collection Wall of Hits, which also covered the band's entire career, extending it to their brief return to the U.K. charts in the early '90s. As a matter of fact, the track listing is exactly the same for the first nine tracks, then Get Yer Boots On inserts "Merry Xmas Everybody" to its proper chronological placing (Wall of Hits had it tacked onto the end), before resuming the Wall of Hits track listing for the next four songs, then skipping ahead to the '80s hits "Run Runaway" and "My Oh My," whose order is flipped from the 1994 comp.

So, all 16 tracks on Get Yer Boots On are also on the 20-track Wall of Hits and pretty much in the same order to boot, but that's fine because not only is the Shout Factory release easier to find, it could be argued that the shorter running time results in a tighter, harder-rocking listen, particularly since it focuses on the group's mid-'70s peak, with none of the '90s tracks. The result is a terrific rock & roll record, full of big, dumb riffs, anthemic singalong choruses, and songs that are impossible to get out of your head. Because Slade's music was so deliberately dumb (and because it made no waves in America until Quiet Riot did note-for-note covers in the early '80s), they tend to be either forgotten (as they are in the U.S.) or dismissed (as they sometimes are in the U.K.), but Get Yer Boots On proves they made some of the most addictive, tuneful hard rock of the '70s -- it's blue-collar glitter, as primal as AC/DC and catchy as bubblegum pop. Anybody who loves loud guitars and humongous hooks will find this irresistible, and this long-overdue U.S. compilation is the best place to discover how great this band really was.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine

All Music Guide
The Very Best of... Slade effectively renders every past Slade hits collection redundant, as remastered sound and a sharp eye for all the band's U.K. chart entries serve up a peerless examination of what remains one of British rock's most flawless careers. No matter that the hits went so badly off the boil around 1975-1976 -- still, three-quarters of disc one is nonstop solid gold and the remainder of the set isn't far behind, as Slade's mid-'80s renaissance delivers further smashes "My Oh My" and "Run Run Away." Which would be hits enough for anybody, but the fun doesn't end there. A bonus second disc then digs into the darker recesses of the Top 75 to pull out the band's lesser successes, a mixed bag that runs from "All Join Hands" to "Ruby Red," the 1980 live version of "Born to Be Wild," "Gypsy Roadhog," "C'Est la Vie," and more. It's not a complete guide to Slade on 45 (there's no "Give Us a Goal," for a start), but it comes close enough.
Dave Thompson

All Music Guide

The problem with Slade is, when they were good they were so very, very good that it becomes very difficult to pay much attention to the rest of their career. Of course the average fan will happily listen through their first two albums, cut in the years before "Get Down Get with It" finally catapulted Slade into the charts, and it's impossible for anybody to take exception to the four years of classic hits, dynamic album tracks and brilliant B-sides that followed. Drop in on Slade circa 1976, however, and listen through the music that sustained them across the next 15 years, and nobody would blame you if you didn't hang around too long. Which means, sadly, that anybody buying The Slade Box as any kind of substitute for the earlier albums (or a decent greatest-hits collection) is in for something of a disappointment. No complaints with the track listing, though. Across 84 tracks, Slade's entire catalog has been cherry-picked for precisely the right songs to illustrate a career of their depth and dynamism. But when the strict chronology means you hit "Merry Xmas Everybody" at the end of disc one; and "In for a Penny" (the last truly major hit) by midway through disc two, that means there's an awful lot more to listen through before the four discs are at an end. And it really is too much, no matter how much you love the band.

The worst thing is, this could have been a must-have purchase. At least one disc's worth of prime-period B-sides could have been scattered throughout; there's a clutch of BBC sessions rattling around the collector's circuit, and a mass of U.K. and European TV appearances that could have brought something really special to the box set table. And that's long before we start wondering about demos and outtakes and the like. Of course, a democratic trawl through the band's entire catalog is no less than Slade deserve, and history will thank Union Square for finally giving the later years a fair crack of the whip. The booklet is wonderful, the packaging attractive and the sound quality is superlative. But, if you never felt the need to own Keep Your Hands off My Power Supply and You Boyz Make Big Noize in the past, you're not going to welcome them here, either.
Dave Thompson

But at the centre of it all - raucous and powerful yet melodious and nuanced when required – was Noddy Holder, one of the most extraordinary singers in the history of rock. It's not a coincidence that when they took the stage in front of serious festival audiences ready to ignore them, as an ascendant pop group at Lincoln (1972) and as supposed has-beens at Reading (1980), Slade triumphed through irrepressible showmanship, unforgettable songs and, most importantly, sheer rocking power. Slade's real legacy - and this still isn't said often enough – is that they were one of the great British rock bands of all time.

From the HMV website.

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Rockers

Most now know that Slade as well as doing good rocking tunes could also ballad with the best of'em. Everyday, How Does It Feel, Far Far Away and My Friend Stan were hardly Rockers but most knew Slade as one of Britain's best ever rock bands. No one could touch them live and in the studio when manager Chas Chandler was producing they were way above most bands of the time.

When Chas discovered Slade he knew he would have to get that ‘Live' sound somehow onto record. As will be evidenced on most of this double CD set, he succeeded.

The first track comes from their first album ‘Beginnings' (as Ambrose Slade) and the next two from ‘Play It Loud'. Slade had not yet established their distinct sound that they are now mostly remembered for. However, we can hear them in progress. Born To Be Wild is mild here in comparison to how it would sound later (especially on the first live album ‘Slade Alive').

By the time we get to ‘Get Down And Get With It', we are there. Now we really are in Slade territory, with this live track from ‘Alive'. Chas brought Noddy's voice to the front of the sound. With a booming bass back line up from Jim Lea and Don Powell and the finishing touch of Dave Hill's superb lead guitar, Chas really did hit the spot.

Those who wish to deny Noddy's rock voice, check out his version of the Janis Joplin ‘Move Over'. Oh I wish these two could have done a track together. Nod goes even higher and rips his vocal chords apart on ‘The Whole World's Going Crazee'. This man appears to gargle on broken glass.

‘Let the Good Times Roll' from the Slayed album tells the story of the fickle world of music. Here today, gone tomorrow. One of the slower tracks but a real gem all the same.

The next four tracks and Nod is pushing his vocal limit again with four out and out rockers ‘Let the Good Times Roll, My Town, We're Really Gonna Raise The Roof' and the voice shredding ‘Don't Blame Me'. The latter, was the B Side to their biggest single, ‘Merry Xmas Everybody'. At the time we could watch folk in pubs jump out of their seat when fans would put both sides on at the pub juke boxes. God it's loud!

‘Good Time Gals' originally from Old, New Borrowed and Blue (also the B Side to Everyday) was Slade being a bit naughty again. Check out those lyrics. ‘Do We Still Do It', the ladies of the night ‘Standing' on The Corner' and the Flame cracker ‘OK Yesterday Was Yesterday' give almost lighter relief until we hit ‘Them Kinda Monkey's Can't Swing'. The latter also from the movie Flame and features some nifty slide guitar. ‘Scratch My Back' is from the underrated ‘Nobody's Fools' album and is one of the best ‘Rockers' from it.

By 1977 Slade in Britain were as dead as Monty Python's parrot. However, this did not stop them producing the goods. ‘Be' from the ‘Whatever Happened to Slade' album being a prime example. Slade came back from the USA with a heavier sound.

‘Burning in The Heat of Love' was a late 1970's flop, not one of their best but it fits nice here. ‘Wheels Ain't Comin' Down', the story of a plane flight and ‘Night Starvation' were included on a 12” EP flop which is a real shame. Nice to see these tracks get a second chance here.

Slade once tore apart a Little Richard track (Get Down and Get With it) and then did it again with Chuck Berry's ‘I'm A Rocker', which does what it says on the tin. Slade's Reading festival triumph gave them confidence to write their best album for yonks, ‘Till Deaf Do Us Part' and classics like ‘Rock and Roll Preacher', ‘Let the Rock Roll Out of Control' came to be but I was never convinced by ‘Knuckle Sandwich Nancy', which co-incidentally is ‘sandwiched' between the former and latter. ‘Ruby Red' was an ok album track but for me never a single. It appears the public were of the same opinion when it failed to set the chart alight.

1983 saw Slade back in the charts and the B Sides were shining in confidence ‘Keep Your Hands Of My Power Supply' and ‘Don't Tame A Hurricane' brought Slade an updated 1980's sound that would more or less stick to now that Chas was not producing any more (he ended his fine work in 1977). The reins were taken over by Slade and later Jim Lea (as well as a series of guest producers)

‘Slam The Hammer Down, Cocky Rock Boys', came from the most commercial album for ages, ‘The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome'. Slade were on another comeback with singles in the charts like ‘My Oh My' and 'Run Runaway'. Confident tracks from a confident band. ‘Myzsterious Mr. Jones' is a single that should have done better but alas Slade saw their career sliding once again. Shame as the next album included great rockers like ‘Time To Rock'. As the sleeve notes say, the only Slade track to include whistling. Check it out but try not to think of ‘We Will Rock You' by Queen.

‘Leave Them Girls Alone' was an average B side but nice to hear Nod and Jim share the verses, ‘Let's Have A Party' was a good cover from a dodgy album (Crackers) and the only track from Rogues Gallery ‘Hey Ho Wish You Well' fits here nicely.

The last album ‘You Boyz Make Big Noize' was a good effort and tracks like ‘She's Heavy' showed the band still had so much to offer. However, it was not to be. Slade always tried to move with the times. Adapting their music to suit the mood. In my opinion, a mistake. Slade should have lead and not followed like they did in the early seventies.

They could adapt pretty well though as the last track shows. The single ‘You Boyz Make Big Noize', was no doubt influenced by the Beastie Boys and stands up very well and is a fine way to end this album.

As usual with the Salvo releases, good value for money and remastered by maestro Tim Turan. It also includes slip case, booklet etc.

If you are not a Slade fan but have the money invest this is a worthwhile collection (or try The Slade Box or The B Sides collection-see reviews elsewhere).

Remember Slade were not just for Christmas. Buy this and hear for yourself. Keep On Rocking!

Reviewed by Bangin'man on The Slade Archive forum and Amazon.com

The only person who seemed impressed by Slade's 1974 film the first time round was notoriously sniffy TV critic Barry Norman. Thirty years later, when a poorly mastered transfer was released, everyone from Noel Gallagher to the broadsheets heaped praise on it. Slade In Flame was, Mark Kermode opined, "the Citizen Kane of pop pictures".

It wasn't. If anything, Flame was the Poor Cow of rock 'n' roll cinema, in its kitchen sink realism and because, like Carol White, the star of Ken Loach's film, the careers of virtually everyone involved - not least themselves - took a sharp downturn after its release. Slade In Flame was a brave if foolhardy project, but anyone expecting Wellesian grandeur will be disappointed.

The premise - aspiring pop 'erberts get used and abused by the music industry - was hardly unfamiliar, thanks to Cliff Richard (in Expresso Bongo, 1959), Paul Jones (Privilege, 1967) and David Essex, who had spliffed and shagged his way through Stardust while getting royally shafted himself just months before Flame's release.

Neither is the film distinguished by technical brilliance. Director Richard Loncraine and screenwriter Andrew (brother of Jane) Birkin were novices, the band were more ham than thespian, and everything had to be done in six weeks.

But Flame is classic of rock 'n' roll cinema precisely because because it employs the same gloss-free approach that made Slade the most successful pop machine of the early '70s. No trick is missed: local band rivalry, the front man who gets left behind (Alan Lake), the hard-man agent (brilliantly played by Johnny Shannon, reprising his role from Performance), the slick money man (Tom Conti), the ludicrous publicity stunts, the sense that it was always going to turn out bad. Add in a splendid McCartneyesque theme time (How Does It Feel), a convincing club performance (Them Kinda Monkeys Can't Swing), Don Powell's pathos-filled canal-side scene, Noddy Holder and Jim Lea's convincing stab as warring songwriters, ludicrous Dave Hill resembling a buck-toothed Brian Jones, and a string of a classic one-liners ("I'm not a bloody fishfinger"), and this quickly looks like neatly leavened miserablism.

There was one problem. The sour take on pop process was more convincing than the attempt to differentiate Slade from Flame, their fictional alter-egos. When bored and broken, Flame bow out at the end of the film, so too did the band's audience. Dave Hill had predicted as much: "I wanted the funnies," he admits in the documentary here. Even Holder, who evidently had a ball making it, concedes that this dark film "killed a myth". Xmases aside, it was gudbuy to Slade.

* * * * Mark Paytress MOJO

Pitched somewhere between A Hard Day's Night and That'll Be The Day; anchored to reality with a kitchen sink full of grit whilst casually balancing the garish razzle-dazzle of glam rock with the grim, subterranean iniquity of Performance, Slade In Flame ends up being the finest rock movie of the '70s.

Of course, in the current climate, Slade's homely, Dickensian demeanours would preclude them from the merest sniff of pop success, but back in the '70s - when looking like a garden gnome was considered the very pinnacle of cosmopolitan chic - Slade were the belles of the Brut-sodden ball. It's easy to forget how enormous they actually were, as every single year their legend is further eroded by that Yueltide albatross of theirs, but before being relegated to a festive footnote Slade were the biggest thing to hit British pop music since the Beatles.

But by 1974 they'd peaked: they'd had their successive run of number-one hits, leapt from flat caps to mirrored top hats and were looking to broaden their horizons. So, when America beckoned, they turned their attention to celluloid. Not only did it remain true to Brian Epstein's blueprint for world domination, it would also keep them in the British public eye as they turned their full attention to the conquest of all points west.

At least, that was the plan. But while the USA remained oblivious to their Black Country charms and the fickle Brits turned to Status Quo for their lad-rock needs, at least Slade walked away with a movie to be proud of. Flame sliced through the perceived glamour of the music business to reveal the seediness beneath, long before such candour was fashionable. And while this kind of pioneering authenticity did its backers no great favours at the box office, it afforded the film its enduring appeal.

Slade In Flame's convincing feel and earthy sense of realism came courtesy of unaffescted performances from all four band members alongside a strong supporting cast: Alan Lake as a sub-Elvis club singer, a menacing Johnny Shannon as a wronged club-land gangster and Tom Conti, beautifully condescending as an oil-slick business manager reaching way beneath his class into the grubby, shark-infested pop market.

Of course, all concerned get hurt, apart from indomitable Slade guitarist Dave Hill, who prances through every scene with a massive grin, a fistful of Liebfraumilch and an armful of crumpet.

FILM: * * * * , EXTRAS: * * * , Ian Fortnam CLASSIC ROCK