The songs that made it to the flipsides of their 45's are very important, because they very often showed a more melodic and thoughtful side of Slade that the people who may not have bought their massive selling records - and even the ones that didn't chart - would almost certainly never have heard. These songs rarely made it onto the radio, even at the height of Slade's success.

Prepare to listen to a slightly 'different' Slade than you may be used to - one you may like even more than the one you know....

This two CD set, as you can see, gathers almost all of the b-sides from Slade's huge list of 45rpm releases.

The first notable track is One Way Hotel. The version which appears here is different from any featured on any Slade album. It contains a much 'jazzier' guitar part, possibly rejected as unsuitable for use on Play it loud. C'mon c'mon never ever appeared on any mainstream Slade album. Do you want me and Gospel according to Rasputin appeared on the b-side of the Get down and get with it 'maxi single' - and are just about impossible to find without a natural but frustrating 30+ year accumulation of attendant crackles and pops.

The 'champagne years' - as fans call 1972 to 1975 - produced a run of fantastic songs relegated to the b-side of Slade's mammoth run of monster hit singles, such as Cum on feel the noize and Merry Christmas Everybody, not because they were in any way inferior - but simply because they hadn't been recorded during album sessions. Check out Kill 'em at the hot club tonite, Wonderin Y and She did it to me for a Slade you never knew existed!

A couple of songs had the honour of being album tracks as well as b-sides, but Slade didn't really tend to do that very often. It was often the case that Don Powell and Dave Hill contributed to the writing of songs placed on b-sides. The main two hit songwriters were thought to be Holder and Lea and so their efforts generally filled the band's albums. The distribution of royalties only became an issue within the band when the record sales eventually dried up.

In the late 1970's, The Midlands Own Ministers Of Fun moved onto Chas Chandler's small Barn label, which Polydor distributed..... sporadically. A number of singles released on that label vanished totally without trace, making them quite rare and sought after nowadays and as a result, Slade came very close to splitting up. Apart from the strange abberration of recording a version of The Okey Cokey (not included here!!!), they were releasing some of the best records of their career, but nothing was selling, as Slade were' old hat'.

The Barn singles produced such fine songs as Forest Full Of Needles, which featured one of Dave Hill's better guitar parts; OHMS - a heartfelt rail against the British Tax system which had previously been caning Slade to the tune of 97% of their income; It's alright buy me - a chart-cert mighty rock track,which was, at one time, destined to be a storming a-side, until the extraordinarily bad choice was made to relegate it to a b-side of the tinkly piano tune, 'Rock and roll bolero' (which Dave Hill could have predicted the failure of, as soon as the piano was wheeled into the studio. 'Piano equals failure' was Dave's grumbled motto). Not tonight Josephine was a sprightly rocker that should have been an a-side too. What happened???

Slade's resurgence at Reading in 1980 gave them a new lease of life and eventually got them a deal (via Chas Chandler) with RCA, after a few releases on their own indie Cheapskate label . The RCA deal produced more hits and more b-sides - some of the best being Leave them girls alone, Don't tame a hurricane and Keep your hands off my power supply - all of which are included here..

This two CD set will make a lot of people very happy indeed. 40 great Slade songs - many hard to get and many unheard for years all in one place - and not stupidly priced, either.