248. Slade - Slayed? (1972)




















Track Listing

1. How D'you Ride
2. Whole World's Goin' Crazee
3. Look At Last Nite
4. I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen
5. Move Over
6. Gudbuy T'Jane
7. Gudbuy Gudbuy
8. Mama Weer All Crazee Now
9. I Don' Mind
10. Let The Good Times Roll/Feel So Fine

Review

You can tell that the label of Glam Rock is nearly meaningless when Slade is in the same bracket as T-Rex, Roxy Music, Brian Eno and David Bowie. Slade was basically doing Glam music which would be accessible to the darts player down at the pub in the East End. This was very much what Glam was not about, it was about shocking both musically and visually... Slade is shocking in a very different way.

Firstly you have the song titles, they are just plain stupid, whoever thought that misspelling as a gimmick was a great idea should be shot. Secondly their lyrics are just plain stupid. They do have some merit however and that is their trademark stomp. You can better appreciate it in the Janis Joplin cover, Move Over. Of course they use that stomp more often than not for puerile and underdeveloped tunes... this was what made them successful.

I can only say that Slade are to Glam like Status Quo are to Rock, shit. Again I repeat that they have some infectious quality to their music but only when listened to at the most superficial of levels, if you start paying attention you just get disappointed. Get it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Move over
2. I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen
3. Gudbuy T'Jane
4. Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia, the first two lines just go to show how smart the Gallaghers are:

NME journalist and music critic Eddie Shum and Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher have both been quoted as saying the band were "Fundamentally more important to the development of music than Radiohead". While Slade's attempts at cracking the United States market were largely unsuccessful, they left their mark on a several US bands who cite Slade as an influence. KISS bassist Gene Simmons readily admits that his band's early songwriting ethos and stage performance style was influenced by Slade. In his book "KISS and Make-Up," Simmons writes on page 85, "the one we kept returning to was Slade," and "we liked the way they connected with the crowd, and the way they wrote anthems... we wanted that same energy, that same irresistible simplicity. but we wanted it American-style." Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick has said that his band went to see Slade perform, and that they used "every cheap trick in the book", thus inadvertently coining his group's name. Quiet Riot had a U.S. hit with their cover of Cum on Feel the Noize.

The original band's memory was kept alive by comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who respectfully sent up the band in a number of what the band called 'hysterically accurate' 'Slade in residence' and 'Slade on holiday' sketches in their The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer TV show in the early 1990s - these are available on DVD.

Slade are most associated with the Black Country in Britain's West Midlands, although the band's members came from Devon, Staffordshire, and the Black Country towns Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Harry Shearer has claimed that he based the band Spinal Tap, from This is Spinal Tap, on Slade. However, it is widely known and confirmed that the band in the film was based on numerous UK "heavy metal" and "glam" bands including Slade, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and T. Rex and most certainly, Saxon. While doing research for the film, Shearer and his fellow writers and cast-mates interviewed a number of 70s Rock stalwarts requesting their greatest "road stories". At one point in the film, Spinal Tap is listed on a marquee as playing second billing to a Puppet Show. Noddy Holder tells a similar story regarding Slade's "low phase" in his autobiography. This very funny moment in "This Is Spinal Tap" may very well be a page from Slade's true history. It is worth noting that Slade always have had a wonderful sense of humour about their success (or lack thereof, depending upon the decade) and have always been honest and apt to parody themselves.

Gudbuy T'Jane... how exactly are these guys glam? :



Where are they now: