Slade

Slade may have never truly caught on with American audiences (often narrow-mindedly deemed "too British-sounding"), but the group became a sensation in their homeland with their anthemic brand of glam rock in the early '70s, as they scored a staggering 11 Top Five hits in a four-year span from 1971 to 1974 (five of which topped the charts)…

Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton. They rose to prominence during the glam rock era in the early 1970s, achieving 17 consecutive top 20 hits and six number ones on the UK Singles Chart. The British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles. They were the first act to have three singles enter the charts at number one; all six of the band's chart-toppers were penned by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea. As of 2006, total UK sales stand at 6,520,171, and their best-selling single, "Merry Xmas Everybody", has sold in excess of one million copies. According to the 1999 BBC documentary It's Slade, the band have sold over 50 million records worldwide…

Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton. They rose to prominence during the glam rock era in the early 1970s, achieving 17 consecutive top 20 hits and six number ones on the UK Singles Chart. The British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles. They were the first act to have three singles enter the charts at number one; all six of the band's chart-toppers were penned by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea…

Slade gets the shaft. Maybe because of jealousy (like Hugh Hefner) or who knows why, these British boyz are nuked by the mainstream, metalheads, critics, and America. Well, I'm proclaiming my allegiance and membership as a Slademanian because slabs by Slade constantly deliver the goods. In 1987, the quartet still gives great noize 20-odd years after forming as the 'N Betweens. Every track here stomps out a variation on the Slade theme of "Sing Shout (Knock Yourself Out)." …

Before the hits really starting coming, Slade showed why they were one of England's best live acts with this fevered concert recording from 1972. Set alight by plenty of stomping beats, lumbering bass, fat guitars, and Noddy Holder's hoarse vocal scream, Slade Alive! finds the lads from Wolverhampton goading on their rabid fans at every juncture ("Wan ya ta really let loose on iss one")…

This album demonstrates Slade's image evolving, along with their sounds; four rather respectable lads are on the vintage cover photo, reversed to negative for the back side, delivering a more refined hard rock than portrayed by future titles like "Gudbuy T'Jane" and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now." Chas Chandler's production beefs up the bottom with noticeably more bass and piano than on Ballzy by Ambrose Slade. Also there is less cover music here…

Slade might have built its everywhere-but-America fame upon a succession of gut-tearing hit singles, but the band's true rocking credentials were on display elsewhere, in the second to none stage show that had already been preserved on the epochal Slade Alive! earlier in 1972 and across the chain of storming B-sides that had accompanied the smashes so far. Slayed? may have been only the band's second studio album in four years, but it reinforced that barrage with enough mighty stompers that the band could have taken the next year off and still not run out of steam…