Slade House

We'll Bring the House Down marks the beginning of a four-album resurgence for Slade. Released on the heels of their most triumphant moment as a band, the 1980 Reading Festival (see Slade Alive at Reading '80 EP for more on that), Slade made a powerful statement with We'll Bring the House Down: "We're back." What the band did was to take the best five songs from the previous platter, Return to Base (no one had heard that album anyway, they correctly figured), and mix them in with great new material for a killer album that wouldn't take forever to make. Simple logic will tell you that when you get rid of the worst songs and replace them with great songs, the album's gonna be a lot better.

Believe it or not, Slade on Stage is the most intense recording Slade has ever made. That's heavy. This live album, recorded circa Till Deaf Do Us Part, shows the band playing faster, harder, and better than ever. Slade on Stage contains five of the band's new songs and four of their classic hits, along with an audience singalong to end the show. The first three songs set the stage. Slade comes out of the gate so fast with "Rock and Roll Preacher," "When I'm Dancin'," and "Take Me Bak Ome" that if they didn't follow those three up with a ballad, you'd almost have to take the record off. It's that intense. During "Preacher," Noddy Holder leads the crowd when the music quiets down, "I see the light – GLORY HALLELUJAH, baby I'm on fire!"

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…

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.

Cum On Feel The Hitz is a superlative and comprehensive collection of Slade singles from 1970 to 1991. Cum On Feel The Hitz is released as a double CD and a 2LP collection: the CD comprises of 43 singles, while the double vinyl features 24 singles. Cum On Feel The Hitz includes all six of their UK Number one singles: "Coz I Luv You”, “Take Me Bak ‘Ome”, ”Mama Weer All Crazee Now”, “Cum On Feel The Noize”, “Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me“ and “Merry Xmas Everybody” and a total of 16 Top 10 singles. The affection for Slade’s music and attitude remains undimmed today, as 1973’s “Merry Christmas Everybody” has gone on to become Britain’s best loved Christmas song. Formed in Wolverhampton in 1966, Slade's chart career spanned 3 decades.

While Slade's early to mid-'70s hit repertoire represents one of the most perfect runs in British rock history and has been amply anthologized accordingly, it is often easy to forget that their career did not end when the number ones did. Slade kept going until the early '90s, enjoying a roller coaster of highs and lows as they did so, and this package delves into most of them. Picking up in 1979, as the band came off a short-lived stint with manager Chas Chandler's Barn label, and fading out with the band's last proper LP, 1987's You Boys Make Big Noize, the package runs through 17 songs, but eschews, peculiarly, the hits for which the period is best remembered.