Slade - Sladest

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 10 / 11 / 2011

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Review

I suppose most of you reading this already know a handful of Slade songs, but I am eager not to exclude anyone, so here’s a short history. The band formed in 1966, but changed their name to Slade in 1969, and released their first album, which was a commercial failure. They had to wait until 1971 before they got their first hit single, 'Get Down and Get With It', and after that they scored many UK hits (including 'Cum On Feel the Noise', 'Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me', 'My Friend Stan', 'Coz I Love You', 'Run Runaway', 'My Oh My' and of course 'Merry Xmas Everyone') before splitting up in the early 90’s. Around that time, Slade were hopelessly out of fashion, but five years later Oasis began playing the aforementioned 'Cum On Feel the Noise' as a part of their live gigs, and suddenly the band was hip again! UK label Salvo began remastering and re-releasing the entire Slade back catalogue a couple of years ago, and now the time has come for the very first compilation album to be available on CD again. Originally released back in 1973, just before the release of the famous Christmas single, it topped the charts for many weeks, and includes all the singles released up to that point. On this re-release, we also get some bonus tracks (of course), and the big selling point here is a previously unreleased studio version of the live favourite 'Hear Me Calling', plus some more singles and B-sides. Well, I will not go into detail about the music on this album, as it’s a compilation and the music has been released before. But the remastering sounds really good (except maybe for the previously unreleased song, but that one was found on an old tape quite recently, so they are excused in that matter), and the packaging is great too, with an informative booklet to top it all off. My own view of Slade has changed a bit while listening to this album, I must admit. Having grown up with (and liked) the mid-80’s hits, like 'My Oh My' and 'Run Runaway', I always thought that their early period was way too much rock’n’roll for me. And sure, in many ways that is correct. But I also found some new favourites here, like 'Coz I Love You', and frankly… 'Cum On Feel the Noise' is a great rock song, despite the fact that Oasis used to play it. I have to look past that…

Track Listing:-

1 Cum On Feel The Noize
2 Look Wot You Dun
3 Gudbuy T Jane
4 One Way Hotel
5 Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me
6 Pouk Hill
7 The Shape Of Things To Come
8 Take Me Bak Ome
9 Coz I Luv You
10 Wild Winds Are Blowin
11 Know Who You Are
12 Get Down And Get With It (Get Down With It)
13 Look At Last Nite
14 Mama Weer All Crazee Now
15 Hear Me Calling
16 My Friend Stan
17 My Town
18 Kill em At The Hot Club Tonite

Band Links:-

http://www.slade.uk.com/
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialSlade
https://twitter.com/sladenews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slade

Label Links:-

http://www.salvo-music.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/Salvo4Music