We'll bring the house down (Slade) (EP 3795; LP 3796 - 3805)

Slade  Alive at Reading 1980 (CD, Salvo Records, 1980) *****  

Slade  We'll Bring the House Down (CD, Salvo Records, 1981) ****  

Slade  Till Deaf Do Us Part (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1981) ****  

Slade  Slade on Stage (CD, Salvo Records, 1982) *****  

Slade  The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1983) ***  

Slade  Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply (Vinyl, RCA Records, 1984) ***  

Slade  Rogues Gallery (CD, Salvo Records, 1985) ** 

Slade  Crackers (Vinyl, BMG Records, 1985) *** 

Slade  You Boyz Make Big Noize (CD, Salvo Records, 1987) *** 

Slade  Feel the Noize: Slade Greatest Hits (CD, Polydor Records, 1997) ***** 

Genre: Hard rock

Places I remember: Fopp

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Dizzy Mama (We'll Bring the House Down)

Gear costume: Something Else medley (Alive at Reading), Ruby Red (Till Deaf Do Us Part)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: The eighties started off with Slade replacing Ozzy at Reading and killing it! The resulting EP was a six-track rock lesson for all the pretenders. Short sharp and brutal. Try the amazing version of Something Else during the medley! Slade was back in business part one.

They followed that up with the equally rocking We'll Bring the House Down. They take the energy from punk and blow it up all over these tracks - five retreads from Return To Base, and some new ones. Slade was back in business part two. It still sounds remarkably fresh in 2025. 

The guys were on a roll again with another album in 1981 - Till Deaf Do Us Part (their tenth studio album). No change in approach - just more great rock'n'roll from these seasoned campaigners. It's fairly amazing how they managed to maintain the quality rock through all these years.

Slade on Stage is their third live album - recorded at Newcastle City Hall, December 1981. Like the other two, Noddy whips the crowd into a frenzy, and the guys deliver superior hard rock. Opening song, Rock'n'Roll Preacher outdoes AC/DC! We'll Bring the House Down sounds like Motorhead!

Seems the motto for Slade at this point of their career is - play it faster, play it harder, and pummel the audience into submission. Three five-star live albums and one 5-star live EP! Pretty amazing!

Things get a little confusing in 1982/83 with The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome album first appearing and then being repackaged with some song changes a year later for the American market as Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply.

Apart from songs in common, each has a terrible title and a terrible cover! The actual sound is a further extension of Till Deaf Do Us Part. That is to say - terrific, even if it is aimed squarely at the American market - hence the special edition (Keep Your Hands Off...).

Rogues Gallery was their studio effort of 1985. A retro band look on the cover was okay and the songs - okay too, but that's about it and all with synths attached. Noooooo!! 

The band had never had much truck with keyboards prior to the early eighties but here was Jim Lea adding synths as per requirements for the necessary 'modern' soundscape. No thanks Jim! If they'd got rid of the slick production and those keyboards, the songs might have had a chance. Might have. They are pretty uninspired.

Now what? In four years, they'd gone from the highs of We'll Bring The House Down/ Till Deaf Do Us Part and Slade on Stage to the low of Rogues Gallery. Could they regroup again? Did they have the energy reserves to go again?

The bizarre answer was - Crackers. A Christmas party album, also of 1985. It's a nutty mix of the band's previous hits, some re-recorded songs and a selection of covers. According to the band it was a lot more of a fun project than Rogues Gallery. The run of dodgy cover art continued though.

An interesting side story to the recording: While recording Crackers, Hill discovered Victor Herman, a busker, who was playing bagpipes in Oxford Street, London. As the band were due to record their own version of "Auld Lang Syne", Hill invited Herman to add an authentic touch to the recording. Herman agreed, and when he'd finished recording his part, Slade gave him an envelope with a sizeable sum of money in it, along with their thanks and best wishes. Two days later, the envelope was returned by post, along with a letter from Herman, saying that he'd enjoyed himself so much in the studio that he didn't want the money. Slade later invited him to their Christmas party on 18 November 1985 – the release day of the album. At the party, Slade presented Herman with one of the band's Gold Discs as a keepsake (Wikipedia).

Unlike Rogues Gallery the band are able to inject some fun into these tracks and that's infectious as it's a raucous, loud, singalong album. Hey! It's Slade - what did you expect? 

Their final studio album as the original foursome was 1987's You Boyz Make Big Noize. That's fer sure! The synths raise their head again unfortunately, so I rate this as similar to Rogues Gallery. Not a great end to their studio career.

There are a large number of greatest hits compilations out there. I bought one back in the late nineties - Feel The Noize. It has a good range of singles from Get Down and Get With It onwards. They were a terrific singles band and so a compilation like this is a no brainer.

Where do they all belong? As mentioned previously, I'm still looking for a copy of Whatever happened to Slade. I'm also keen to find a copy of Jim Lea's autobiography, having read Dave Hill and Noddy's effort, plus the biography of Don Powell.