Slayed?

By the time Slade released their second studio album, Slayed?, in 1972, their poppy glam-rumble scene was set. It later became a hell of an argument to say that bands such as The Runaways, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and even Cheap Trick would’ve happened if this band hadn’t. The album’s tormented Chuck Berry riffs, boogie-woogie stomp, (purposely) facile chant-choruses, and the wonderfully throaty tenor from singer Noddy Holder show a band all but inventing the classic template of working-class kids creating an international rumpus. Just think how many bands covered Slade’s classic glitter preener “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” (The Runaways, for example, recorded it years before Quiet Riot’s charting version), or how their big guitars laid glorious waste to Janis Joplin’s “Move Over,” or how you think you haven’t heard the boot-boy rebel rouser “Gudbuy T’Jane” until you do, and say, “oh, I absolutely dig this song.” The U.K. music weekly NME wasn’t kidding when it called Slayed? one of the greatest rock ’n’ roll releases of all time.