Slayed?

Slayed?
Studio album by Slade
Released	1 November 1972
Recorded	1972
Genre	Glam rock hard rock
Length	34:30 (53:42 with bonus tracks)
Label	Polydor (UK/US)
Producer	Chas Chandler
Slade chronology
Slade Alive! (1972) Slayed? (1972) Sladest (1973) Singles from Slayed? "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" Released: 25 August 1972 "Gudbuy T' Jane" Released: 17 November 1972 "The Whole World's Going Crazee (promo only)" Released: November 1972 "Let The Good Times Roll (America only)" Released: August 1973

Slayed? is the third album by the British rock group Slade. It was released on 1 November 1972, and reached No. 1 on the UK charts. The album lasted on the UK charts for a total of 34 weeks, and was also their longest-charting album in the United States where it stayed on the charts for half a year (three weeks more than Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply) despite barely reaching the Top 75.^[1]

The album contains two of the group's biggest hits, "Gudbuy t'Jane" and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now", and is consistently said by rock critics to be their "...greatest studio album."

The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.^[2]

For the Record and Radio Mirror poll results of 1974, Slayed? peaked at #4 on the top ten list of best British albums.^[3]

The album was awarded a UK Silver Disc in early 1973.^[4][5]

During the band's Australian tour of early 1973, "Slayed?" went straight to number one, knocking "Slade Alive!" to #2 in the Australian chart. At this time, the band also had three singles in the top 50 chart.^[6][7]

A week after the release on "Slayed?", the band were awarded an Australian Gold Disc for the album.^[7][8]

The album was certified Gold in Finland for the sales of 20,000 copies in 1973.^[9]

Background

By the time the Slayed? album arrived in September 1972, the band had scored their third British number one single with Mama Weer All Crazee Now, which was included on side two of the album. Aside from that single and Gudbuy T' Jane – the latter a #2 hit in November 1972 – the album also featured songs such as How D'You Ride and The Whole World's Goin' Crazee, plus covers of Janis Joplin's Move Over and Shirley Goodman and Leonard Lee's Let the Good Times Roll, both of which were already regulars in their live repertoire.

Release

In the September–December 1986 Slade fan club magazine, the poll results were announced for the 1986 opinion poll based on Slade's material. For the best album of the 70s, Slayed? was placed at #3.^[10]

Track listing

1. "How D'You Ride" (Holder, Lea) – 3:12
2. "The Whole World's Goin' Crazee" (Holder) – 3:37
3. "Look at Last Nite" (Holder, Lea) – 3:06
4. "I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen" (Lea) – 3:17
5. "Move Over" (Janis Joplin) – 3:45
6. "Gudbuy T'Jane" (Holder, Lea) UK #2 – 3:34
7. "Gudbuy Gudbuy" (Holder, Lea) – 3:30
8. "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" (Holder, Lea) UK #1 – 3:44
9. "I Don' Mind" (Holder, Lea) – 3:06
10. "Let the Good Times Roll / Feel So Fine" (Leonard Lee) – 3:45

Bonus tracks on the 2006 remaster

11. "My Life Is Natural" (b-side of "Coz I Luv You") (Holder) – 3:18
12. "Candidate" (b-side of "Look Wot You Dun") (Lea, Powell) – 2:53
13. "Wonderin' Y" (b-side of "Take Me Bak 'Ome") (Lea, Powell) – 2:50
14. "Man Who Speeks Evil" (b-side of "Mama Weer All Crazee Now") (Lea, Powell) – 3:18
15. "Slade Talk To Melanie Readers" (single sided flexi-disc) – 6:47

Song information

How D'You Ride

"How D'You Ride" is the opener from the album. The song featured the band's usual anthemic sound, but despite this, the song was never performed live.

Chris Ingham of Rock Backpages described the track as a "self-penned nugget".^[11] Allmusic.com wrote "the down-n-dirty swagger of 'How D'You Ride', a slice of sleazy rock that stands proudly alongside such classics."^[12]

The song featured on the American compilation In for a Penny: Raves & Faves.

The track is a recommended track by allmusic.com.^[12]

The Whole World's Goin' Crazee

"The Whole World's Goin' Crazee" is an uptempo rock track, written solely by Holder, rather than with the usual Slade songwriting team of Holder and Lea.

The song was issued in November, 1972, free as a 7" Flexi disc with the monthly magazine Music Scene. The b-side was the song Bonnie Charlie, performed and composed by Mike Hugg.^[13]

Chris Ingham of Rock Backpages described the track as a "self-penned nugget".^[11] Allmusic.com wrote "'Slayed?' is a nonstop party, from the riotously self-fulfilling prophecy of 'The Whole World's Goin' Crazee'."^[14]

The track is a recommended track by allmusic.com.^[14]

Look at Last Nite

"Look at Last Nite" is a slower mid-tempo rock track, inspired by the fickleness of fame.

Allmusic.com wrote "The down-key but still eminently stompalong-able 'Look at Last Nite" being a reminder that, even at its loudest, Slade was still capable of some fetching balladry. Or should that be the other way around?"^[14]

The song was later added to the 1973 compilation Sladest.

I Won't Let It 'appen Agen

"I Won't Let It 'appen Agen" is an uptempo rock track, written solely by Lea, rather than with the usual Slade songwriting team of Holder and Lea. It was the last song to be solely written by Lea for Slade until the 1991 UK hit single Radio Wall of Sound.

The song was used as the b-side to Gudbuy T' Jane, released in November, after the Slayed? album.

Allmusic.com wrote "The tomahawk riffing of 'I Won't Let It 'appen Again' is another highlight – a similar arrangement was later borrowed, to excellent effect, for sometime support band Blue Öyster Cult's version of another Slade favourite, the rocker anthem 'Born to be Wild'."^[14]

Chris Ingham of Rock Backpages wrote "The only sole credit to Jimmy Lea on a Slade record until 'Radio Wall of Sound' 19 years later, the song is also the first Slade b-side to sound as mighty as the group sounded on the a-side, recorded as it was during the Slayed? sessions of autumn 1972. A thunderous, bass-driven track featuring scything guitar chords across the stereo picture, this determinedly minor-key song is superbly played and sung and is treated to a sparkling Chas Chandler production complete with backward guitars, the only time Slade succumbed to that particular psychedelic technique."^[15]

Move Over

"Move Over" is an uptempo rocker, originally written and performed by American singer and musician Janis Joplin from her 1971 album Pearl. Aside from being recorded for this album, the band would also regularly perform the song live before and after Slayed?.

Allmusic.com wrote "A bass-heavy blues boogie through Janis Joplin's 'Move Over' had graced a Slade BBC session earlier in the year, and provoked such a great response that they had no option but to re-record it."^[14]

The song featured on the American compilation In for a Penny: Raves & Faves.

In November 1973, the band released the song as a single in Japan, backed by the Slayed? album closer Let the Good Times Roll.^[16]

Gudbuy T'Jane

"Gudbuy T'Jane" is an uptempo rock track which was released as the second and final single from the album, peaking at #2 in the UK.^[17]

The idea came to Lea while he was sitting by a pool in San Diego. He completed it in the toilet in the plane on the flight home. Holder's lyrics came from a TV show he saw in San Francisco on which the band appeared, and on which a girl called Jane demonstrated a Sex Machine.^[18]

The track is a recommended track by allmusic.com.^[14]

Gudbuy Gudbuy

"Gudbuy Gudbuy" is a mid-tempo and anthemic rock track, based on a cheating partner.

Allmusic wrote "'Gudbuy Gudbuy' lurches like a battalion of tanks and matches a stirring Dave Hill guitar break to one of Noddy Holder's coolest-ever vocals."

The band had previously performed the song during a live BBC studio session.^[19]

Mama Weer All Crazee Now

"Mama Weer All Crazee Now" is an up-tempo rock track which was released as the lead single from the album, peaking at #1 in the UK.^[17]

Some months before the band had played at the Boston Gliderdrome in Lincolnshire, a bouncer had told them about another act who'd appeared there drunk – "crazy with whiskey" – and this gave Holder the idea for the lyrics.^[18]

Allmusic.com described the song as "a full-on adrenalin monster, ear-splittingly loud with its lyrics a raw-throated bellow."^[20]

The track is a recommended track by allmusic.com.^[14]

I Don' Mind

"I Don' Mind" is a mid-tempo rock track.

The song was never performed live and remained just an album track although it was used as the b-side to the American exclusive single Let the Good Times Roll/Feel So Fine.

Let the Good Times Roll/Feel So Fine

"Let the Good Times Roll/Feel So Fine" is the album's closing track. The song was often performed live by the band before and after this album. It was originally written by Leonard Lee and performed by Shirley and Lee in 1956.

In America, the song was released as an exclusive single, where the song reportedly peaked at #114.

Chris Ingham of Rock Backpages wrote "Purely on the strength of the fact that Slade had recorded it, New York glam-metallers Twisted Sister would also adopt 'Let the Good Times Roll' a decade later."^[11]

Allmusic.com wrote "The closing medley of "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Feel So Fine" was the closest you could come to the mania of a Slade live show without actually going out and buying a ticket. Of course, listeners don't have that option today."^[14]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Record Mirror	favourable
NME	favourable
Classic Rock	favourable
Allmusic	[21]
Robert Christgau	A−[22]
The Guardian	[23]

Upon release, Record Mirror reviewed the album, "Well if you know Slade at all — and who doesn't now? — you know what to expect from this. It's all pretty stomping, insistent and bawled out stuff. 'We all get ourt kicks playing in a rock 'n' roll band' is a line in 'The Whole World's Goin' Crazee', and that's about as close to Slade as you can get. They're enjoying themselves, and I enjoyed listening to this more than their last offering Slade Alive — which was a hit of course anyway — because there are more subtleties in here." "Before those predictable whoops come in, there's some great honky tonk piano running through the previously mentioned second track, and on 'I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen', the percussion and bass is nicely mixed with Noddy singing rather than just letting it rip over the top. There's also 'Gudbuy T' Jane' and 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now' featured. Now all together, foot stomp, slugging down that old rye to oil the voice, 'Buy, buy, buy, buy, I just want you to say gudbuy...' They deliver the goods here, alright. But why in such an unadventurous album sleeve?'"^[24]

NME stated the album was "one of the greatest rock 'n' roll releases ever".

Diane Kelly, editor of the Slade Fan Club Newsletter wrote "Super! Wow! Just wait till you hear this, it's a knockout. The boys sound even better here than can you believe — Slade Alive!. The reproduction on all ten tracks takes you back to the last concert you've been to, even though it was all recorded in the studio by Chas Chandler. He has done a super job of getting across on record the tremendous excitement generated by Slade live. Once again Noddy's voice is just too good and full of lust. If you listen very carefully you can hear the delicate vocal harmonizing from Dave and Jimmy. Everything is right about the album, nothing left out and not too much of anything. An excellent album and if you know what's good for you (and you're planning a party for the near future), you'll go search out and buy up this album. You'll never be sorry, take it from me, I've been Slayed."^[25][26]

Classic Rock spoke of the Slayed? remaster from Salvo, "Wolverhampton's unimpeachable purveyors of melody-grounded lads rock grafted unpretentious pop sentiments to garish terrace stomping with such cavalier loutishness in the early 70s that resistance was useless. Yet Slade's back catalogue has suffered inexplicable undervaluation and neglect in the CD age. Until now, that is. For this packed quartet of enhanced releases marks the opening salvo in a comprehensive reissue programme."

In early 2010, Classic Rock magazine featured Slade as part of their The Hard Stuff Buyers Guide where the magazine reviewed numerous Slade albums. As part of the "Essential: Classics" section, a reviewer of Slayed? wrote" "The consensus among Slade aficionados is that this, the group's third studio album, is their definitive work. Two enormous hit singles — 'Gudbuy T'Jane' and 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now' — are here swelled by party-hard album tracks like 'The Whole World's Goin' Crazy' and 'I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen', and even something approaching a ballad with 'Look at Last Nite', ensuring that Slayed? inarguably ticks all the right boxes. On the other side of the pond Twisted Sister would later incorporate 'Let the Good Times Roll/Feel so Fine' into their live act, while Slade themselves tip Noddy's mirrored top hat at Janis Joplin's 'Move Over'."

The Guardian also spoke of the Slayed? remaster from Salvo: "While David Bowie's 1972 album Ziggy Stardust documents the rise and fall of an imaginary rock star, Slade's chart-topper from the same year captures real life under the spotlight. As the Black Country blokes steamroller to household-name status, Slade's anthems celebrate what Noddy Holder bellows is 'the feelin' when you give it all you've got, and people want to shake you by the hand". Reissued with extra tracks alongside other 1970s material, "Gudbuy T'Jane", "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" and the rest are deservedly party riff monsters. However, Slayed?'s majesty lies in the melancholy ballads. 'Look at Last Nite''s haunting refrain fingers both empty celebrity and fame's creeping downside: 'Maybe they'll care today, but not tomorrow.' Years later, with Oasis among others owing so much to Slade's templates, it's clear they got that bit wrong."

American rock critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A grade and wrote: "These guys aren't singles specialists like Gary Glitter or (I insist) T. Rex — they deliver a whole album of boot-boy anthems that are every bit as overpowering as has been reported, and also more fun (reporters panic real easy). Noddy Holder can wake up the crazee in my neighborhood any time he wants. But that doesn't mean I'm predicting Slademania — not in a nation where Loggins & Messina are encouraged to sing about rock and roll."

Personnel

Slade

• Noddy Holder – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Dave Hill – lead guitar
• Jim Lea – bass guitar, piano
• Don Powell – drums

Additional credits

• Chas Chandler – producer
• Gered Mankowitz – photography (cover)
• Chris Charlesworth – liner notes

Chart performance

Chart (1972)	Peak position	Total weeks
Australian (ARIA) Albums Chart[27]	1	18
Austrian Albums Chart[28]	3	12
Canadian Albums Chart[29]	27	19
Dutch Albums Chart[30]	10	3
French Albums Chart[31]	8	40
German Albums Chart[32]	10	?
Norwegian Albums Chart[33]	3	24
UK Albums Chart[17]	1	34
U.S. Billboard 200[34]	69	26

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/Sales
Finland (Musiikkituottajat)[35]	1× gold	20,000[35]
*sales figures based on certification alone ^shipments figures based on certification alone

References

Preceded by 20 All Time Hits of the 50s by Various Artists Back to Front by Gilbert O'Sullivan	UK Albums Chart number-one albums 13 January 1973 – 20 January 1973 27 January – 10 February 1973	Succeeded by Back to Front by Gilbert O'Sullivan Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player by Elton John
Preceded by Catch Bull at Four by Cat Stevens	Australian Kent Music Report number-one album 5 February – 18 March 1973	Succeeded by No Secrets by Carly Simon