If you think 2016 has been a strange sort of year, try 1974.
That was the year that saw not one but two General Elections, a hung Parliament, the three-day week, strikes, power cuts, steel plant closures, fuel rationing and inflation at 17.2 per cent. The IRA were at their most deadly, bombing Woolwich, Guildford and Birmingham, the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London, among other targets. The National Front was on the march and Lord Lucan was on the run.
Away from politics but no less important, Dr Who regenerated from John Pertwee into Tom Baker, World Cup winning England manager Alf Ramsey was sacked, Liverpool messiah Bill Shankly resigned, Brian Clough lasted 44 days at Leeds and Man United were relegated!
Can you imagine a time when there was no Abba? 1974 was the year that they first appeared on our screens, winning Eurovision with Waterloo.
Yes, 1974 was a truly eventful year and, for many reasons, one that we were all glad to see the back of, but it was bookended by two of the major high points of entertainment history, which happen to be connected by one word:
Slade.
Slade Prison was the fictional setting for Porridge, one of the best sitcoms in British history, first aired in September 1974. And Slade was the name of, well, Slade, one of the best bands in British history, who began the year at Number One with the immortal Merry Xmas Everybody. We could do with a bit of Porridge and Slade now, couldn’t we? Both succeeded brilliantly in finding humour in the darkness (literally at times) and put a smile on the nation’s faces amid the job losses, power cuts, bombings and riots.
If you’re looking for a last-minute present for just about anyone really, I wholeheartedly recommend a copy of Sladest, the compilation LP that went straight to the top of the album charts in 1973. My brother bought a copy when it came out, which I ‘took care of’ when he moved out, and I’m still ‘looking after’ for him to this day (but don’t tell him).
Sladest doesn’t include Merry Xmas Everybody, which means it’s about the only place you won’t hear the song this Christmas, but it does feature all five of the band’s previous Number Ones, including Cum On Feel the Noize and Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me, which both went straight to Number One – something no other record had done since The Beatles’ Get Back in 1969.
Phenomenal.
And it’s not just stomping rock; there’s the plaintive Look At Last Nite and the tender Coz I Luv You to vary the mood. Light and shade, pathos, rhetoric, romance, and all those deliberate misspellings… Every home should have it.
Three members of the band turned 70 in 2016. And in a year that saw the Grim Reaper carry out a rather ruthless cull of the entertainment pantheon but leave behind a number of utterly unlovable public figures, whose full capability for sucking the joy out of life remains to be seen, it’s comforting to know that we can settle down to our figgy pudding with our loved ones around us, safe in the knowledge that we still have Slade.
Merry Xmas Everybody.
