from the LP Sladest, Polydor Records, 1973Many of us Americans lived through the big hair & perpetual misspellings of Quiet Riot in the 1980s, completely unaware of the fact that they didn’t just steal the idea of poor vocabulary skills from British glam rockers Slade, they flat out covered their songs too. Admittedly, when compared with other glam icons like Bowie or T.Rex, maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising that they were largely ignored over here, but a few of their tracks kick ass, this being one of them; essentially a wake-up call to the older generation, this blistering glam-pop gem delivers exactly what it promises. I have to admit though, this album cover never ceases to make me laugh---right, like that little bit of glossy front-lighting helps soften the impact of these poor sods collective fugliness, “…we’re gonna need a bigger light…”; thus, while the music rocks, their appearance does little to quell American assumptions about British musicians’ frightful looks. Thankfully, the music is more important, so there you go.
