You Boyz Make Big Noize | ||||||||
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Studio album by Slade | ||||||||
Released | 27 April 1987 | |||||||
Recorded | Portland Studios, Redan Studios and Music Works | |||||||
Genre | ||||||||
Length | 41:02 | |||||||
Label | RCA, CBS Associated | |||||||
Producer | Jim Lea, John Punter, Roy Thomas Baker | |||||||
Slade chronology | ||||||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | |
Get Ready To Rock! | |
Circus Magazine (USA) | favourable |
Guitar Magazine (USA) | favourable |
Record-Journal (USA) | B |
You Boyz Make Big Noize is the fourteenth album by the British rock group Slade. It was released on 27 April 1987 and reached number 98 in the UK charts spending just one week in the UK charts. The album was based on a 70s sound with 80s technology. This was the last studio album by the original lineup; the next Slade album featured Dave Hill and Don Powell with a different lead singer and bass player, and was under the guise of Slade II.
As the band still would not tour or perform live, they hoped a hit album would put Slade where they belonged. The band hired producer Roy Thomas Baker but his working methods proved too lengthy and expensive for the band. Drummer Don Powell recalled "it took three days just getting drum sounds". Baker completed 2 tracks, John Punter, who had produced previous Slade material, produced another two and Slade's Jim Lea finished the rest.
Following the failure of the two singles Still The Same and That's What Friends Are For, the album was an inevitable commercial disappointment. RCA lost interest in promoting the album.
Though by no means deserving of its ignoble failure, You Boyz Make Big Noize is not quite the triumphant swansong the band would have liked and undoubtedly reflects the disparate nature of the group at the time. Don Powell remembered "It wasn't us, there was no identity on that album. It would have been nice for the original band to have gone out with a better album, like the Slade in Flame album or Slayed. It was like a certain magic was missing. The closeness that we'd had wasn't there".
To the ongoing heartache of their fans, Slade would never regain that closeness. After, Noddy Holder was adamant. "Never again!!" he wrote in his autobiography. Beyond the hit Radio Wall of Sound in 1991, "never again" it was.
You Boyz Make Big Noize was recorded at Wessex studios in London, Portland Studios, Redan Studios and Music Works.
The album's title came after a Wessex studios tea-lady named Betty commented on Slade with the statement "you boys make big noise".
Don Powell was interviewed in early 1987 for the magazine of the Slade International Fan Club about the album, just after it had finished being recorded. "We finished the album yesterday, actually. We spent yesterday piecing it together and sorting out the running order. We know exactly which tracks will be on the album - all of which is new material. The new single 'Still the same' is also on it as well. The title of the album is 'You boyz make big noize'. When we were recording with Roy Thomas Baker in Wessex studios, the tea lady there made the comment 'You boys make big noise' and I think we've sort of kept it from then. I don't know when the album is coming out yet as we are still deciding on the cover design. RCA will probably wait to see how the single does. The album has taken us a long time to record, especially the tracks that John Punter and Roy produced. We spent the first two days with Roy just trying to get the drum sound as he wanted it. He had forty odd mikes over my kit, and it sounded like thunder in the studios. The album is more of a sing-a-long one, as opposed to a heavy metal album. On most of the album it is Nod singing, though on one track Jim sings the first part with Nod joining in later."