Rockers

The double-CD ”Rockers” is now released and as usual the good people at Union Square Music have done an excellent job. The CD contains 37 tracks from 1969 to 1987, starting out with Born To Be Wild and ending with You Boyz Make Big Noize.
Although the double CD is labelled a selection of Slade’s hardest-hitting tracks, some are harder than others, but as with all collections, it’s a matter of choice and as such the choice is not bad at all.
Among the songs there’s only one live-track – namely Get Down And Get With It from “Slade Alive!”. Although a brilliant track it seems quite “lonely”, being the only live one. I for one would have either omitted it or used more live-tracks. A replacement of Be from “Whatever Happened To Slade” with the superior live version from “Slade Alive Vol. II” would have been in order.
The tracks are – as always – perfectly remastered by Tim Turan. The quality of the sound is fantastic, you get every little detail which – let’s admit it – sometimes was difficult on the old crackling albums! Especially the drums and bass are highlighted which fits in with the description by Chris Ingham in the accompanying 20 pages booklet: “Drummer Don Powell and bassist Jimmy Lea were a tremendous rhythm section that got the blend of tightness and flashiness in perfect balance.”
Chris Ingham’s track-by-track comments in the booklet are good and enlightening with only few (but grave) mistakes. The b/w photos are quite good as well.