Disco de T. Rex: “Slider [Code 90]”

Make no mistake about it, Electric Warrior is the best place to start if you're new to T Rex but if you're feeling inspired this isn't a bad place either. When I bought Electric Warrior I was instantly drawn into the heavy rocking sound and the incredible voice of Marc Bolan. He instantly became my favorite glam rocker ever. It really wasn't until I picked up this set that I was blown over entirely. When you hear these two discs you begin to wonder how this guy was so over looked in the US. In my opinion he was the best thing going in the early 70's. Anyway, with this set you get two discs, one the remastered studio album with two very worthwhile outtakes at the end and on the second you get alternate versions and early demos along with a few more outtakes. All of this along with good liner notes which detail the time and era in T Rex history. The second disc may not grab you initially, but it's really worth owning. The outtakes are really good accoustic renditions of the original and they really give the songs a whole new set of characteristics that I find myself turning to as much as the original album. On songs like Ballroom of Mars I actually find myself preferring the acoustic version. Anyway, I highly recommend this set for anyone that is looking for a great rock and roll record.

Quoth Marc Bolan from "Spaceball Ricochet" from this album.

Indeed, one of the reasons I gladly purchased a rare lefty

Les Paul guitar recently is that I knew Marc favored his cherry

sunburst Les Paul for the years he recorded unbelievable classics

like The Slider and Electric Warrior, which is more than reason

enough to get one. As for this new deluxe reissue of The Slider,

I purchased it in nyc recently after considering getting a more

streamlined UK pressing, but this "boxed" edition is the one to get--if you're a Bolan/Rex fan there is no other edition now,

because this one contains an entire bonus disc of the "alternate" Slider, containing alternate takes of the songs and

also an abundance of b-sides and demos such as "Sunken Rags"

and "Thunderwing," which could have been on the original album

given the strengths of those tracks. The sound on this reissue

of TREX's classic 1972 follow-up to the equally massive Electric

Warrior is wondrous in its remastered state, I'm sure the drums

and crunchy bass and guitars on "Telegram Sam" never sounded better. I can't recommend this album more highly--if you're a true rock and roll fan you need this album and now you definitely

need this glorious edition of it--it also comes with great artwork and a nice booklet with Marc's intriguing period comments on the album tracks. When Marc Bolan died, rock and roll tragically lost a true wizard, a true star. He continues

to teach us how to boogie and he teaches me how to play guitar

better everytime I play his albums. What more can one ask?

Go Slide....

For some odd reason all the reviews for this album are over on the MP3 Version- mostly 5's and a few 4's but no less. I found it odd this album only had two reviews considering the album.

I can't get my brain around how this album and T.Rex's legacy isn't bigger. I've been listening to music of all kinds for a good 30+ years now and I've seen quite a few evolutions but somehow it seems a seminal figure has been completely overlooked and ignored by all but the fans and musicians in the know. What do we fans and musicians know?

TRex did more than just sound cool in a Mitsubishi car commercial, as much as we appreciate hearing his work revived in some public forum. When we talk influence we can talk direct and indirect.

Direct Influence and debt of gratitude:

Prince covered 'Children of the Revolution', as did Bono, the Violent Femmes, Baby Ford, Killers, Soul Wax, and Nena. The song was also (partially) featured in Moulin Rouge, keeping the original spirit of the song and working beautifully.

The Bongos (don't know if you remember this 80's Band) covered 'Mambo Sun'

Bauhaus covered 'Telegram Sam' and got a hit off it.

Witch Queen, 222, Jackie 'O', Ministry and the Power Station covered 'Get it On (Bang a Gong)'

The Fratelli's covered 'Hot Love'

Divina covered 'Ballrooms of Mars'

Guns and Roses covered 'Buck MacKane'

The Replacements, Placebo and Def Leppard covered '20 Century Boy'. Sigue Sigue Sputnik named one of their songs this and simply repeated the title endlessly.

Martin Gore of Depeche Mode covered 'Life is Strange'

The Vindictives covered 'Teen Riot Structure'

Richard Hell and the Voidoids covered 'Rip Off'

Indirect influence:

Man, where do you start? Do you immediately jump to Marc Bolan's (the singer, songwriter, guitarist extraordinaire of the band, in case you didn't know)friend David Bowie who took so much from Bolan at his peak? When you hear Bowie's seminal album 'Ziggy Stardust' you're looking at Bolan's ideas Bowie-ized. I will not suggest Bowie ripped off anything but Bolan was the first and gave everyone in the Glam genre a thorough blueprint. And then you take that and extract what came from Glam- hair bands, punk, new wave... and what came from them? Now there have been a lot of people who have contributed so much to music since Bolan but so many owe so much to the man and his group. But like I said, musicians generally know this where as the public of general listeners have no idea, especially in America.

But that doesn't really bother me so much. What REALLY bothers me is how damn fun T.Rex is and how this just never really took off here in America. Marc Bolan was a modern poet, yet he didn't take himself so seriously he couldn't have a laugh. In the documentary 'Born to Boogie' you catch him pallin' around with Ringo Starr and just doing his best to crack up anyone around and have a great time. He always seemed light hearted, even when he was pouring his heart out in songs like 'Ballrooms of Mars'. And Bolan was a showman/show stopper. Check out 'Hot Love' on YouTube. He cranks it up, gets into it, has a rockin' time and keeps the audience screaming for more. How does a nation ignore such foot tapping, hand clapping sing along goodness? HOW? What else could we want from music? How has he been completely out of the American musical lexicon?

OK, I can come off my self-righteous indignant soap box now and review the album.

I think Slider is the man's best. Not a bad song in the bunch. Some like Electric Warrior better but... I don't know. Slider seems to just never stop rocking or moving while subtly slipping intoxicating poetry throughout. 'I've never kissed a car before, it's like a door." "Sitting there, in your armor plated chair..." "you dance with your lizard leather boots on and pull the strings that change the faces of men". The songs here make me sing where ever I am no matter who's around. I can't f'n help it. How can you not sing or at least clap to Metal Guru? How can you not feel that sexual, exuberant strut of the title track? How can you not feel the exuberant outcry of Chariot Choogle or the rockin' 'Whooo!' in Caddilac? Don't you feel that people? WAKE UP! Get this album back on the radio, and on the lists of one of the greatest ever made! We all know the lists. Stairway to Heaven is tired of hanging out at the top. Stairway wants to dance in the Ballrooms of Mars and drive off in Bolan's Caddilac into a Teenage Dream!

Sorry, I get carried away defending my TRex. Rocking album, my favorite. It's OK if you're not affected by it after one listen, but don't go near the CIA because they will bring you in for being one of the aliens who escaped from Area 51.

If you ever wanted to know T. Rex's significance in the music world, look no further than this album. "The Slider" became Marc Bolan and his band T.Rex's calling card. This album when released in '72, sold amazingly well. The term T.Rexstacy was often used to describe the hysteria caused at a T. Rex concert back in the early 70's.

From the bombastic opening track, "Metal Guru," to the final track, "Lady," you get as close to a perfect album as you can get. Marc's lyrical poetry combined with the production talents of Tony Visconti equate pure musical brilliance.

You get quite a variety of tracks on this album, but all in all, this can only be described as sounding like T. Rex; I really find it hard to equate to anyhting else. This truly defines what became known as the T. Rex Sound. My personal favorites are the added singles, "Thunderwing," "Lady," and album tracks "The Slider" and "Rock On."

Marc was never as big in the United States as he was in the United Kingdom (much to his chagrin), but this album came as close to breaking him big here in the US than anything else he put out.

Disc Two contains alternate versions as well as demo takes. It's not bad listening, but serves the purpose of a musical blueprint, detailing the thought process behind each song. Much of this material was released on "Rabbit Fighter: The Alternate Slider".

Marc Bolan was much more than a pretty face. He wrote, played, and later in life, produced his own music. T. rex has earned it's rightful place as one of the of great rock and roll bands of all time. This album is one of many Bolan compositions that justifies that honor.

Marc Bolan could do no wrong when he released "The Slider" back in '72. At the peak of his game, he loaded each track with his sense of personal style and the results were magic. The sheer feel of ecstatic charisma which shines through the uplifting anthems on display is enough to boost the album to classic status, but it's far more than that: it's also one of the most coherent and complex attempts at self-mythologization in rock history. Bolan's character, both in real life and on record, was that of an ex-mod, ex-hippie turned electric glam wizard, with a seductively androgenous sense of sexuality and invested with the core spirit of rock'n'roll. Although the music on "The Slider" was unashamedly commercial pop-rock--filled to the brim with meaty guitar riffs, catchy, circular choruses and an intoxicating production utilizing swirling strings and falsetto backing vocals--there is also a sense of artistic achievement both in the surrealist lyrics and the overall sequencing and construction of the album. The results were a work which effortlessly blurred the line between camp and quality, trash and artistic ambition, pretense and soul-baring, spontaneous hippie sentiment and calculated glam moves which no other act at the time came close to emulating (though many tried). By examining himself through so many different angles, Bolan was able to sketch a portrait of himself that was ironically so detailed that it left him an enigma. For many listeners, Bolan *was* the "metal guru" who joined the spiritual wisdom of the past with the metallic rock energy of the present, and time has not dimished that lustre in the least.