Slade is a British glam rock band. The band formed in the late 1960s as R&B act, The N'Betweens, and later as the folk-rock act Ambrose Slade, but found great success in the early 1970s, releasing a series of popular singles in what was perceived as being a glam rock style. Slade remain one of the most recognisable acts of the glam rock movement, and were, at their peak, the most commercially popular band in the UK. The band is possibly most famous for the song "Merry Christmas Everybody", originally released in December 1973 , which was never deleted and is heard regularly at Christmas time everafter; it is now the most iconic British Christmas pop song.
During the height of their success, Slade out-performed their chart rivals Wizzard, Sweet, T. Rex, Suzi Quatro, Gary Glitter and even David Bowie. In the UK they achieved 11 top five hits in a three-year span from 1971 to 1974, six of which topped the charts.
Due to a number of changes in music fashion and the advent of punk and New Wave music, Slade's success had faded somewhat by the late 1970s, although the group continued to release credible records. They enjoyed a return to the UK charts in the early 1980s, even managing to enter the charts in the United States, and later returned to the UK singles chart in 1991 with a song entitled "Radio Wall of Sound". The classic line-up of Slade split in mid 1992, although Dave Hill and Don Powell - two of the group's original members formed Slade II at that point.
Respected NME journalist and music critic Eddie Shum, and Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher have both been quoted as saying the band were "Fundamentally more important to the development of music than Radiohead".