Slade did eventually have a dalliance with the US charts, aside from Quiet Riot, but it was comfortably beyond their imperial phase. No doubt we’ll come back to this point.

I have to ask myself why, considering my avid interest in British pop over the last 40+ years, I’d never made the effort to hear this group. I suppose I found the early skinhead image and the purposely misspelled titles truly off-putting (still do), so perhaps I imagined their music to be equally wretched. I was pleasantly surprised.

I surely wouldn’t call it a great recording–there’s a strain of generic 70s pop running all the way through it–but it’s catchy and the violin is, at very least, interesting. I’d probably give it a 6 or 7, depending on my mood.

But even if it’s not spectacular in and of itself, it’s better than most of the 1972 number ones–which is probably damning it with faint praise.

No they didn’t do a very good version of this. Actually ‘Circlesquare’ is one of the relatively few I still like and may crop up on my blog in due course.

Someone of my acquaintace who shall remain nameless saw that very same Transit van advert and asked whether it was Nick Drake. I presume that “least favourite Slade single” applies only to the big hits, and doesn’t include ‘Myzterious Myster Jones’, ‘7 Year (B)itch’ et al? Even so I can’t wholly endorse it because there’s so much to this song, and at the same time it’s so childishly simple. For better or worse, this is also the first Slade mis-spelling.

And yet, I don’t know this song.

I wonder why Chas Chandler isn’t a more celebrated producer. Given the original, influential sound he created with Slade (sort of the Dave Clark Five with Noddy Holder on lead vocals, instead of Mike Smith, plus a football rally on the choruses), as well as his work on the first three Jimi Hendrix albums, it would seem Chas would get more attention as a producer.

Popular to the rescue!

Their version was awful. However I didn’t hear it until after I’d first heard the Slade version being used in the Transit van advert. I like this track more than Feel The Noize but not as much as Merry Wobs Everybody.

(Circlesquare = def one of the best WS songs! But most of the stuff from that era = t0ss)

Listening to it again I realise just how good Noddy’s voice is. The way he intones “I just LIKE the things you do, don’t you CHANGE the things you do” manages to be sharey and carey and scary all at once. It really was Slade’s secret weapon.

I entirely sympathise with people saying 5 is too low - I think it’s too low myself, I just can’t get past that violin. Top marks for effectiveness though.

As an NME reader in 1989 I made many, MANY attempts to convince myself I liked the Wonder Stuff. I think I came close to managing it, too, around the time of “Circlesquare”. It pains my heart that they ended up with a Number 1 and Carter didn’t.

I don’t think Lea’s violin on “Coz I Luv You” is electrified.

But the Wonder Stuff did cover the song for the NME Ruby Trax compilation.

I love Slade and especially this. A nine from me.

Number 2 behind this was “Till” by Tom Jones. Has that lodged in anyone’s memory…?