1972 was Marc Bolan’s year ‘ and T.Rex – The Slider, the album that captures the ‘First Man of Glam Rock’ at his creative and commercial peak, has now been lovingly remastered for the first time by original producer Tony Visconti.
T. Rex The Slider
This remastered version will be exclusively available in T.Rex – The Slider 40th Anniversary Box Set scheduled for release by DMG’s Edsel label on 26 November 2012.
Although Marc Bolan died in a tragic car accident in 1977, his influence is alive in the music of Suede, Oasis, Placebo and numerous left-field indie bands, in high profile commercials, and in cinema where his songs contributed enormously to the success of Billy Elliot. And as the first of the great ultra-glam pop icons, blending post-hippie exoticism with dashing Hollywood panache, Bolan’s trailblazing and often outrageous style has left its mark on everyone from David Bowie to Lady Gaga.
Most extraordinary of all, as this new edition of The Slider so thrillingly reveals, Bolan’s work sounds as vibrant now as it did when he was rewriting the pop rulebook during the early 1970s.
Now remastered for the first time by Tony Visconti, this classic album ‘ released in July 1972 on the back of three chart-topping T.Rex LPs ‘ provides a perfect snapshot of the era the press dubbed ‘T. Rextasy’ and is proof of Bolan’s extraordinary and enduring appeal across the generations.
The Slider contained 2 UK Number 1 hit singles, Telegram Sam and Metal Guru – the latter famously regarded by Morrissey as ‘pop perfection’. It was the first to bear the T. Rex Wax Co imprint, a seal of approval from EMI Records, who felt Bolan sufficiently important to warrant having his own record label. And it marked the climax of the most frenzied period of pop hysteria since Beatlemania a decade earlier, brilliantly captured in Born To Boogie, a documentary film based around T.Rex’s groundbreaking concerts at the Empire Pool, Wembley in March 1972 and shot by Ringo Starr.
It was, screamed the headlines, ‘The Day That Pop Came Back’. And The Slider, with its iconic cover photo of Marc Bolan in a Mad Hatter’s hat, was confirmation of his extraordinary pop prowess.
T.Rex – The Slider captures Bolan at the peak of his writing ‘ from effortless ‘Bolan Boogie’ (Baby Strange, Baby Boomerang) to spellbinding melancholy (Ballrooms Of Mars, Mystic Lady), hard rocking ‘Zep Rex’ (Buick Mackane, Chariot Choogle) to pop poetry at its finest (Spaceball Ricochet, Rabbit Fighter).
Marc Bolan was a unique and extraordinary pop artist. The Slider, both intensely personal and hugely accessible, was and remains a unique and extraordinary album. This expansive, lovingly produced T.Rex ‘ The Slider 40th Anniversary Box Set, now tells the full story for the first time. As well as producer Visconti’s remaster of the original 13-track album, there are B-sides and numerous outtakes, including a previously unreleased demo of the title track from Visconti’s private collection.
