Slade’s B-sides were often as good, if not better, than their A-sides. The flip of the Walsall wanderers’ second UK number one underlined the point. In contrast to the stomping bootboy rhythms and relentlessly churning guitar riff and of ‘Tak Me Bak ’Ome’, a high-energy vehicle for singer Noddy Holder to turn on the brutish charm, ‘Wonderin’ Y’ was a pensive ballad driven by Jim Lea’s whirling bass figure and plangent piano chops. It caught Holder at his most wistful, singing rather than shouting as he reminisced about being “Pushed around/Kicking stones along the ground” over choral backing harmonies that presaged Queen and Chas Chandler’s sophisticated production. At the time Slade seemed all set to become the biggest band since the Beatles, yet a subsequent four-year run of top tier UK hits, largely written to the A-side’s boisterous formula, utterly failed to translate in America. A whole string of B-side gems such as ‘My Life is Natural’ [‘Coz I Luv You’, 1971], ‘Man Who Speaks Evil’, [‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’, 1972] and ‘Forest Full Of Needles’ [‘Gypsy Roadhog’, 1977] have lost none of their charm, showcasing an outfit far more eclectic than their terrace chant heyday hinted at.