Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody

December 20, 2012 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

Slade was a 70s/80s band, and they had a few number ones and a few chart hits. They consisted of Noddy Holder, Dave Hill, Jim Lea and Don Powell. They are extremely well known, and forever will be, are they going to get back together? Highly unlikely, especially since they have already made a fortune. However never say never right? Their number ones were "Coz I Luv You", "Take Me Bak 'Ome", "Mama Weer All Crazee Now", "Cum On Feel The Noize", "Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me" and "Merry Xmas Everybody". I have heard a few but not many other songs. They stopped releasing before I was even born, and I rarely knew of them.

"Merry Xmas Everybody" was written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea. The song is about having fun and having British Family Christmas. The lyrics are very good to look at and some of them, I can't help but laugh as it's true in a lot of families, and I can imagine that happening. It was written when a lot of workers were on strike and this song was created to pick them all up and cheer them up, and that's exactly what it does, even now. No wonder it got to number one. It has re-entered the UK chart in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1998, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 at chart numbers 70, 32, 67, 20, 47, 48, 71, 99, 93, 30, 21, 20, 32, 41, 50 and 33 respectively. It is again, expected to chart in 2012.

The music video is a performance piece, that is rarely shown on TV Channels. Instead they usually take a Top Of The Pops performance or something else. This is just a recorded performance piece, but it also shows how much things have changed.

Back then a performance piece was in front of a small crowd of fans. If you compare that to a few most recent performance based videos such as Swedish House Mafia's "Don't You Worry Child" or Rita Ora's "Shine Ya Light", it shows how much things have changed, and if there were no performance-based videos back then, the youth of today (including me) would not realise how much things have changed.

There are performance videos that get 5 stars from me, and although this isn't one of them, they have a few good things. This video shows that the band produces a lot of energy when they perform. They're all smiling and having fun. There's shots of the crowd which shows how much people liked Slade back then. And of course there's snow on the ground, since it is a Christmas song.

Overall, a great song, that doesn't fit the title because I can never identify the song until someone sings it. It's accompanying music video is just as forgettable, however it has all the attributes I expect from a performance-based video. So I'm split between ratings for this video, but deciding to go through the middle, as it is kind of average, which is incredibly unlike the song, which is amazing.