Slade

The most successful British singles band of the 1970s, and one almost nobody in America noticed. Slade came out of Wolverhampton, formed as the Vendors in 1963 and settled into their lasting shape in 1966 as the 'N Betweens: Noddy Holder on vocals and guitar, Dave Hill on lead, Jim Lea on bass, keyboards and violin, and Don Powell on drums. Chas Chandler — the Animals bassist who had found and managed Jimi Hendrix — took them on in 1969, cropped their hair into a skinhead look, moved them to Polydor and told them to write their own material. What followed was seventeen consecutive top 20 singles and six No. 1s, every one of the chart-toppers written by Holder and Lea, and the deliberate misspellings that became their signature: Coz I Luv You, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, Gudbuy T'Jane, Cum On Feel the Noize.

They were the first act to send three singles into the chart at No. 1. Slayed? and Old New Borrowed and Blue both topped the album chart, and Merry Xmas Everybody took Christmas 1973, sold over a million copies, and has returned to the British chart nearly every December since. America stayed out of reach — a 1975 move there failed, though Quiet Riot's 1983 cover of Cum On Feel the Noize reached No. 5 on the Hot 100 and paid the writers handsomely. A last-minute booking at the 1980 Reading Festival, standing in for Ozzy Osbourne, revived them at home and led to My Oh My and Run Runaway. Holder and Lea left in 1992; Hill has kept the band on the road since.