The 20th of February 1975
Official UK Singles Chart results from Sunday the 16th to Saturday the 22nd of February 1975
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 15th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 16th,
published on Tuesday the 18th,
and broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on Sunday the 23rd of February 1975.
Slade
How Does It Feel
At No.24, on “The Top 50 UK Singles Chart”, the week of my 3rd Birthday, is Slade with How Does It Feel.
As singles go,..
…there is only so much artistry you can pack into such a short time-span. You’ve basically got a few minutes of someone’s attention, and of course you’re also at the mercy of the format’s physical limit. Some have pushed that limit to its very edge, some have managed to get everything in there in under three minutes. Slade manages to reach nigh-on perfection here in just under five.
Ever since the significant, and near cataclysmic, events which had happened less than 18 months previously, the band have been feeling out a more mature road, and have been aware that mortality is a fragile thing. With that seemingly in mind, they’re keen to not let themselves slip into an easier road of just churning out the same old output, which although is a safe bet, is not really what they want to fall into; and so for themselves, and for their huge following, they want to grow and fulfil the opportunity to show just how far their musical mastery can take them.
With this second single,..
…an edited version, pulled from their latest album release, which is the soundtrack to their first forays into putting their art onto celluloid, “Flame” (also referred to as “Slade in Flame”), we are given a glimpse into an otherwise familiar band’s inner machinery.
The plot of the film itself was mainly their decision. In part looking back (the film is meant to be set almost ten years previously, just as their own creation was evolving and crashing together) but also an opportunity of looking forward.
They’d had the chance to instead do either a more comedic parody film, or even a lighthearted good-time feel-good rocker. Instead, they chose a starkly, almost realistic take of how life really can be, and a lot of the time really is, when in a group just trying to be on the climb, by attempting, and experimenting, while facing all the harsh realities of the politics of band management, the poisons, temptations and confusions behind the illusions, that are usually safely veiled from the public’s gaze, but here, they are now purposefully pushing out in front and exposing for everyone to make their own minds up.
This was a band who had been there, and in most cases done it for real. They were showing it’s not all glamour and glam-rock, it’s sometimes messy, sometimes morbid, and (in their fictional alter-ego as the group Flame) ultimately isn’t worth it.
When it released,..
…the film divided their followers, especially the ones who didn’t want to know how damn hard life in a band can really be. They were the ones who just wanted their group to give them a rollicking good time on screen. The problem was, this was a band laying it bare and, after their real-life dramas so far, and after all their own running around they’d had to do just to try and keep going, they are now incapable of bullshit; and so whereas the old generation, who had always been told to keep a stiff upper lip in times of personal conflict, where even the thought just being honest with themselves and the incredibly brave decision to rip off the plaster and expose the wounds they’d accumulated along the way, was a sign of crippling, even repulsive, weakness, the band, with this single, are here to tell you that actually, it’s a sign of a much purer strength to even begin to ask yourself that question, especially now you’ve seen what it’s really like.
It’s not just a standout track from the film, or the soundtrack album which accompanies it. It’s the most important message they’ve ever put down onto a single. They are fearless enough to, not only create a film such as this, which is so aptly titled, due to the risk of it burning down everything they’d built up so far, but they are willing to take a chance on the threat that it could also ignite the bridges that connect to their followers.
It’s bombastic, defiant fortitude.
The building of the song itself, and its steadfastness to stand in the way of ostracism, to even offer this as its own piece on its own, is a moment of the band’s worldly wisdom which they feel absolutely compelled to share to the world; and for those that are prepared to listen, and to go on their own journey, where they too may seem like they themselves are being thrown apart in their own lives, to travel through their own personal torments and mortalities in whatever shape and size they may be uncompromisingly gift-wrapped, and are forced to be given themselves the time needed to unwrap it, search within it, question it, and try and live with it. They, just like these four guys themselves who have been through all of the above together, and apart, will ultimately, many years from now, be also promised new horizons, and new elations.
It’s Slade allowing you to give yourself something.
A chance.
Hope.
It is a powerful,..
…and an incredibly emotive and underrated piece which, in just under five minutes, tells you all there is to know about how important it is to do that one simple but painful, confusing, scary thing; and what it is to eventually emerge from it all, out the other end, and to then ultimately ask yourself once more.
How does it feel?
The single…
…had entered the UK chart only last week, when it landed at No.38, before its climb of 14 places to this position this week.
From here…
…it will continue on its upward trajectory, although at a more sedated pace than their most recent output, first scaling just a few more places to reach No.21, before breaking the Top 20 and arriving at No.15 at the beginning of March. A position which it will not better during its run.
As the days roll by, so the single slips a place, then falls further away and back out of the Top 20 as the clocks spring forward into British Summer Time with the promise of brighter days ahead.
Eventually it finally departs the chart after the 29th of that month, during the Easter weekend, with 7 weeks to take with it, and the band themselves heading towards more sensations and new horizons.
The “A” Side
The “B” Side
“How Does It Feel?” Russell Harty performance
“How Does It Feel?” TopPop appearance
“How Does It Feel?” Live performance (1975)
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