Old New Borrowed and Blue - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The album was voted number 10 for the best albums of the year in the Disc Music Awards 1974.

Reviews for the Salvo remastered edition of the album were overall positive.

Bob Stanley of The Times wrote "Slade are now known as the missing link between the Beatles and Oasis. This 1974 effort is the pick of their early albums: Noddy Holder’s girder-munching vocals are spread evenly between Black Country rock (Just A Little Bit), Macca-styled ballads (the hit Everyday), and the odd music-hall blunder. This is joyous, unshackled and unpretentious stuff that reminds you how they rattled off six No 1s."

rockahead.net stated "The sleeve notes written by Dave Ling are informative and amusing and more importantly the sound quality is exceptional particularly when the volume is cranked up high something that is always a consideration when playing Slade albums."

Jez Burr for BBC wrote "At last the Wolverhampton boys get a decent overhaul."

Terry Staunton for Record Collector stated "Each of these reissues is generously bolstered by B-sides never previously issued on CD, the best of which has to be the ONB&B bonus of Kill ‘Em At The Hot Club Tonite; Nod and Jim airing their perhaps surprising fondness for the jazz stylings of Stephane Grapelli! That’s the thing about Slade: the sheer force and bombast of the hits has, in many ways, blinded listeners to their other myriad joys. They could have been an altogether different prospect once they’d unlaced the big boots."

In early 2010, Classic Rock magazine featured Slade as part of their ‘The Hard Stuff Buyers Guide’ where the magazine reviewed numerous Slade albums. As part of the ‘Superior: Reputation Cementing’ section, a review of Old New Borrowed and Blue wrote "With this album (re-titled in America as ‘Stomp Your Hand, Clap Your Feet’) Slade capitalised on the opportunity opened up by the single ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ to top the UK album for the third (and final) time. If the wistful ballads ‘Everyday’ and ‘Miles out to Sea’ were harbingers of the growth that would follow next time around, the album is crammed with mouth-watering commercial, hard rock nuggets including ‘We’re Really Gonna Raise the Roof’, ‘My Friend Stan’ and ‘When the Lights are Out’ (the latter recently covered by Cheap Trick)."

Allmusic also wrote of the American version of the album, "Full of trademark Slade rock & roll, Stomp Your Hands, Clap Your Feet continues the band's arena style stomp. With tunes such as "We're Really Gonna Raise the Roof" and "Do We Still Do It," Slade fans can be assured that these guys hadn't lost the will to rock out. Although other cuts do find them falling into a formula of sound, Stomp Your Hands, Clap Your Feet has enough going for it for most rock fans to come back for more. Dated, a bit, but still rockin' hard."