You Boyz Make Big Noize - Promotion

Promotion

The album received little promotion from the label, largely due to the disappointing sales of lead single Still the Same. Dave Hill discussed the songs failure in a 1987 fan club interview. "'Still the same' is basically being regarded as a flop in terms of what was expected of it. I think the record company were mostly disappointed as it was them rather than the group who chose it. We brought this record out, not in the usual Christmas period, which on the face of it seemed to me to be a feasible idea as an attempt to get away from the 'Slade only exist at Christmas time' situation. On listening to opinion though, it seems to have been regarded as another 'My Oh My' type song, which perhaps should have come out at Christmas. When 'My Oh My' was released, it was just as slow to take off, but as soon as we got the radio play, it rocketed. 'Still the same' did virtually the same as 'My Oh My' chart-wise in its first few weeks, but at the point where 'My Oh My' picked up radio play, 'Still the Same' was dropped completely."

No promotional videos were created for the singles and only a small handful of TV performances were made by the band. The band had not performed live since 1983 due to Noddy Holder's personal reasons. The rumour at the time of release was a possible tour following this album. The tour never happened, most likely due to the failure of the album. Dave Hill mentioned the idea for a tour in a 1987 interview for the Slade fan club. "We could announce a tour now, but caution tells us that we'd do better to announce one on the back of a hit. We haven't called it a day on the touring and if luck would have it, we could be touring after this LP."

In an early 1987 interview with Jim Lea for the Slade fan club, Lea was asked about the reports of the band flying to the States to record a video for "Ooh la la in L.A." which was released as a U.S. only single. Jim responded "Well, when you are dealing with record companies, it all comes down to money, power strokes and the way they think a record is going to go. CBS deliberately held back on doing the video because, although they could see it picking up a few heavyweight stations, they wanted to wait to see if it picked up any more. It actually did pick up one or two more, but then suddenly tailed off, so the video idea was scrapped. It got to the stage when there was this small matter of many tens of thousands of pounds and who was going to pay? It is a bit different in the States in that the record companies are totally ruled by the business affairs people, whereas over here the A&R men run things."

Holder stated the promotion he was doing for the album in a fan club interview "From about March till about two or three weeks ago, I have been doing radios and interviews solid. There have been loads of Slade specials in different parts of the country."

By 1987, the band had also dropped out of the public eye which album and single sales proved. Rumours of split had been reported, especially after no band activity happened during 1986. Hill spoke of this in the 1987 interview. "Fans might be feeling a little left out and a bit disappointed, but they've got to understand that 21 years now is a long time to stay together as a group. We are a little older and we are still trying. I think that deep-seatedly within the group, every one of us would play live, but what we are searching for is a way to take us to another stage of success, and it's a hard route that we're trying."

Around the time, the band had felt unappreciated which Hill also commented on "We don't just want to go out and have people say we did a tour just to say we're around. Although the fans will be there and love it, the public at large will have an attitude of 'let's go and see how old Slade is, cos they're good for a laugh'. To try and put ourselves in a better category, I would like to see us up at the NEC and sell it out. So that we're not just doing the rounds for the rounds sake, we want to show our fans that we're not simply trying to stay together. We haven't reached the market that Dire Straits have captured and they've never been as exciting as us. If you think about us, we really ought to be in that level, shouldn't we?"

In a 1988 interview for the Slade fan club, Don Powell was asked about his thoughts on the failure of both singles "You Boyz Make Big Noize" and "We Won't Give In". "I really don't know why we have problems like that. We just seen to get the token plays, but the records tend not to bite and get dropped. Obviously we are disappointed and will have to decide what we are going to do next. At the moment, no-one in the UK seems to want to know. We never seem to get any recognition for anything we do. Even rock encyclopaedias about the 70's never mention us and the BBC have virtually ignored us in their 'Rock and roll years' programmes."

"It just doesn't seem fair because Nod and Jim are still great songwriters and have never received the recognition they truly deserve. We had three singles in 1973 go straight to number one - even the Beatles didn't accomplish that, but it's a feat that's never remembered! I've had a few Radio One producers to dinner and they say they can only give records a token play, and if there's no reaction, that's as far as it goes."