When Slade legend Noddy Holder reviews singles, you sit up and pay attention. Back in March 1996, the Walsall Warbler did exactly that for the now-defunct British music magazine Select, working through a stack of new releases from the likes of Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, The Flaming Lips, Lush and Rocket From The Crypt, and delivering verdicts that were by turns generous, puzzled and absolutely priceless.
How Noddy Holder reviews singles ended up in Select magazine
Writer Clark Collis recruited Neville John Holder MBE for the column, and the fit made a certain kind of sense. Holder has long been a beloved figure well beyond the Slade back catalogue: actor, author, former quiz show host, TV critic, and the man whose bellowed ‘It’s Chriiiiistmaaaas!’ has become something close to an annual national institution. But his taste in contemporary indie and alternative rock was less publicised, and the Select session put that to the test in fine style.
The Oasis entry was never going to be awkward. The Gallaghers had just included a cover of Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize as a B-side to Don’t Look Back In Anger, and Holder called it ‘great’, adding his own particular footnote: ‘The best bit is when they start doing a piss-take of our accents.’ Hard to argue with the man on his own turf.
The Smashing Pumpkins verdict and other highlights
The real revelation was Holder’s enthusiasm for the Smashing Pumpkins. Presented with 1979, the chilled third single from the band’s 1995 double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, he did not hesitate: ‘I’ve got this album.’ From there he was off, enthusing that the Pumpkins ‘just can’t be pigeonholed’ and praising their ‘off the wall’ style. ‘You can hear this in 20 listenings’ time and you’ll hear something new,’ he told Collis. Not a bad capsule review of one of the decade’s defining records.
Red Hot Chili Peppers got a warmer reception than some critics were giving them at the time. One Hot Minute, the album they were then promoting and featuring moonlighting Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, had landed to decidedly lukewarm notices, and Holder was honest about the lead single Aeroplane: ‘I’m not mad on this song… it wanders about a bit.’ Candid, fair enough, and more diplomatically phrased than a good few of the reviews the record received elsewhere.
Rocket From The Crypt’s urgent Born In ’69 left him similarly unmoved. ‘I think they’ll probably need a bit more time to develop,’ he offered, which is the sort of thing an uncle says at a school concert and somehow lands without malice. Nick Cave and PJ Harvey’s murder ballad Henry Lee, on the other hand, drew genuine warmth. Holder compared the track to Leonard Cohen and declared, ‘It’ll be good seeing the video.’ Respect where it’s due.
The Flaming Lips produced his most quotable moment. Confronted with the lysergic oddness of This Here Giraffe, Holder could only respond: ‘Whatever they’re on, I want some!’ A sentence that has aged rather well.
His Single of the Month went to Lush for Ladykillers, a record he predicted he’d still be singing along to ‘in a fortnight’. His reasoning was airtight: ‘It’s got handclaps in the middle bit. You can’t beat handclaps.’
The full column ran in the March 1996 issue of Select. Louder has the full details of what Holder made of each release, and it holds up as one of the better celebrity reviews the British music press ever commissioned. The handclap assessment alone earns it a place in the archive.
