T REX - The Slider LPBLN 5001 - Vinyl Aussie 1st press 1972 + inner Glam VG+

	A$		40
	$		26

FOR SALE 
1972  First Australian pressing - Vinyl includes inner sleeve The peak of Marc Bolan’s career, the extravagant and near-perfect The Slider.


T. Rex – The Slider Vinyl Lp 
Label: T. Rex – BLN 5001 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album Country: Australia Released: 1972

Recorded in March and released in July of 1972, The Slider marked both the zenith and imminent approach of the cliff’s edge for T. Rextasy. Recorded in a dilapidated castle in France, it captured Marc Bolan as the King of Glam at the absolute height of his powers. Think Nadia Comăneci in 1976, Prince in the ’80s, or Ronnie O’Sullivan running the snooker table. T. Rex could do no wrong during that span.
As such, every wrist flick and downstroke on The Slider rings out like an act of god. Each cast-off line from Bolan’s notebook transforms into a profound edict from on high. And every cut—be it pop perfection or half-sketched—gets spun into cotton candy by Visconti and the backing vocals of Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (better known as Flo & Eddie), harmonizing their nasal voices towards new adenoidal highs. The Slider exudes confidence to the point of becoming delirious and drunk on Bolan’s own self-regard, careening between bawdy, brash Little Richard lop-bam-booms, weirdo machismo rock, and ethereal acoustic ballads, while line by line Bolan toggles between profundity and inanity, melancholia and nonsense.
“Metal Guru” opens the album with a gush of guitar and Bolan’s mawkish cry, “Mwah-ahah-yeeeah.” It’s a victory lap as introduction and celebratory whoop-along. At least until each verse detours into stranger terrain: surrealistic upholstery (“armour-plated chair”), rock’n’roll cliché (“you're gonna bring my baby to me”), tongue-twisting meter-buster (“just like a silver-studded sabre-tooth dream”). It’s a glorious amount of gobbledygook.
From his earliest days, Bolan knew his way with the juxtapose of strange, slippery words, drawing inspiration from the poetry of fellow countrymen like John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as the fantastical realms of J.R.R. Tolkien and Lewis Carroll. As Bolan pivoted from hippie-folk underground obscurity to mainstream pop star, discarding elves for automobiles, he kept the mood of his words intact. At the start of a new decade, when the gap between rock and pop was beginning to widen, Bolan was content to blur the lines between genres. No longer happy with those weedy full-lengths and favoring instead the concision of a 45, T. Rex’s greatest songs hit like hard candy: crunchy, mouth-tingling sweet, and a little unreal.

A1 Metal Guru A2 Mystic Lady A3 Rock On A4 The Slider A5 Baby Boomerang A6 Spaceball Ricochet A7 Buick MacKane B1 Telegram Sam B2 Rabbit Fighter B3 Baby Strange B4 Ballrooms Of Mars B5 Chariot Choogle B6 Main Man
Condition Media Condition: 1972 First pressing - Vinyl Media Condition: VG+    Sleeve Condition: VG+ and  inner sleeve with lyrics VG+
He kept remnants of his folksy roots, though. “Mystic Lady” is a keenly sweet and fragile acoustic number, an ode to a sorceress in dungarees set adrift by strummed acoustic guitar and Visconti’s Romantic strings. In one couplet, cliché and stunning surrealism are wed: “Fills my heart with pain/Fills my toes with rain,” Bolan’s clenched-jaw jitter eliciting that visceral sensation.

Visconti would go on to produce iconic albums for the likes of Bowie and Thin Lizzy later in the decade, but you can hear his golden touch across the album. On the three-minute romp of “Rock On,” he weaves together boogie-woogie piano, overdriven guitar, a prancing snare drum, Flo & Eddie’s glorious and grotesque harmonies, and a sax phased and flanged until it’s a streak of stardust.
Even The Slider’s lesser songs—“Baby Boomerang” and “Baby Strange” are as puerile as their titles suggest—are elevated by Visconti’s touch. The string sections of “Rabbit Fighter” form a sweeping anthem from so much hot air. Just as impressive is how a throwaway like “Spaceball Ricochet” can become wholly evocative. “Ah ah ah/Do the spaceball” doesn’t do a damned thing when written out, but with the bowed cello and Flo & Eddie’s uncanny accompaniment of Bolan’s gasps, this trifle transforms into one of the album’s most ethereal moments.
“Chariot Choogle” (like “Buick Mackane” on the A side) is a polymer of heavy guitars and giddiness. Amid some footballer barks lies a sweetheart of a line: “Girl you are groove/You're like the planets when you move.” It reveals just how T. Rex took the onerousness weight of hypermasculine blues-based rock and replaced it with something featherlight and androgynous, the moment where Reynolds said, “cock rock became coquette rock.” On the 12-bar blues title track, Bolan’s admission that “and when I’m sad, I slide” induces a sense of vertigo with phased strings and voices, the shaker and fricative hiss close in the mix anticipating ASMR. Elsewhere, Bolan sings that the slider is “a sexual glider” while promo for the album asked: “To be or not to be, that is The Slider.” Thousands of spins later, I confess I’m no closer to understanding just what the titular proper noun or verb might mean.
In hindsight, it’s hard to imagine Bolan being that cocksure, but there was a moment in time in the UK when you could utter T. Rex in the same breath as the Beatles and the Stones and not be wrong. Who else would call Bob Dylan “Bobby” and mention him multiple times over the course of the album, even though they never met in real life? Who else was a big enough star to get a Beatle to shoot Born to Boogie, a vanity film about him? Who else but Marc Bolan could out-glam Elton John on the same stage? And when his frenemy David Bowie finally broke onto the charts with the release of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Bolan had three other albums in the Top 30 to keep him company. Bowie, though, would have the last laugh. While wars were waged for or against Bolan in the letters section of Melody Maker and New Musical Express, The Slider topped out at #4 and marked the end of his reign. He’d have two more hits, but neither would reach the #1 slot. The year 1973 marked the last time Bolan placed a song in the top 10 during his lifetime, a precipitous plunge worthy of Icarus.
“He had the biggest ego of any rock star,” his bandmate Volman said. “No one in his own mind was greater than Marc Bolan.” It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that when Flo & Eddie’s manic falsettos first harmonized with him on “Hot Love,” it gave Bolan the first taste of success. But Flo & Eddie were also the first to get fed up with Bolan’s narcissism and left before T. Rex’s next album Tanx. Drummer Bill Legend left after, and Visconti would be unceremoniously relieved of production duties after 1974’s Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow. Mickey Finn was gone by the end of that year. By the time Marc Bolan died in a car crash in 1977, he was already being eclipsed by Bowie.
But just a glance at The Slider’s cover reveals that Bolan’s legacy is still with us. One instantly sees the father of Slash’s own iconic look. Watch the diminutive Bolan stalk the stage like an androgynous elf in his shimmering high-heeled boots and you see where another diminutive yet larger-than-life rock star like Prince took his cues. In the 21st century, as rock bands peeled away excess, Bolan’s DNA readily sprung forth from the likes of the White Stripes and Black Keys. Even without a guitar, dance producers in the new millennium sought the same, with the likes of Superpitcher, Michael Mayer, and Matthew Dear stripping everything back and cranking up the glitter and glam.
While responsible for the birth of glam in the UK, Reynolds argues that T. Rex “was too quicksilver” for a rock legacy. So while Ziggy Stardust tells a fairly coherent story and ascended into “classic album” status, The Slider forever eludes our grasp. By keeping their mystery intact, Bolan’s songs emulate his forebears best, whether it’s wondering where the wang dang doodle is at or what a Jabberwocky is. In that riddling way, Bolan is always reborn to boogie.

Initially a British folk-rock combo called Tyrannosaurus Rex fronted by guitarist/vocalist Marc Bolan (born Mark Feld). They became glam rock pioneers and shortened their name to T. Rex in 1970. They had a series of top ten hits in the UK, including four number one singles. In America, the group only had one major hit - "Bang a Gong (Get It On)". They retained a following until Marc Bolan's death in 1977.
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'All individually listed records (non-lot and not sealed) are shipped with vinyl out of jacket, 
with both vinyl & jacket in clear poly protective cover 
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HAPPY TO COMINE POSTAGE IF YOU PURCHASE  MORE THAN ONE ITEM ECORD GRADING  Here are the standard grades for record albums, from best to worst.
MINT (M)
These are absolutely perfect in every way. Often rumored but rarely seen, Mint should never be used as a grade unless more than one person agrees that the record or sleeve truly is in this condition. There is no set percentage of the Near Mint value these can bring; it is best negotiated between buyer and seller.
NEAR MINT (NM OR M-)
A good description of a NM record is “it looks like it just came from a retail store and it was opened for the first time.” In other words, it’s nearly perfect. Many dealers won’t use a grade higher than this, implying (perhaps correctly) that no record or sleeve is ever truly perfect.
NM records are shiny, with no visible defects. Writing, stickers or other markings cannot appear on the label, nor can any “spindle marks” from someone trying to blindly put the record on the turntable. Major factory defects also must be absent; a record and label obviously pressed off center is not Near Mint. If played, it will do so with no surface noise. (NM records don’t have to be “never played”; a record used on an excellent turntable can remain NM after many plays if the disc is properly cared for.)
NM covers are free of creases, ring wear and seam splits of any kind.
NOTE: These are high standards, and they are not on a sliding scale. A record or sleeve from the 1950s must meet the same standards as one from the 1990s or 2000s to be Near Mint! It’s estimated that no more than 2 to 4 percent of all records remaining from the 1950s and 1960s are truly Near Mint. 
This is why they fetch such high prices, even for more common items.
Don’t assume your records are Near Mint. They must meet these standards to qualify!
VERY GOOD PLUS (VG+) or EXCELLENT (E)
A good description of a VG+ record is “except for a couple minor things, this would be Near Mint.” Most collectors, especially those who want to play their records, will be happy with a VG+ record, especially if it toward the high end of the grade (sometimes called VG++ or E+).
VG+ records may show some slight signs of wear, including light scuffs or very light scratches that do not affect the listening experience. Slight warps that do not affect the sound are OK. Minor signs of handling are OK, too, such as telltale marks around the center hole, but repeated playing has not misshapen the hole. There may be some very light ring wear or discoloration, but it should be barely noticeable.
VG+ covers should have only minor wear. A VG+ cover might have some very minor seam wear or a split (less than one inch long) at the bottom, the most vulnerable location. Also, a VG+ cover may have some defacing, such as a cut-out marking. Covers with cut-out markings can never be considered Near Mint.
Very Good (VG)
Many of the imperfections found on a VG+ record are more obvious on a VG record. That said, VG records — which usually sell for no more than 25 percent of a NM record — are among the biggest bargains in record collecting, because most of the “big money” goes for more perfect copies. For many listeners, a VG record or sleeve will be worth the money.
VG records have more obvious flaws than their counterparts in better shape. They lack most of the original gloss found on factory-fresh records. Groove wear is evident on sight, as are light scratches deep enough to feel with a fingernail. When played, a VG record has surface noise, and some scratches may be audible, especially in soft passages and during a song’s intro and ending. But the noise will not overpower the music otherwise.