Glam era confession about longing, illusion, and the distance between desire and arrival
Released by SLADE at the height of their early 1970s visibility, OOH LA LA IN L.A. arrived as a single that did not repeat the chart dominance of the band’s anthemic stomp hits, yet it quietly revealed another dimension of their songwriting voice. While it did not establish itself as a major chart force on release, the song became part of the group’s recorded legacy through later collections and live association, standing slightly apart from the singles that made SLADE household names. Its place outside a definitive studio album context has, over time, allowed the song to function less as a product and more as a reflection, an artifact of a band thinking beyond the immediate mechanics of chart success.
At its core, OOH LA LA IN L.A. is not about conquest or celebration. It is about projection. The title itself frames Los Angeles not as a real city but as an idea, a symbol of promise inflated by distance and expectation. Where many contemporaries treated America as a land of opportunity or validation, SLADE approached it with ambivalence. The phrase “ooh la la” carries irony here, signaling fascination laced with skepticism. It sounds like admiration, yet it lands with a knowing smile.
Lyrically, the song examines the emotional cost of believing too completely in somewhere else. The narrator is drawn toward L.A. as a solution, a place where longing might finally settle, but the tone never fully commits to optimism. There is a subtle acknowledgment that escape does not equal resolution. The ache remains portable. This perspective is striking coming from a band often associated with volume, hooks, and immediacy. Here, the urgency is inward, reflective rather than explosive.
Musically, OOH LA LA IN L.A. tempers SLADE’s trademark crunch with melodic restraint. The performance leans into mid tempo pacing, allowing space for the lyric to breathe. Noddy Holder’s vocal delivery carries a weariness beneath its familiar rasp, as though the singer understands the seduction of the dream while already anticipating its limitations. The band plays with control, suggesting maturity rather than excess.
In the broader arc of SLADE’s catalog, the song occupies an important but understated role. It foreshadows the band’s later willingness to explore emotional ambiguity and narrative depth, particularly in works that questioned fame, ambition, and identity. While it may not be the track most often cited in discussions of their legacy, its endurance lies in how accurately it captures a universal moment, that pause before departure, when hope and doubt coexist in equal measure.
Decades on, OOH LA LA IN L.A. resonates less as a period piece and more as a quiet commentary on aspiration itself. It reminds the listener that destinations are rarely the answers we expect them to be, and that sometimes the most revealing journeys are the ones that unfold entirely within the song’s four minutes of reflection.