At the start of 1972, T. Rex was riding a wave of superstardom propelled by four successive top 3 hits (including two number ones) and an 8-week run at the summit of the UK charts for Electric Warrior, which became that country's best-selling album of 1971.

Musically, outside of the ballads, the album was harder rocking than Electric Warrior, featuring several heavy metal-influenced songs like "Buick MacKane" and "Chariot Choogle" that Bolan cheekily labeled "Zep Rex",[8] along with a further use of elaborate studio techniques (phasing, reverb, backwards guitars etc.)

"Telegram Sam" and the B-sides "Baby Strange" (also to appear on the album), "Cadilac" (sic) and "Thunderwing" were all recorded along with an early version of "Spaceball Ricochet".

On the recommendation of Elton John, the bulk of The Slider was recorded outside of Paris at Strawberry Studios in Château d'Hérouville to avoid British taxing laws.

After a short tour of the United States, sessions reconvened at Strawberry Studios during 8–12 March,[9] where backing tracks for "The Slider", "Rock On", "Metal Guru", "Mystic Lady", "Spaceball Ricochet" (remake), "Rabbit Fighter" and "Main Man" were laid down along with the B-sides "Lady" and "Sunken Rags" plus an outtake later titled "Buick MacKane and the Babe Shadow" on archival releases.

Visconti remembers the happiest times making the record being late-night parties in the studio when "the French wine would kick in and we’d listen to the playback of the songs we’d done that day.

The photographs were taken the same day that Starr was filming the T. Rex documentary Born to Boogie at John Lennon's estate, Tittenhurst Park.

[12] Producer Tony Visconti, however, disputes that Starr took the photograph, stating "Marc [Bolan] handed me his motorized Nikon and asked me to fire off two rolls of black and white film while we were on the set of Born to Boogie.

[17] The second single "Metal Guru" was released in May 1972 and charted in the United Kingdom for fourteen weeks, giving the group its fourth number 1.

[19] Part of the cause may have been severe overexposure of the band in their home country, where in the four months prior to its release the market had been flooded with an avalanche of reissued Bolan product, including the greatest hits set Bolan Boogie and a double album repackaging of the first two Tyrannosaurus Rex albums, both of which flew to number 1 in succession that spring yet likely took from sales of The Slider.

The Slider was remastered again for CD by Edsel Records in 1994 as part of their extensive T. Rex reissue campaign and a number of different bonus tracks were appended.

But the hushed intimacy of Bolan's vocal delivery helps to make one word do the work of ten — particularly when combined with his gift of coining oddly appealing images".

[26] Michael Oldfield at Melody Maker enthused that Bolan had "produced an album in which the winning formula is jiggled around enough to make a thoroughly enjoyable, and exceptionally good, album" while Penny Valentine at Sounds stated approvingly that "each track is a solid piece of chart appeal...many of which could be whipped off as a single at any time" although she described the lyrics as "frugal repetitive", being simply a series of images and twists.

[4] Disc & Music Echo complimented "Spaceball Ricochet" as the best number but noted that others are "of the usual heavy bass type, although they aren't as strong as the singles' tracks".

Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote, "Even if it treads largely the same ground as Electric Warrior, The Slider is flawlessly executed and every bit the classic that its predecessor is".

Recorded in a dilapidated castle in France, it captured Marc Bolan as the King of Glam at the absolute height of his powers".

'Telegram Sam' was also on that album and the whole thing was unusually spooky and had a weird atmosphere, considering it was a number one record and they were essentially a teenybop band".

[31] "Ballrooms of Mars" was featured in the 2003 comedy film School of Rock, and was used as the opening theme of the Spanish TV series Punta Escarlata.

The lyrics of the song "Baby Boomerang" became a plot element in a 1973 episode of Cannon, "The Hard Rock Roller Coaster".

", Guns N' Roses recorded a version of "Buick MacKane" as part of a medley with Soundgarden's "Big Dumb Sex".