There's been what amounts to a 'clamor' for the Queen journey from start to finish. By which I mean that a couple of people have mentioned it to me. I haven't seen the Bohemian Rhapsody movie (yet), but I understand that it may not be the best source if you really want the inside track anyway.
So the order goes as follows:
Queen
Queen II
Sheer Heart Attack
A Night At The Opera
A Day At The Races
News Of The World
Jazz
The Game
Flash Gordon
Hot Space
The Works
A Kind Of Magic
The Miracle
Innuendo
Made In Heaven
The Cosmos Rocks (with Paul Rodgers)
Obviously, I cannot contain my delight that I am forcing myself to watch Flash Gordon again. The concept of a 'guilty pleasure' is one I don't really subscribe to, but as completely ridiculous movies go, it does take some beating.
QUEEN
Released: 13th July 1973
Queen
I put out a Facebook notification on this one when it hit its 45 year anniversary in 2018 and summed it up with something along the lines of 'Queen start as they mean to go on, with pompous bombast'. In fact you really could leave it there. Queen as the finished article seem to be present and correct already. They might even have stopped after Album 1, Track 1 - 'Keep Yourself Alive' which is about the most Queenish song you'll ever hear anyway. When I recently listened to a Joe Satriani album, I did some cursory research on who was considered the greatest guitarist of all time and was quite surprised to find Brian May at number 2 on the particular list I found. To the casual bystander, May has always been a mild figure of fun, with his bubble perm, guitar constructed from fireplace and soap-opera star wife, but he shows here that he can turn his hand to the full range of rock guitar styles and probably deserves his high ranking. He even throws in some Spanish guitar on 'Great King Rat' and 'The Night Comes Down'. I had a quick look for where Roger Taylor was listed in Rolling Stone's 100 greatest drummers list but couldn't seem to find him at all, which seems a little unfair, he's certainly an important part of this album.
And then, of course there's Freddie Mercury. Just like the rest of it, all of those complex vocal swoops are there from the start although it's interesting that Roger Taylor gets a go on lead vocals for his own song 'Modern Times Rock And Roll'. Freddie still gets to do some of those multitracked howls on it mind you.
Some of it is somewhat tedious. 'Liar' is pretty much the playground chant that you might expect it to be. I understand 'Great King Rat' is something of a fan favourite and there's something interesting about the nursery-rhyme aspect of the rhythm of the words, but it's kind of stupid too. And 'Jesus' is just rather puzzling. A chugging march through various parts of the New Testament. "It all began with the three wise men" sings Fred. Maybe this is all a reflection of his own religious upbringing (Parsi Zoroastrian according to Wikipedia) if I recall correctly he'll be having a stab at explaining Islam through the medium of a 4 minute rock song when we get to Jazz.
Perhaps most oddly of all is the inclusion of 'Seven Seas Of Rhye' right at the very end. The problem is, it's just a snatch of the final song, which will appear on the next album. So this is just the piano riff with some guitar and drum accompaniment for 1 minutes and 15 seconds. Were Queen so short of material for their first album that they had to resort to half formed snippets of ideas to pad it out?
So the order goes as follows:
Queen
Queen II
Sheer Heart Attack
A Night At The Opera
A Day At The Races
News Of The World
Jazz
The Game
Flash Gordon
Hot Space
The Works
A Kind Of Magic
The Miracle
Innuendo
Made In Heaven
The Cosmos Rocks (with Paul Rodgers)
Obviously, I cannot contain my delight that I am forcing myself to watch Flash Gordon again. The concept of a 'guilty pleasure' is one I don't really subscribe to, but as completely ridiculous movies go, it does take some beating.
Released: 13th July 1973
Queen
I put out a Facebook notification on this one when it hit its 45 year anniversary in 2018 and summed it up with something along the lines of 'Queen start as they mean to go on, with pompous bombast'. In fact you really could leave it there. Queen as the finished article seem to be present and correct already. They might even have stopped after Album 1, Track 1 - 'Keep Yourself Alive' which is about the most Queenish song you'll ever hear anyway. When I recently listened to a Joe Satriani album, I did some cursory research on who was considered the greatest guitarist of all time and was quite surprised to find Brian May at number 2 on the particular list I found. To the casual bystander, May has always been a mild figure of fun, with his bubble perm, guitar constructed from fireplace and soap-opera star wife, but he shows here that he can turn his hand to the full range of rock guitar styles and probably deserves his high ranking. He even throws in some Spanish guitar on 'Great King Rat' and 'The Night Comes Down'. I had a quick look for where Roger Taylor was listed in Rolling Stone's 100 greatest drummers list but couldn't seem to find him at all, which seems a little unfair, he's certainly an important part of this album.
And then, of course there's Freddie Mercury. Just like the rest of it, all of those complex vocal swoops are there from the start although it's interesting that Roger Taylor gets a go on lead vocals for his own song 'Modern Times Rock And Roll'. Freddie still gets to do some of those multitracked howls on it mind you.
Some of it is somewhat tedious. 'Liar' is pretty much the playground chant that you might expect it to be. I understand 'Great King Rat' is something of a fan favourite and there's something interesting about the nursery-rhyme aspect of the rhythm of the words, but it's kind of stupid too. And 'Jesus' is just rather puzzling. A chugging march through various parts of the New Testament. "It all began with the three wise men" sings Fred. Maybe this is all a reflection of his own religious upbringing (Parsi Zoroastrian according to Wikipedia) if I recall correctly he'll be having a stab at explaining Islam through the medium of a 4 minute rock song when we get to Jazz.
Perhaps most oddly of all is the inclusion of 'Seven Seas Of Rhye' right at the very end. The problem is, it's just a snatch of the final song, which will appear on the next album. So this is just the piano riff with some guitar and drum accompaniment for 1 minutes and 15 seconds. Were Queen so short of material for their first album that they had to resort to half formed snippets of ideas to pad it out?
Keep Yourself Alive
Doing Alright
Great King Rat
My Fairy King
Liar
The Night Comes Down
Modern Times Rock And Roll
Son And Daughter
Jesus
Seven Seas Of Rhye
SHEER HEART ATTACK
Released 8th November 1974
Queen
It's tempting to suggest that here Queen are attempting a trick also tried by the movies Quantum Of Solace and Halloween II, in that you could believe that there is an intent to start off at exactly the point that the predecessor ended. Hence where 'Seven Seas Of Rhye' ends with a somewhat shambolic rendition of 'Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside', Sheer Heart Attack starts with more end-of-the-pier shenanigans on 'Brighton Rock'. The Wikipedia crib notes on Brighton Rock tell me it's all in the vein of Quadrophenia and mods vs rockers. Did we have nothing else to talk about in the early seventies? I'm glad of the guidance, because while Mercury's falsetto is arresting, it doesn't really do a lot for coherence. It also indicates where Queen seem to be going, which is extended, varied rock compositions with lots of changes of pace, fancy fretwork and not a lot of sense to it.
It's followed by the first Big Hit. 'Killer Queen' got to number 2 in the UK chart. So far, Queen have shown a tendency to self referencing that would make Craig David blush. We're they contractually obliged to use the Q word on at least one track per album, or are they just doing it for a bet? I'm rather ambivalent about 'Killer Queen'. It's just that bit too arch and calculated for me.
The Taylor sung 'Tenement Funster' prefigures the eagerly anticipated 'I'm In Love With My Car' which is coming up on A Night At The Opera. Maybe it's his strained vocal, or structural similarities, but it feels like a trial run for IILWMC. It's combined with Mercury's 'Flick Of The Wrist' and 'Lily Of The Valley'.
I'm grateful to Roger Taylor for his high pitched scream at the start of 'In The Lap Of The Gods', cos it reminded me of The Osmonds' 'Crazy Horses' and so I went and listened to that as well. Not so sure about Fred's slowed down vocal later on though, a bit of a Phantom Of The Opera thing going on, although we must accuse Lloyd-Webber of the rip-off if there is any connection.
'Stone Cold Crazy' is held up on Wikipedia as a formative thrash metal track. Well, they may have a point. The combination of May's guitar and Taylor's frenzied drumming does convince as a step on the way from Zep to Megadeth. You could argue that it's a sign of their versatility that it has found it's way onto an album along with the breezy pop-rock of 'Misfire' and then the jazz-rock of 'Bring Back That Leroy Brown' which skirts along the edges of Andrews Sisters territory.
With the benefit of hindsight, you can see that Queen were on the brink of greatness here, but like with Queen II, it remains a confused album. Maybe that's the point. Queen probably never really settled for being a 'metal', 'rock', 'pop' or even 'funk' band, but instead did what they felt like doing at the time - and didn't really set boundaries. You could never see them doing a 'concept' album, Freddie seems to have a gadfly mentality that is not really interested in telling a story (even 'In The Lap Of The Gods' and 'In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited' don't seem to be related). It's all about a mood.
QUEEN II
Released: 8th March 1974
Queen
There's almost something slightly odd going on with this. On listening to the first two albums together, if you asked me which was the debut and which was the follow up, I think I'd get them in the wrong order. Queen is quite straightforward, brash, overconfident rock, whereas Queen II seems much more experimental and varied. Plenty of brash, overconfident moments though. When I first started listening to this I was thinking it was a bit of a dud. It seemed unfocused and Mercury's personality seemed subdued. But once you've heard it a few times, the variety is quite refreshing. This is a much more careful album than the first one and there's quite a degree of craft.
One other thing I'm rapidly discovering is that Queen are one of those bands whose Wikipedia pages has their fans mucky-mitt-marks all over it. See also Duran Duran. So both album entries include a full rundown and analysis of every track, what they mean etc etc. I wouldn't mind so much, but the actual content of a lot of Queen's output is quite vapid and does not lend itself to a lot of in-depth analysis. On here there's a hell of a lot of fantasy imagery and some kind of vague chess allusions going on. It didn't have a Side 1 and Side 2, but a 'White Side' and a 'Black Side'. There's White and Black Queens, fighting ogres and fairies. So far, so Tap. They also muck around with running recordings backward at the start of the 'Ogre Battle', but it ain't backmasking.
Vocal duties on 'White' are fairly evenly shared between Mercury and Taylor (the gushing contributor to the Wikipedia page starts going on about them achieving a two-octave range as a result on 'Father To Son' - well, not really pal, they contributed a 1 octave range each). The Black side, is dominated by Mercury, both in songwriting and singing, and so it's much more recognizably Queen.
It all winds up in the full version of 'Seven Seas Of Rhye', which, even so, is still a surprisingly short song. The title always suggested to me something far more epic.
Cover art is allegedly inspired by this photograph of Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express. She's a lot prettier.
Procession
Father To Son
White Queen (As It Began)
Same Day One Day
The Loser In The End
Ogre Battle
The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke
Nevermore
The March Of The Black Queen
Funny How Love Is
Seven Seas Of Rhye
Released 8th November 1974
Queen
It's tempting to suggest that here Queen are attempting a trick also tried by the movies Quantum Of Solace and Halloween II, in that you could believe that there is an intent to start off at exactly the point that the predecessor ended. Hence where 'Seven Seas Of Rhye' ends with a somewhat shambolic rendition of 'Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside', Sheer Heart Attack starts with more end-of-the-pier shenanigans on 'Brighton Rock'. The Wikipedia crib notes on Brighton Rock tell me it's all in the vein of Quadrophenia and mods vs rockers. Did we have nothing else to talk about in the early seventies? I'm glad of the guidance, because while Mercury's falsetto is arresting, it doesn't really do a lot for coherence. It also indicates where Queen seem to be going, which is extended, varied rock compositions with lots of changes of pace, fancy fretwork and not a lot of sense to it.
It's followed by the first Big Hit. 'Killer Queen' got to number 2 in the UK chart. So far, Queen have shown a tendency to self referencing that would make Craig David blush. We're they contractually obliged to use the Q word on at least one track per album, or are they just doing it for a bet? I'm rather ambivalent about 'Killer Queen'. It's just that bit too arch and calculated for me.
The Taylor sung 'Tenement Funster' prefigures the eagerly anticipated 'I'm In Love With My Car' which is coming up on A Night At The Opera. Maybe it's his strained vocal, or structural similarities, but it feels like a trial run for IILWMC. It's combined with Mercury's 'Flick Of The Wrist' and 'Lily Of The Valley'.
I'm grateful to Roger Taylor for his high pitched scream at the start of 'In The Lap Of The Gods', cos it reminded me of The Osmonds' 'Crazy Horses' and so I went and listened to that as well. Not so sure about Fred's slowed down vocal later on though, a bit of a Phantom Of The Opera thing going on, although we must accuse Lloyd-Webber of the rip-off if there is any connection.
'Stone Cold Crazy' is held up on Wikipedia as a formative thrash metal track. Well, they may have a point. The combination of May's guitar and Taylor's frenzied drumming does convince as a step on the way from Zep to Megadeth. You could argue that it's a sign of their versatility that it has found it's way onto an album along with the breezy pop-rock of 'Misfire' and then the jazz-rock of 'Bring Back That Leroy Brown' which skirts along the edges of Andrews Sisters territory.
With the benefit of hindsight, you can see that Queen were on the brink of greatness here, but like with Queen II, it remains a confused album. Maybe that's the point. Queen probably never really settled for being a 'metal', 'rock', 'pop' or even 'funk' band, but instead did what they felt like doing at the time - and didn't really set boundaries. You could never see them doing a 'concept' album, Freddie seems to have a gadfly mentality that is not really interested in telling a story (even 'In The Lap Of The Gods' and 'In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited' don't seem to be related). It's all about a mood.
Brighton Rock
Killer Queen
Tenement Funster
Flick Of The Wrist
Lily Of The Valley
Now I'm Here
In The Lap Of The Gods
Stone Cold Crazy
Dear Friends
Misfire
Bring Back That Leroy Brown
She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilletos)
In The Lap Of The Gods ...Revisited
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA
Released: 21st November 1975
Queen
I've heard this before, so really shouldn't be surprised, but for an album that contains a cornerstone song of rock music, it isn't really much of a 'rock' album. There's plenty of drums, screaming guitars and general over-blown-ness, but the variety of what is on here still takes you by surprise.
Track 1 doesn't give you any warning about the forthcoming music hall, opera nor country-folk that lies further down the vinyl groove. 'Death On Two Legs' finds Fred rather extremely pissed off at their ex-manager. Out of court settlements ensued apparently. It's a good memorable song and contains musical ideas that would come through again in 'Bicycle Race'.
I've been eagerly anticipating the Taylor-penned 'I'm In Love With My Car'. A running single entendre in which Taylor throttles rhymes out of 'grease-gun' and 'disease, son' and 'forget her' with 'carburettor'. Possibly the most astonishing thing about this plate of steaming tripe right in the middle of Queen's seminal album, is that Taylor managed to get it on the B-Side of 'Bohemian Rhapsody', a nice little nest-egg of publishing rights.
'You're My Best Friend' is a treat. That warm, electric piano that just starts up and Mercury's more restrained swooping vocal is really satisfying.
The first real curveball for me was '39' (I had remembered and was therefore expecting 'Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon' earlier on in the album). I had no recollection of Queen ever sounding like Lindisfarne, but here they are in their full folky-skiffle glory. May sings it, and I'm reliably informed that it's got a sci-fi theme. It's fine, but pretty forgettable (well I forgot about it, which is my benchmark).
Freddie also indulges in the theatrics with 'Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon' and 'Seaside Rendezvous'. It's interesting how much he embraced Englishness in his music, considering his background. Both of these tracks are fascinating for that reason, and memorable too. I'll stick Brian May and his ukelele on 'Good Company' in with these two as well.
Queen were probably regarded as prog rock practitioners in the early days, all that fantasy and mythology in the early songs is a good fit for the whole scene, but the opening track of Side 2, 'The Prophet's Song' really starts to tick the boxes. The only thing I remember from it from the past was that whole "now I know" section, where Fred sounds constipated and which eventually outstays its welcome.
There's 'Love Of My Life'. Queen's 'Angels', in that it's a song that Freddie could take the time off and let the audience get on with the singing when performing it live. I find it rather insipid.
Before the whole show closes with 'God Save The Queen', we get 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. Is there anything to say about it? Maybe that Mercury has managed to get all of us shouting Isalmic exclamations whilst probably not realizing it? Bismillah! I do remember it being HUGE when I was at junior school. We sang it in the playground in late '75 as we played British Bulldog. So it certainly did enough to capture the imagination of the average middle-England 8 year-old. It was, and remains unique really. Like nothing else that ever hit the charts and it's fairly bulletproof.
I've always liked the artwork, not least because it was echoed in the next album. That kind of corporate branding was strangely appealing. It was slightly embossed too I think, giving that extra hint of quality.
A DAY AT THE RACES
Released 10th December 1976
Queen
I've gone two weeks since A Night At The Opera. That is a long time between posts and it usually means the album in question is just not doing anything for me. It's got some well known and enjoyable stuff on it: 'Tie Your Mother Down', 'Somebody To Love' and 'Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy', but it's all rather unremarkable. 'Tie Your Mother Down' is nothing more than a headlong blues boogie and they do rather overplay the layering of Fred's voice through all of this. No more so than on 'Somebody To Love'. May, Mercury and Taylor may have been able to synthesize their voices into a "100 voice gospel choir" (according to Wikipedia - is this meant to have some kind of verifiable truth to it? i.e. the voices are actually reproduced 100 times?), but it would have been better with the real thing. I daresay that was a difficult thing to avail yourself of in 1976, but it has the same effect as when you hear the 'trumpet' sound from an early synthesizer. It's close, but it doesn't sound like what it's meant to.
I will admit to enjoying '...Lover Boy'. That chorus is pretty irresistible. Scissor Sisters learned their lessons well from that one.
'Long Away' is sung by May and is a pleasant enough piece of West Coast rock. The style of song suits all the artificial harmonizing going on, but you'll have forgotten it by the second line of 'The Millionaire Waltz' in which Freddie indulges himself in the usual vocal theatrics. There's commentary on the plight of native Americans in 'White Man', but I'll take Maiden's 'Run To The Hills' every time thanks.
Taylor serves a dolly-drop to the cynical listener with 'Drowse'. A muddy, swirling, half-arsed attempt at I don't know what. I think he started going on about poached eggs at the end.
The closer is 'Teo Torriate' which features a couple of choruses in Japanese. A language whose most effective use in Western rock music was probably in Blue Oyster Cult's 'Godzilla'
I hate albums like this. Not because it's bad. It isn't. It's fine and has some memorable pieces. But I found it completely uninspiring and too clever by half. And by this stage, for all the variety in songs, Queen are in a rut. Too reliant on their trademarks of Mercury's vocal acrobatics, all the vocal effects and May's guitar solos. Maybe Bohemian Rhapsody went to their heads.
Track 1 doesn't give you any warning about the forthcoming music hall, opera nor country-folk that lies further down the vinyl groove. 'Death On Two Legs' finds Fred rather extremely pissed off at their ex-manager. Out of court settlements ensued apparently. It's a good memorable song and contains musical ideas that would come through again in 'Bicycle Race'.
I've been eagerly anticipating the Taylor-penned 'I'm In Love With My Car'. A running single entendre in which Taylor throttles rhymes out of 'grease-gun' and 'disease, son' and 'forget her' with 'carburettor'. Possibly the most astonishing thing about this plate of steaming tripe right in the middle of Queen's seminal album, is that Taylor managed to get it on the B-Side of 'Bohemian Rhapsody', a nice little nest-egg of publishing rights.
'You're My Best Friend' is a treat. That warm, electric piano that just starts up and Mercury's more restrained swooping vocal is really satisfying.
The first real curveball for me was '39' (I had remembered and was therefore expecting 'Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon' earlier on in the album). I had no recollection of Queen ever sounding like Lindisfarne, but here they are in their full folky-skiffle glory. May sings it, and I'm reliably informed that it's got a sci-fi theme. It's fine, but pretty forgettable (well I forgot about it, which is my benchmark).
Freddie also indulges in the theatrics with 'Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon' and 'Seaside Rendezvous'. It's interesting how much he embraced Englishness in his music, considering his background. Both of these tracks are fascinating for that reason, and memorable too. I'll stick Brian May and his ukelele on 'Good Company' in with these two as well.
Queen were probably regarded as prog rock practitioners in the early days, all that fantasy and mythology in the early songs is a good fit for the whole scene, but the opening track of Side 2, 'The Prophet's Song' really starts to tick the boxes. The only thing I remember from it from the past was that whole "now I know" section, where Fred sounds constipated and which eventually outstays its welcome.
There's 'Love Of My Life'. Queen's 'Angels', in that it's a song that Freddie could take the time off and let the audience get on with the singing when performing it live. I find it rather insipid.
Before the whole show closes with 'God Save The Queen', we get 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. Is there anything to say about it? Maybe that Mercury has managed to get all of us shouting Isalmic exclamations whilst probably not realizing it? Bismillah! I do remember it being HUGE when I was at junior school. We sang it in the playground in late '75 as we played British Bulldog. So it certainly did enough to capture the imagination of the average middle-England 8 year-old. It was, and remains unique really. Like nothing else that ever hit the charts and it's fairly bulletproof.
I've always liked the artwork, not least because it was echoed in the next album. That kind of corporate branding was strangely appealing. It was slightly embossed too I think, giving that extra hint of quality.
Death On Two Legs
Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon
I'm In Love With My Car
You're My Best Friend
39
Sweet Lady
Seaside Rendezvous
The Prophet Song
Love Of My Life
Good Company
Bohemian Rhapsody
God Save The Queen
Released 10th December 1976
Queen
I've gone two weeks since A Night At The Opera. That is a long time between posts and it usually means the album in question is just not doing anything for me. It's got some well known and enjoyable stuff on it: 'Tie Your Mother Down', 'Somebody To Love' and 'Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy', but it's all rather unremarkable. 'Tie Your Mother Down' is nothing more than a headlong blues boogie and they do rather overplay the layering of Fred's voice through all of this. No more so than on 'Somebody To Love'. May, Mercury and Taylor may have been able to synthesize their voices into a "100 voice gospel choir" (according to Wikipedia - is this meant to have some kind of verifiable truth to it? i.e. the voices are actually reproduced 100 times?), but it would have been better with the real thing. I daresay that was a difficult thing to avail yourself of in 1976, but it has the same effect as when you hear the 'trumpet' sound from an early synthesizer. It's close, but it doesn't sound like what it's meant to.
I will admit to enjoying '...Lover Boy'. That chorus is pretty irresistible. Scissor Sisters learned their lessons well from that one.
'Long Away' is sung by May and is a pleasant enough piece of West Coast rock. The style of song suits all the artificial harmonizing going on, but you'll have forgotten it by the second line of 'The Millionaire Waltz' in which Freddie indulges himself in the usual vocal theatrics. There's commentary on the plight of native Americans in 'White Man', but I'll take Maiden's 'Run To The Hills' every time thanks.
Taylor serves a dolly-drop to the cynical listener with 'Drowse'. A muddy, swirling, half-arsed attempt at I don't know what. I think he started going on about poached eggs at the end.
The closer is 'Teo Torriate' which features a couple of choruses in Japanese. A language whose most effective use in Western rock music was probably in Blue Oyster Cult's 'Godzilla'
I hate albums like this. Not because it's bad. It isn't. It's fine and has some memorable pieces. But I found it completely uninspiring and too clever by half. And by this stage, for all the variety in songs, Queen are in a rut. Too reliant on their trademarks of Mercury's vocal acrobatics, all the vocal effects and May's guitar solos. Maybe Bohemian Rhapsody went to their heads.
Tie Your Mother Down
You Take My Breath Away
Long Away
The Millionaire Waltz
You And I
Somebody To Love
White Man
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy
Drowse
Teo Toriatte (Let Us Cling Together)
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Released: 28th October 1977
Queen
Queen may claim that any way the wind blows, it doesn't really matter to them, but in 1977 it was pretty clear that they had no problems with jumping on a bandwagon. Things that were big in 1977 included punk rock and football hooliganism, so they start News Of The World with two stadium chants and a 200 mph thrash.
'We Will Rock You' is reported to be a conscious effort by May to have something that would engage the audience and get them participating in the show. Well it couldn't be anything else really could it? It's intent is crystal clear. It's the kind of song that could only be pulled off once and by one band, so mind-bendingly simple is the concept. Rock and Roll reduced to a bare chassis. It was the B-side to 'We Are The Champions', a single which was known to grace the turntable of the family Dansette when I were a lad. I think I remember getting heartily sick of it at the time actually. It seemed to be on Top Of The Pops every bloody week for a while. Anyway, I checked out the video and of course, it features Freddie in that half-black-and-white, cut-to-the-navel jumpsuit with chest rug out for a well-needed airing. It's a performance video but I could have sworn he did some kind of Pierrot/Mime act for part of it, maybe that was something different. The crowd are indeed giving it the full football-terrace act with scarves stretched above their heads. I'm not sure whether I think the "Fame and fortune and everything that goes with it" line is genius or about the most clunky bit of poor lyrical scanning in the history of popular music.
Apparently they were sharing a studio with the Sex Pistols when recording it, which might explain 'Sheer Heart Attack'. It's kind of like a punk song made by someone who hasn't actually heard one and was created from a written description of the basic components. They kind of rip-off 'I Saw Her Standing There' in the lyrics but pull off a Ramone-ish fast chugging guitar well enough. But then introduce lots of rather nasty jarring electronic bips and feedback. The last instruction on their sheet must have been "The song must stop abruptly", but it doesn't need to be quite THAT abrupt fellas.
Once that's all done it seems like they've got something out of their system and the settle down to a couple of histrionic ballads in 'All Dead, All Dead' and 'Spread Your Wings', then turn their hand to seeing if they can remake The Eagles' 'Life In The Fast Lane' with 'Fight From The Inside'. 'Get Down, Make Love' is a bit of a mess which degenerates into seventies-era Doctor Who radiophonic workshop noises. Maybe they thought they were being experimental?
'Sleeping On The Sidewalk' is a Canned Heat-like leisurely Blues, sung by May and reportedly done in one take. Wikipedia tells me that Deacon fluffs the bass-lines a few times, but I simply don't have the ear to detect it. Next they do an effective job of combining light reggae with Spanish guitar on 'Who Needs You' and it's a little surprising that 'It's Late' never got a single release in the UK. Apart from 'We Are The Champions' it's easily the strongest song on here and foreshadows some of their later stuff like 'Hammer To Fall'. Quite long though. Getting airplay for a six-and-a-half minute song might have been tricky. The closing 'My Melancholy Blues' does exactly what it says on the tin.
The cover art is good. Adapted from the cover art of a 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, they obviously decided they'd taken the coat of arms far enough.
JAZZ
Released 10th November 1978
Queen
This definitely had a presence in our family home. RockOdysseys Major (I'm Minor) had it on tape. Which meant he didn't get the poster that came with the vinyl version featuring an image promoting the Bicycle Race and Fat Bottomed Girls single in an all-too literal way. You could order it though. It had a bright pink reverse side, not that many would have paid attention to the back of it. Mother was not amused.
Those two songs seem to epitomize Queen's brash, laddish approach to all that was going on around them in the music biz. We should really disapprove of the sentiments of FBGs, but it's just irresistible isn't it? Especially that choral "Ooooh, I'm gonna take you home tonight" that is so easy to sing along to. And why did they suddenly latch onto cycling as a centrepiece of their art? Anyway, both songs are about as good as you can get from Queen. The quirkiness of the subject matter certainly does take the edge off the underlying bad taste.
But before all that, we get the crashing, quasi-Arabic call-to-prayer of 'Mustapha'. I was nonplussed by it at the time. Ancient Staffordshire towns were not really the place to learn any appreciation of Islamic culture in 1978. I just tend to make up my own words when I sing along, I've never bothered to properly work them out.
There's 'Let Me Entertain You' too. But not an original version of Robbie Williams' excuse to don the KISS makeup. The sentiment is pretty much identical though, but I'd say it's a better song. There's a slight desperation about Freddie's plea, that Rob would never admit to.
They seem in an almighty hurry during 'Dead On Time'. The pace of singing, guitar, bass and drums are all turned up to, well 12 probably. It also features that session musician's session musician, God, credited on thunderbolt.
There's a bit of a dry spell after that on side 2, 'In Only Seven Days', 'Dreamer's Ball' and 'Leaving Home Ain't Easy' feel like rather pedestrian filler (although the pace picks up momentarily with 'Fun It', a practice run for 'Another One Bites The Dust').
'Don't Stop Me Now' turns up almost unexpectedly near the end. A wedding disco staple, and therefore hard to like. It's worth viewing David Armand's genius interpretive dance of the song, and if you like that, check out his interpretation of the Killers 'Human' too.
Taylor gets to indulge himself at the end with "More Of That Jazz". All those clips of previous songs on the album in the outro just don't work. The artwork looks rather dashed-off too.
THE GAME
Released: 30th June 1980
Queen
Is it fun to smoke marijuana? I ask because I've never touched the stuff, on the basis that if inhaling particulates from tobacco into your lungs is probably going to kill you, particulates from burning a different plant are probably not going to be much better. The closest I've come is (i) an episode in a small Parisian flat involving two reasonably dissolute Frenchmen and a small nugget of resin; (ii) pretty much every time I've been in Brixton for a gig and, (iii) these days, the fact that every residential suburb of London, including my own, smells like an Amsterdam coffee shop. You know where I'm going with this: 'Another One Bites The Dust', which allegedly promotes the enjoyment of the old whacky baccy via back masking.
Before we examine the evidence, what exactly do we mean by the 'back-masking' term? As I see it there are three approaches. First, you can record your youth-corrupting message, then add it it to your song backwards. Second, you can attempt to create a message by saying it as it would sound backwards - this seems to be the basis of the 'Another One Bites The Dust' case, Freddie is clearly singing the words we know, it doesn't have that abrupt start and swooping quality that a voice run backwards has. Third - and most unlikely - is that you sing the words but say them as it they were spelt backwards. There was a guy who used to appear on what-the-middle-class-kids-who-weren't-allowed-to-watch-Tiswas-watched Saturday morning TV show 'Multi-Coloured Swap Shop', who sang well known songs in this way. One was 'Yellow Bird', which was rendered as "Drib Wolley, Yaw pu ni ananab eert". They tried running it backwards to see if it made sense, but of course it didn't. I couldn't find any evidence for it on YouTube, which is a pretty strong argument that I might have dreamed the whole thing.
So anyway, here it is. I'm not convinced, if only because you have to accept that not only is it intentional, but that they would have had to manage to do it with an already well-known phrase.
They return to the theme of 'Keep Yourself Alive' with the equally straightforward message of 'Don't Try Suicide'. Weirdly enough it starts like the Police's 'Walking On The Moon'. I'm sure their hearts are in the right place with regard to setting a good example to their young fans, but it's all rather messily done. The rest is equally fillersome.
Right. I suddenly have the urge to go up the road and knock on the door of my neighbour who is into 'hydroponics' and frequently has the police knocking at his door.
FLASH GORDON ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
Released: 8th December 1980
Queen
I owned the single version of Flash. One of the first singles I bought I think. Probably along with B.A. Robertson's 'To Be Or Not To Be'. I got it from a shortlived Tamworth record store called Rocket (or was it Rock-It?) Records located in the Upper Gungate shopping arcade. It was loud in there and I would have been a soft-voiced 13 year old, so the assistant had to bend his head so I could shout in his ear to ask for it. It wouldn't have been helped by the thick curtain of hair falling down across his ear. The single, of course, has snatches of the atrocious dialogue from the film. "Flash! I love you. But we only have 14 hours left to save the earth" and "Flash Gordon approaching", "Vot do you mean? Flash Gordon approaching."
It's become my custom to include movie soundtracks and watch the accompanying film. No great hardship in this case - a movie so preposterous that it's impossible to not derive pleasure on some level from it. I will say this for it. It has a strong look. There was no skimping on the production values. Probably what you'd expect from Dino De Laurentis and there's obviously a little Italian movie-making in-joke in the naming of Princess Aura's pet dwarf 'Fellini'.
There are some casting triumphs too. This may have been Brian Blessed's best known movie role and provided him with a quick route to a spontaneous round of applause for the rest of his career by simply booming "Gordon's alive?" (it is a question, not a statement), but you can't deny he's a good fit. He's up against Timothy Dalton doing a Men-In-Tights turn as Prince Barin. It's kind of like a RADA-off between them as they enunciate and declaim to each other as if the struggles of the planet Mongo are part of Shakespeare's history play cycle.
When this first came out, the most notable thing about it to me was the appearance of Blue-Peter-Duncan-Dares as an Arborian boy going through the coming-of-age ceremony, which involved sticking your arm into the Tree Stump of Death in the hope that the gribbly scorpion thing inside didn't give you a nasty sting and leave a bit of green goo on your arm. Pete made a wrong choice and has to be dispatched by Barin to avoid the oncoming madness. Also in Barin's retinue is a criminally underused Richard O'Brien, who manages to hoodwink the rather dim Flash into thinking he was rescuing him when in fact he was just luring him up to take his turn on the tree stump.
Of course with a movie like this, it's easy to pick holes in the Swiss cheese of a plot, but I would point out that despite Earth (pronounced "Uurth") being an insignificant planetary backwater (it always is) they do seem to have heard of Richard Wagner's Wedding March on Mongo, unless we are being asked to believe in some kind of convergent musical evolution going on between the two planets (I know, I know - they're all basically human anyway, so why get hung up on a piece of music?).
Puzzlingly, the end credits indicate that there was a specially recruited 'Zarkov Brain Drain Sequence Director'. Since it's pretty much a rip-off of the "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" scene from Goldfinger it doesn't suggest it required a particular directorial vision to pull it off. Probably they just mean the flashbacks to his life, including images of Hitler that prompt Peter Wyngarde's Klytus character to note "That one showed promise".
The soundtrack album itself is all of Queen's own work, but it's not really typical of them. They didn't stretch themselves lyrically, we all know all the words of the title track after all. However, here's an interesting thing, it's quite reminiscent of Vangelis' Chariots Of Fire music, but that came after in 1981. The action sequences tend to bring in some characteristic May rock guitar and it suddenly becomes recognizably Queen.
HOT SPACE
Released: 21st May 1982
Queen
It was the 30th anniversary this week of the release of the first Tin Machine album, which is a good example of one where the fans were really looking askance at what their musical hero was up to. I liked it from the start, but I think that over time it's reputation has grown. Bowie was keying into things that were interesting to him at the time and putting his own spin on it - which is pretty much the story of his whole career. So with Hot Space, the fans are apparently a little ambivalent about it, but if you look back at it today, I would (and am about to) argue that it was quite forward thinking and really one of their best albums. Oh, and more on Bowie later.
However, considering this is coming off the back of an early eighties movie soundtrack album, it doesn't half sound like an early eighties soundtrack album. If it was a person it'd be wearing leg warmers, pastel colors and a headband. That might be seen as a criticism, until you realize that most of the stuff it reminds you of came later in the decade. So the forgotten gem 'Body Language' has that rolling bubbly bassline from Billy Ocean's 'When The Going Gets Tough (1985), 'Put Out The Fire' has the feel of St. Elmo's of that ilk (also 1985) and 'Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)' has the rippling synth intro of 'The Neverending Story' (1984).
Elsewhere, Brian May shows U2 the way to do the chiming guitar which saw them sorted for the next 8 years or so on 'Back Chat' - compare it to 'New Year's Day' (1983). It does make you wonder how influential this album might actually be. Admittedly, Freddie's falsetto on 'Cool Cat' is pure 70's motown in the mould of the Floaters or the Drifters, but even then, you can see that Paul Weller might have thought "ooh that's a good idea" when he was looking for a complete break from the style of The Jam with The Style Council and 'My Ever Changing Moods' (1984).
There's a tribute to John Lennon in 'Life Is Real'. It's a good take on trying to capture something of Lennon's style - you could believe they are actually covering one of his songs and putting their own style over it.
So I would say there isn't a bad song on it, and it finishes with the absolute corker that is 'Under Pressure'. It's so familiar, but listening to it carefully you being to appreciate the the merging of Bowie's and Mercury's voices. It's not a duet, it's almost as if they've taken two songs by two artists and somehow formed a hybrid. It has no formal structure either (as far as I can tell - I'm no muso) it just seems to move from one idea to another to form a final satisfying whole. If I have one gripe, it's Mercury's "be-da-dee-doh" stuff. It works here, but it wasn't half tedious when he did it for about 5 minutes on the Live at Wembley stadium.
The one thing that let's it down is the artwork. For some reason it seems that record company design departments simply could not be arsed with all that stuff in the early 1980s.
THE WORKS
Released: 27th February 1984
Queen
Let's get one thing clear from the start, "miss you" does not rhyme with "visual". Not even if your accent is a weird Zanzibar/Parsi hybrid.
This is the point where Mercury donned a vest, trackie-bottoms and trainers, puffed out his chest and decided to can all that fan-alienating messing around with dance and funk music. This was fresh when Live Aid came around, which suggests that there was a touch of right place-right time about the manner in which they won the event. To be able to call on 'Radio Ga Ga' complete with ready made stadium-friendly audience participation moves, a driving rocker like 'Hammer To Fall' and could-have-been-written-for-it 'Is This The World We Created', without them being seen as old classics from a bunch of has-beens (compare and contrast the disastrous Who set), meant that they were streets ahead of everyone else. Don't forget the Live Aid bounce either. Every band who gave a good account of themselves that day reaped the benefits in record sales and I'd be willing to bet that they did fine too in the aftermath.
I bought this, and I don't regret it, it's been good to go back to it. It really is Queen in their pomp, which is saying something. They also seemed to fully get the power of the music video, so we got the whole Metropolis inspired Radio Ga Ga, which doubled as an instructional video on how to do the aforementioned audience moves, and the arresting 'I Want To Break Free' video, which is still hilarious even today, although it's a tough call as to whether the famous opening or Freddie cavorting in skin-tight leotard during the fantasy sequence is the campest bit. Roger Taylor is a little too convincing in drag considering this is from an age where gender swap apps were the stuff of science fiction.
Of the rest, there's full on rockabilly for 'Man On The Prowl' and besides 'Hammer To Fall' they also throw in a good pleasing rocker in 'Tear It Up'. I always liked 'Keep Passing The Open Windows', mainly because I didn't really understand the meaning of the title. Being intrigued by a Queen song is always a novelty. 'Machines (Or 'Back to Humans')' is probably the most uncharacteristic Queen song on here. Taylor is on the vocoder and the U2-ish guitar sound makes a comeback. It fits with 'Radio Ga Ga' as well with it's Sci-fi vibe, so it makes the whole album seem that touch more coherent.
So, go ahead. Don your red silk bandage shirt and leather kecks and enjoy this for what it is.
'Sleeping On The Sidewalk' is a Canned Heat-like leisurely Blues, sung by May and reportedly done in one take. Wikipedia tells me that Deacon fluffs the bass-lines a few times, but I simply don't have the ear to detect it. Next they do an effective job of combining light reggae with Spanish guitar on 'Who Needs You' and it's a little surprising that 'It's Late' never got a single release in the UK. Apart from 'We Are The Champions' it's easily the strongest song on here and foreshadows some of their later stuff like 'Hammer To Fall'. Quite long though. Getting airplay for a six-and-a-half minute song might have been tricky. The closing 'My Melancholy Blues' does exactly what it says on the tin.
The cover art is good. Adapted from the cover art of a 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, they obviously decided they'd taken the coat of arms far enough.
We Will Rock You
We Are The Champions
Sheer Heart Attack
All Dead, All Dead
Spread Your Wings
Fight From The Inside
Get Down, Make Love
Sleeping On The Sidewalk
Who Needs You
It's Late
My Melancholy Blues
Released 10th November 1978
Queen
This definitely had a presence in our family home. RockOdysseys Major (I'm Minor) had it on tape. Which meant he didn't get the poster that came with the vinyl version featuring an image promoting the Bicycle Race and Fat Bottomed Girls single in an all-too literal way. You could order it though. It had a bright pink reverse side, not that many would have paid attention to the back of it. Mother was not amused.
Those two songs seem to epitomize Queen's brash, laddish approach to all that was going on around them in the music biz. We should really disapprove of the sentiments of FBGs, but it's just irresistible isn't it? Especially that choral "Ooooh, I'm gonna take you home tonight" that is so easy to sing along to. And why did they suddenly latch onto cycling as a centrepiece of their art? Anyway, both songs are about as good as you can get from Queen. The quirkiness of the subject matter certainly does take the edge off the underlying bad taste.
But before all that, we get the crashing, quasi-Arabic call-to-prayer of 'Mustapha'. I was nonplussed by it at the time. Ancient Staffordshire towns were not really the place to learn any appreciation of Islamic culture in 1978. I just tend to make up my own words when I sing along, I've never bothered to properly work them out.
There's 'Let Me Entertain You' too. But not an original version of Robbie Williams' excuse to don the KISS makeup. The sentiment is pretty much identical though, but I'd say it's a better song. There's a slight desperation about Freddie's plea, that Rob would never admit to.
They seem in an almighty hurry during 'Dead On Time'. The pace of singing, guitar, bass and drums are all turned up to, well 12 probably. It also features that session musician's session musician, God, credited on thunderbolt.
There's a bit of a dry spell after that on side 2, 'In Only Seven Days', 'Dreamer's Ball' and 'Leaving Home Ain't Easy' feel like rather pedestrian filler (although the pace picks up momentarily with 'Fun It', a practice run for 'Another One Bites The Dust').
'Don't Stop Me Now' turns up almost unexpectedly near the end. A wedding disco staple, and therefore hard to like. It's worth viewing David Armand's genius interpretive dance of the song, and if you like that, check out his interpretation of the Killers 'Human' too.
Taylor gets to indulge himself at the end with "More Of That Jazz". All those clips of previous songs on the album in the outro just don't work. The artwork looks rather dashed-off too.
Mustapha
Fat Bottomed Girls
Jealousy
Bicycle Race
If You Can't Beat Them
Let Me Entertain You
Dead On Time
In Only Seven Days
Dreamer's Ball
Fun It
Leaving Home Ain't Easy
Don't Stop Me Now
More Of That Jazz
Released: 30th June 1980
Queen
Is it fun to smoke marijuana? I ask because I've never touched the stuff, on the basis that if inhaling particulates from tobacco into your lungs is probably going to kill you, particulates from burning a different plant are probably not going to be much better. The closest I've come is (i) an episode in a small Parisian flat involving two reasonably dissolute Frenchmen and a small nugget of resin; (ii) pretty much every time I've been in Brixton for a gig and, (iii) these days, the fact that every residential suburb of London, including my own, smells like an Amsterdam coffee shop. You know where I'm going with this: 'Another One Bites The Dust', which allegedly promotes the enjoyment of the old whacky baccy via back masking.
Before we examine the evidence, what exactly do we mean by the 'back-masking' term? As I see it there are three approaches. First, you can record your youth-corrupting message, then add it it to your song backwards. Second, you can attempt to create a message by saying it as it would sound backwards - this seems to be the basis of the 'Another One Bites The Dust' case, Freddie is clearly singing the words we know, it doesn't have that abrupt start and swooping quality that a voice run backwards has. Third - and most unlikely - is that you sing the words but say them as it they were spelt backwards. There was a guy who used to appear on what-the-middle-class-kids-who-weren't-allowed-to-watch-Tiswas-watched Saturday morning TV show 'Multi-Coloured Swap Shop', who sang well known songs in this way. One was 'Yellow Bird', which was rendered as "Drib Wolley, Yaw pu ni ananab eert". They tried running it backwards to see if it made sense, but of course it didn't. I couldn't find any evidence for it on YouTube, which is a pretty strong argument that I might have dreamed the whole thing.
So anyway, here it is. I'm not convinced, if only because you have to accept that not only is it intentional, but that they would have had to manage to do it with an already well-known phrase.
But I'm glad the 'controversy' exists, because otherwise I'd be struggling to come up with anything substantial about an album that is notable only for it's well-known high points, which are 'Another One Bites The Dust' which counts as pop-funk and has some very nice little soul-groove guitar chops and 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' which is ultimately, just an Elvis pastiche. That ultimate reliable source, Wikipedia tells me that these were the only American number ones that Queen had.
The rest maintains the Queen tendency to mix it up a bit and try out different musical styles but not in a spectacular fashion. 'Dragon Attack' is a ponderous old rock and roll ramble and 'Need Your Loving Tonight' feels as dashed-off as it's title suggests. In fact, there's quite a lot of Queen not really pushing the envelope here, 'Rock It (Prime Jive)' is a song that any band hiring themselves out for weddings would turn to quite quickly.
They return to the theme of 'Keep Yourself Alive' with the equally straightforward message of 'Don't Try Suicide'. Weirdly enough it starts like the Police's 'Walking On The Moon'. I'm sure their hearts are in the right place with regard to setting a good example to their young fans, but it's all rather messily done. The rest is equally fillersome.
Right. I suddenly have the urge to go up the road and knock on the door of my neighbour who is into 'hydroponics' and frequently has the police knocking at his door.
Play The Game
Dragon Attack
Another One Bites The Dust
Need Your Loving Tonight
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Rock It (Prime Jive)
Don't Try Suicide
Sail Away Sweet Sister
Coming Soon
Save Me
Released: 8th December 1980
Queen
I owned the single version of Flash. One of the first singles I bought I think. Probably along with B.A. Robertson's 'To Be Or Not To Be'. I got it from a shortlived Tamworth record store called Rocket (or was it Rock-It?) Records located in the Upper Gungate shopping arcade. It was loud in there and I would have been a soft-voiced 13 year old, so the assistant had to bend his head so I could shout in his ear to ask for it. It wouldn't have been helped by the thick curtain of hair falling down across his ear. The single, of course, has snatches of the atrocious dialogue from the film. "Flash! I love you. But we only have 14 hours left to save the earth" and "Flash Gordon approaching", "Vot do you mean? Flash Gordon approaching."
It's become my custom to include movie soundtracks and watch the accompanying film. No great hardship in this case - a movie so preposterous that it's impossible to not derive pleasure on some level from it. I will say this for it. It has a strong look. There was no skimping on the production values. Probably what you'd expect from Dino De Laurentis and there's obviously a little Italian movie-making in-joke in the naming of Princess Aura's pet dwarf 'Fellini'.
There are some casting triumphs too. This may have been Brian Blessed's best known movie role and provided him with a quick route to a spontaneous round of applause for the rest of his career by simply booming "Gordon's alive?" (it is a question, not a statement), but you can't deny he's a good fit. He's up against Timothy Dalton doing a Men-In-Tights turn as Prince Barin. It's kind of like a RADA-off between them as they enunciate and declaim to each other as if the struggles of the planet Mongo are part of Shakespeare's history play cycle.
When this first came out, the most notable thing about it to me was the appearance of Blue-Peter-Duncan-Dares as an Arborian boy going through the coming-of-age ceremony, which involved sticking your arm into the Tree Stump of Death in the hope that the gribbly scorpion thing inside didn't give you a nasty sting and leave a bit of green goo on your arm. Pete made a wrong choice and has to be dispatched by Barin to avoid the oncoming madness. Also in Barin's retinue is a criminally underused Richard O'Brien, who manages to hoodwink the rather dim Flash into thinking he was rescuing him when in fact he was just luring him up to take his turn on the tree stump.
Of course with a movie like this, it's easy to pick holes in the Swiss cheese of a plot, but I would point out that despite Earth (pronounced "Uurth") being an insignificant planetary backwater (it always is) they do seem to have heard of Richard Wagner's Wedding March on Mongo, unless we are being asked to believe in some kind of convergent musical evolution going on between the two planets (I know, I know - they're all basically human anyway, so why get hung up on a piece of music?).
Puzzlingly, the end credits indicate that there was a specially recruited 'Zarkov Brain Drain Sequence Director'. Since it's pretty much a rip-off of the "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" scene from Goldfinger it doesn't suggest it required a particular directorial vision to pull it off. Probably they just mean the flashbacks to his life, including images of Hitler that prompt Peter Wyngarde's Klytus character to note "That one showed promise".
The soundtrack album itself is all of Queen's own work, but it's not really typical of them. They didn't stretch themselves lyrically, we all know all the words of the title track after all. However, here's an interesting thing, it's quite reminiscent of Vangelis' Chariots Of Fire music, but that came after in 1981. The action sequences tend to bring in some characteristic May rock guitar and it suddenly becomes recognizably Queen.
Flash's Theme
In The Space Capsule (The Love Theme)
Ming's Theme (In The Court Of Ming The Merciless)
The Ring (Hypnotic Seduction Of Dale)
Football Fight
In The Death Cell (Love Theme Reprise)
Execution Of Flash
The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash)
Arboria (Planet Of The Tree Men)
Escape From The Swamp
Flash To The Rescue
Vultan's Theme (Attack Of The Hawk Men)
Battle Theme
The Wedding March
Marriage Of Dale And Ming (And Flash Approaching)
Crash Dive On Mingo City
Flash's Theme Reprise
The Hero
Released: 21st May 1982
Queen
It was the 30th anniversary this week of the release of the first Tin Machine album, which is a good example of one where the fans were really looking askance at what their musical hero was up to. I liked it from the start, but I think that over time it's reputation has grown. Bowie was keying into things that were interesting to him at the time and putting his own spin on it - which is pretty much the story of his whole career. So with Hot Space, the fans are apparently a little ambivalent about it, but if you look back at it today, I would (and am about to) argue that it was quite forward thinking and really one of their best albums. Oh, and more on Bowie later.
However, considering this is coming off the back of an early eighties movie soundtrack album, it doesn't half sound like an early eighties soundtrack album. If it was a person it'd be wearing leg warmers, pastel colors and a headband. That might be seen as a criticism, until you realize that most of the stuff it reminds you of came later in the decade. So the forgotten gem 'Body Language' has that rolling bubbly bassline from Billy Ocean's 'When The Going Gets Tough (1985), 'Put Out The Fire' has the feel of St. Elmo's of that ilk (also 1985) and 'Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)' has the rippling synth intro of 'The Neverending Story' (1984).
Elsewhere, Brian May shows U2 the way to do the chiming guitar which saw them sorted for the next 8 years or so on 'Back Chat' - compare it to 'New Year's Day' (1983). It does make you wonder how influential this album might actually be. Admittedly, Freddie's falsetto on 'Cool Cat' is pure 70's motown in the mould of the Floaters or the Drifters, but even then, you can see that Paul Weller might have thought "ooh that's a good idea" when he was looking for a complete break from the style of The Jam with The Style Council and 'My Ever Changing Moods' (1984).
There's a tribute to John Lennon in 'Life Is Real'. It's a good take on trying to capture something of Lennon's style - you could believe they are actually covering one of his songs and putting their own style over it.
So I would say there isn't a bad song on it, and it finishes with the absolute corker that is 'Under Pressure'. It's so familiar, but listening to it carefully you being to appreciate the the merging of Bowie's and Mercury's voices. It's not a duet, it's almost as if they've taken two songs by two artists and somehow formed a hybrid. It has no formal structure either (as far as I can tell - I'm no muso) it just seems to move from one idea to another to form a final satisfying whole. If I have one gripe, it's Mercury's "be-da-dee-doh" stuff. It works here, but it wasn't half tedious when he did it for about 5 minutes on the Live at Wembley stadium.
The one thing that let's it down is the artwork. For some reason it seems that record company design departments simply could not be arsed with all that stuff in the early 1980s.
Staying Power
Dancer
Back Chat
Body Language
Action This Day
Put Out The Fire
Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)
Calling All Girls
Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)
Cool Cat
Under Pressure
Released: 27th February 1984
Queen
Let's get one thing clear from the start, "miss you" does not rhyme with "visual". Not even if your accent is a weird Zanzibar/Parsi hybrid.
This is the point where Mercury donned a vest, trackie-bottoms and trainers, puffed out his chest and decided to can all that fan-alienating messing around with dance and funk music. This was fresh when Live Aid came around, which suggests that there was a touch of right place-right time about the manner in which they won the event. To be able to call on 'Radio Ga Ga' complete with ready made stadium-friendly audience participation moves, a driving rocker like 'Hammer To Fall' and could-have-been-written-for-it 'Is This The World We Created', without them being seen as old classics from a bunch of has-beens (compare and contrast the disastrous Who set), meant that they were streets ahead of everyone else. Don't forget the Live Aid bounce either. Every band who gave a good account of themselves that day reaped the benefits in record sales and I'd be willing to bet that they did fine too in the aftermath.
I bought this, and I don't regret it, it's been good to go back to it. It really is Queen in their pomp, which is saying something. They also seemed to fully get the power of the music video, so we got the whole Metropolis inspired Radio Ga Ga, which doubled as an instructional video on how to do the aforementioned audience moves, and the arresting 'I Want To Break Free' video, which is still hilarious even today, although it's a tough call as to whether the famous opening or Freddie cavorting in skin-tight leotard during the fantasy sequence is the campest bit. Roger Taylor is a little too convincing in drag considering this is from an age where gender swap apps were the stuff of science fiction.
Of the rest, there's full on rockabilly for 'Man On The Prowl' and besides 'Hammer To Fall' they also throw in a good pleasing rocker in 'Tear It Up'. I always liked 'Keep Passing The Open Windows', mainly because I didn't really understand the meaning of the title. Being intrigued by a Queen song is always a novelty. 'Machines (Or 'Back to Humans')' is probably the most uncharacteristic Queen song on here. Taylor is on the vocoder and the U2-ish guitar sound makes a comeback. It fits with 'Radio Ga Ga' as well with it's Sci-fi vibe, so it makes the whole album seem that touch more coherent.
So, go ahead. Don your red silk bandage shirt and leather kecks and enjoy this for what it is.
Radio Ga Ga
Tear It Up
It's a Hard Life
Man On The Prowl
Machines (Or 'Back To Humans')
I Want To Break Free
Keep Passing The Open Windows
Hammer To Fall
Is This The World We Created...?
THE MIRACLE
Released: 22nd May 1989
Queen
"If there's something strange;
In your neighbourhood;
I'm the invisible man, I'm the invisible man;
Incredible how you can, see right through me"
And let's not forget that people accused Ray Parker Jr of nicking ideas from Huey Lewis in the first place. Queen seem to be a bit of a busted flush by now. They're pretty devoid of new ideas beyond some fairly generic middle of the road rockers that at least wouldn't get your Mum upset. The bland triteness of the title song lyrics makes you wonder what their image of themselves was at this stage. Rock and Roll saviours of the world? Maybe Live Aid finally went to their heads. I guess if you were about 15 you'd have gone for this just because it had a lot of songs that you'd heard on the radio on it. The fan who hacked the album's Wikipedia alleges that the song 'The Miracle' is "one of the most complex songs from the band's last years". It's complex like a bowl of spaghetti is complex.
There's 'I Want It All', but they ploughed the stadium chant furrow quite effectively 15 years before. It includes some attempts to up the pace off the back of the thrash explosion, but it feels like they're struggling to keep up. Their video for 'Breakthru' put them on top of a speeding train and what is certainly a Miracle is that they aren't completely engulfed by steam all the way through.
Freddie gets his maracas out for 'Rain Must Fall' and there's a half-hearted dig at the press with 'Scandal' and the fans allegedly think 'Was It All Worth It" is the best song on the album. I beg to differ.
The cover? Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole thing. Apparently it's meant to convey the message that the music is the work of the entity 'Queen' rather than the sum of the band's four members. It's quite horrible.
A KIND OF MAGIC
Released: 3rd June 1986
Queen
For some reason this slipped under my radar when I was putting together the Queen album list. I was about to leap from The Works to The Miracle but when I saw 'One Vision' wasn't on the latter I paused. I knew that had to be coming up soon and so I found A Kind Of Magic in the nick of time. It may not have been any great loss if I had missed it.
I poo-pooed the idea that 'Another One Bites The Dust' employed back-masking of any kind and yet 'One Vision' which starts this clearly has something being run backwards at the start of the song. Whatever enthusiast updated the Wikipedia entry for the song asserts that it's "God works in mysterious ways... mysterious ways...". It's a strong start, but the middle of the song is a mess, pulling in squealing guitars and rapid beats that hark back to Radio Ga Ga. We all thought the final "fried chicken!" was amusing and quirky back then. It feels a bit forced now.
The title track is familiar enough. Utterly radio-friendly and so, tending toward being very bland indeed. Same goes for 'Friends Will Be Friends'. 'One Year Of Love' isn't much better, a plodding, anthemic power ballad. 'Pain Is So Close To Pleasure' is heavily motown influenced and Mercury gives the falsetto another outing.
One thing I guess I must be grateful for is that this isn't billed as the Highlander soundtrack album, although a few of the songs were used in the movie. If it had been I might have convinced myself to sit through that again. Highlander came out in my first term at Sunderland Polytechnic and was the first movie I remember being shown at the Sunderland ABC (£1 entry, but bear in mind that most of the clientele would be well-oiled from the ample hostelries on Wearside, especially for those late-Saturday night horror double bills). However I did not see Highlander in the cinema and the honour of the first film I saw there probably goes to Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'Raw Deal', or perhaps '9½ Weeks'?. Most of side two of the album features songs used in Highlander including the rather ponderous 'Who Wants To Live Forever', mainly sung by May but Mercury chips in a bit. 'Gimme The Prize' features some dialogue from the film as well as an AC-DC 'Thunderstruck' style guitar twiddly intro but is otherwise a rather boring hard rock ramble. The album closes with the film's theme tune 'Princes Of The Universe', which only serves to remind me of Dolph Lundgren's He-Man movie, which I did see at the Sunderland ABC and is a much better film in every possible way.
This feels like Queen are falling between two stools. They'd been commissioned to do the film soundtrack and so combined those songs with a few others, which aren't really up to snuff anyway. It's certainly not unlistenable, but it ain't great either. The artwork looks like it was tendered out to a design agency who might have been cutting edge in 1986, but only looks horribly dated now. It also gives the impression that their self image of their physiques was a little off the mark.
One Vision
A Kind Of Magic
One Year Of Love
Pain Is So Close To Pleasure
Friends Will Be Friends
Who Wants To Live Forever
Gimme The Prize
Don't Lose Your Head
Princes Of The Universe
Released: 22nd May 1989
Queen
"If there's something strange;
In your neighbourhood;
I'm the invisible man, I'm the invisible man;
Incredible how you can, see right through me"
And let's not forget that people accused Ray Parker Jr of nicking ideas from Huey Lewis in the first place. Queen seem to be a bit of a busted flush by now. They're pretty devoid of new ideas beyond some fairly generic middle of the road rockers that at least wouldn't get your Mum upset. The bland triteness of the title song lyrics makes you wonder what their image of themselves was at this stage. Rock and Roll saviours of the world? Maybe Live Aid finally went to their heads. I guess if you were about 15 you'd have gone for this just because it had a lot of songs that you'd heard on the radio on it. The fan who hacked the album's Wikipedia alleges that the song 'The Miracle' is "one of the most complex songs from the band's last years". It's complex like a bowl of spaghetti is complex.
There's 'I Want It All', but they ploughed the stadium chant furrow quite effectively 15 years before. It includes some attempts to up the pace off the back of the thrash explosion, but it feels like they're struggling to keep up. Their video for 'Breakthru' put them on top of a speeding train and what is certainly a Miracle is that they aren't completely engulfed by steam all the way through.
Freddie gets his maracas out for 'Rain Must Fall' and there's a half-hearted dig at the press with 'Scandal' and the fans allegedly think 'Was It All Worth It" is the best song on the album. I beg to differ.
The cover? Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole thing. Apparently it's meant to convey the message that the music is the work of the entity 'Queen' rather than the sum of the band's four members. It's quite horrible.
Party
Khashoggi's Ship
The Miracle
I Want It All
The Invisible Man
Breakthru
Rain Must Fall
Scandal
My Baby Does Me
Was It All Worth It
MADE IN HEAVEN
Released: 6th November 1995
Queen
The posthumous new studio album is a proposition fraught with peril. Usually it means cobbling together bits and pieces of the departed's work and trying to turn it into something worthwhile. The problem being, that material might have been lying on the editing studio floor for the very good reason that it wasn't really up to scratch. The new songs that the Beatles put out for the Anthology have never really entered their canon after all have they? However, it seems at least that this is more a product of a lost race against time rather than an afterthought. It clearly does however have some gaps in the songs that the remaining three members had to paper over. Funnily enough in some places that leads to some surprises. For example, who knew that if Roger Taylor ever needed to scrape in a few more quid, he could make a healthy living as a Rod Stewart impersonator. I nearly thought it was His Rodness on 'Let Me Live'.
Of course you don't come to a Queen album expecting subtlety or understatement, so everything from the album title, through 'Let Me Live', 'My Life Has Been Saved' and 'Heaven For Everyone' to 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' is there to remind you that Freddie is no longer with us, but is presumably strutting about the pearly gates with halo on head and fist clenched in the air. There's snatches of old songs scattered about and a reprise of his rather irritating crowd-baiting dee-dah-do thing which wound me up so much when I listened to the Live at Wembley '86 album.
They scored a decent number of hits of this, but I seem to recall the Brian May sung-version of 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' made more of an impact than the one on here. I have this memory of Brian, backlit and with perm aloft in the breeze singing it in an agonized voice as the camera slowly zoomed in on his grief. There's also 'This Could Be Heaven', which ends with the constipated grunt of the final "for everyone".
'You Don't Fool Me' seems the best candidate for the song that they struggled to make worthwhile with what Mercury had left them, Essentially an extended chorus, with a fairly substantial guitar break in the middle, even then it's far too long at nearly 5½ minutes.
Rather pointlessly there is also a 4 second song on here, 'Yeah', in which the lyrics comprise 100% of the title and is lifted from 'Action This Day' from Hot Space. So Wikipedia says anyway. If we're going to define anything less than 10 seconds long as a song, I'll take Napalm Death's 'You Suffer' every time, it has much more nuance and sheer commitment.
There's a 22 minute piece of synth soundscape at the end. At least I assume that's what it is, I didn't listen to it through. It's the 13th track, hence the name, although Spotify rather belligerently insists that it's simply 'Untitled'
So you'd think that was that, but Queen are nothing if not persistent. Despite being almost completely defined by their frontman, they've continued to try and keep the crank handle turning. Adam Lambert and Paul Rodgers have filled in on occasions since. I also recall a rumor that George Michael might get drafted in. But anyway, they have one more album in the list, The Cosmos Rocks which is officially by Queen and Paul Rodgers, I expect it to be on a par with the last Genesis album with that geezer from Stiltskin, but we'll see shall we?
INNUENDO
Released: 5th February 1991
Queen
When the title track came out as the lead single it really felt that Queen had finally tipped over the edge of rock ludicrousness. Listening to it now, I'm much more sympathetic to the fact that they probably didn't give a flying fuck at this point what anybody else thought and were just going to throw everything they could at it. At the time the wider world didn't know that Freddie Mercury was dying, so maybe that was weirdly liberating for them too. Anyway, 'Innuendo' the song is a rather perverse pleasure now. Apparently it's something of a tribute from Taylor to 'Kashmir' and the unexpected Spanish guitar part is none other than Steve Howe.
It's also got 'I'm Going Slightly Mad', which also, in hindsight seems a fairly transparent commentary on Freddie's illness. "It finally happened" he sings, like he knew the life of rock and roll excess would take it's toll in one way or another. It features quite a lot of those euphemisms for being, well, slightly mad or stupid that were all the rage at around that time. One card short of a deck, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, one sandwich short of a picnic. In an odd way it dates the song.
They take another shot at 'Breakthru' with 'Headlong'. These heavy rock-and-roll-by-numbers songs have turned up throughout their studio album career as their go-to musical polyfilla. In fact it heralds a sequence of very middling songs on this album. The vinyl version released in 2015 was put out as a double and you'd have to say that if they'd not had the freedom that CD offered to expand the track list at the time they might have been a bit more selective on what they decided to include in the final cut. Even the stronger ones, like 'The Hitman' only really amount to fairly standard poodle-rock that Motley Crue or Warrant would happily add to their setlist.
'These Are The Days Of Our Lives' and 'The Show Must Go On' are the only others that really stand out, mainly for the same reasons as 'I'm Going Slightly Mad'. There's an obvious poignancy when you know the background. I like the conversational tone of 'These Are The Days...' and the defiance of 'The Show Must Go On' can't be denied.
Fred popped his clogs not long after this was released. I remember it well. It was a shock for the casual Queen observer. I had a look back at the lineup for the tribute concert and it's noticeable that it was dominated by the heavy rock end of the musical spectrum. Queen were always characterized that way, but, having now listened to most of their albums from start to finish they do seem a much more complex proposition than Metallica, Def Leppard, Extreme and Guns n Roses. Oddly Spinal Tap seem like the performers who most captured the essence of what Queen and Freddie Mercury were really all about.
Innuendo
I'm Going Slightly Mad
Headlong
I Can't Live Without You
Don't Try So Hard
Ride The Wild Wind
All God's People
These Are The Days Of Our Lives
Delilah
The Hitman
Bijou
The Show Must Go On
Released: 6th November 1995
Queen
The posthumous new studio album is a proposition fraught with peril. Usually it means cobbling together bits and pieces of the departed's work and trying to turn it into something worthwhile. The problem being, that material might have been lying on the editing studio floor for the very good reason that it wasn't really up to scratch. The new songs that the Beatles put out for the Anthology have never really entered their canon after all have they? However, it seems at least that this is more a product of a lost race against time rather than an afterthought. It clearly does however have some gaps in the songs that the remaining three members had to paper over. Funnily enough in some places that leads to some surprises. For example, who knew that if Roger Taylor ever needed to scrape in a few more quid, he could make a healthy living as a Rod Stewart impersonator. I nearly thought it was His Rodness on 'Let Me Live'.
Of course you don't come to a Queen album expecting subtlety or understatement, so everything from the album title, through 'Let Me Live', 'My Life Has Been Saved' and 'Heaven For Everyone' to 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' is there to remind you that Freddie is no longer with us, but is presumably strutting about the pearly gates with halo on head and fist clenched in the air. There's snatches of old songs scattered about and a reprise of his rather irritating crowd-baiting dee-dah-do thing which wound me up so much when I listened to the Live at Wembley '86 album.
They scored a decent number of hits of this, but I seem to recall the Brian May sung-version of 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' made more of an impact than the one on here. I have this memory of Brian, backlit and with perm aloft in the breeze singing it in an agonized voice as the camera slowly zoomed in on his grief. There's also 'This Could Be Heaven', which ends with the constipated grunt of the final "for everyone".
'You Don't Fool Me' seems the best candidate for the song that they struggled to make worthwhile with what Mercury had left them, Essentially an extended chorus, with a fairly substantial guitar break in the middle, even then it's far too long at nearly 5½ minutes.
Rather pointlessly there is also a 4 second song on here, 'Yeah', in which the lyrics comprise 100% of the title and is lifted from 'Action This Day' from Hot Space. So Wikipedia says anyway. If we're going to define anything less than 10 seconds long as a song, I'll take Napalm Death's 'You Suffer' every time, it has much more nuance and sheer commitment.
There's a 22 minute piece of synth soundscape at the end. At least I assume that's what it is, I didn't listen to it through. It's the 13th track, hence the name, although Spotify rather belligerently insists that it's simply 'Untitled'
So you'd think that was that, but Queen are nothing if not persistent. Despite being almost completely defined by their frontman, they've continued to try and keep the crank handle turning. Adam Lambert and Paul Rodgers have filled in on occasions since. I also recall a rumor that George Michael might get drafted in. But anyway, they have one more album in the list, The Cosmos Rocks which is officially by Queen and Paul Rodgers, I expect it to be on a par with the last Genesis album with that geezer from Stiltskin, but we'll see shall we?
It's A Beautiful Day
Made In Heaven
Let Me Live
Mother Love
My Life Has Been Saved
I Was Born To Love You
Heaven For Everyone
Too Much Love Will Kill You
You Don't Fool Me
A Winter's Tale
It's A Beautiful Day (reprise)
Yeah
Untitled/13
I'm not convinced most Queen fans would count this as a proper Queen album. The presence of Fred is vital to the whole proposition. Wikipedia doesn't list it in their Queen discography either, which settles it as far as modern accepted wisdom is concerned. In a way it's a shame that this is hanging off the arse-end of the band's output. Maybe I should have ignored it and finished with Made In Heaven, but it is a studio album by the remaining members (minus Deacon, who'd taken out his pension by this time) trading under the same name. So it ticks enough boxes to count, and in the end it's not an embarrassment, but it is characteristic of so many bands that emerged in the seventies that post millennium they can rarely match up to what they achieved in their twenties.
THE COSMOS ROCKS
Released: 15th September 2008
Queen and Paul Rodgers
Queen don't seem to have been quite prepared to commit and appoint a full replacement for Freddie Mercury, even 17 years after he'd died, but they charitably formed an ongoing loose alliance with Just For Men (for hair AND beard in his case) devotee, Paul Rodgers, who was in the rock and roll wilderness following the glory days of Free and Bad Company. In fairness to all concerned, Queen did stick close to their original business plan for this album, insofar as they allowed the singer's style to govern the overall sound. Mind you, at times you think that if Robert Palmer was still around, he might have got the gig and be doing an even better job on some of these songs.
So, this is not recognizably (to me) a Queen album, but it's not bad at all and if anything it's a rather good modern Free album. It's all straightforward heavy-ish rock. Well executed and well sung by Rodgers too, but nothing really stands out. There's a nice change of pace for the ballads 'Small' and 'Some Things That Glitter' but 'Warboys' is just a little bit underpowered, as you would be forgiven for expecting. Rock bands need to be singing about 'Dogs of War' and 'War Pigs', not 'Warboys'.
They make a decent attempt at some Southern Blues on 'Voodoo', but it doesn't amount to much more than a pastiche of the real thing with a heavy rock chorus to try and set it apart. 'C-lebrity' owes something to The Who in the chorus and 'Through The Night' could just as easily be Gary Moore.
They make a decent attempt at some Southern Blues on 'Voodoo', but it doesn't amount to much more than a pastiche of the real thing with a heavy rock chorus to try and set it apart. 'C-lebrity' owes something to The Who in the chorus and 'Through The Night' could just as easily be Gary Moore.
I'm not convinced most Queen fans would count this as a proper Queen album. The presence of Fred is vital to the whole proposition. Wikipedia doesn't list it in their Queen discography either, which settles it as far as modern accepted wisdom is concerned. In a way it's a shame that this is hanging off the arse-end of the band's output. Maybe I should have ignored it and finished with Made In Heaven, but it is a studio album by the remaining members (minus Deacon, who'd taken out his pension by this time) trading under the same name. So it ticks enough boxes to count, and in the end it's not an embarrassment, but it is characteristic of so many bands that emerged in the seventies that post millennium they can rarely match up to what they achieved in their twenties.
Cosmos Rockin'
Time To Shine
Still Burnin'
Small
Warboys
We Believe
Call Me
Voodoo
Some Things That Glitter
C-lebrity
Through The Night
Say It's Not True
Surf's Up...Schools Out
Small reprise
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