| Queen | review #2 | 1973 |
| Queen II | review #2 | 1974 |
| Sheer Heart Attack | review #2 | 1974 |
| A Night At The Opera | review #2 | review #3 | 1975 |
| A Day At The Races | 1976 |
| News Of The World | review #2 | 1977 |
| Jazz | 1978 |
| Live Killers | 1979 |
| The Game | 1980 |
| Flash Gordon | 1980 |
| Greatest Hits [UK] (compilation) | 1981 |
| Hot Space | 1982 |
| The Works | 1984 |
| A Kind Of Magic | 1986 |
| Live Magic | 1986 |
| The Miracle | 1989 |
| Innuendo | 1991 |
| Classic Queen (compilation) | 1992 |
| Greatest Hits [US] (compilation) | 1992 |
| Live At Wembley '86 | 1992 |
| At The BBC (live) | 1995 |
| Made In Heaven | 1995 |
Post your comments about Queen
(Casey Brennan's review)
While not as stunningly original as later albums, Queen's first release already contains a majority of the ingredients that make up the defining Queen sound. Although to a lesser extent on here, the operatic and over-the-top vocals, pretentious and overly meaningless lyrics, and bombastic playing, are definitely all there. Most notable though is the unique guitar sound that is so prominent on here and virtually every other Queen record. Played by lead guitarist and physics student Brian May, this electric guitar was actually made out of hand by him and his father with pieces of an old fireplace, a motorbike, and different kinds of oaks. The outcome of all these raw materials was a high and trebly fat-sounding guitar that could be mistaken for the sound of a synthesizer on record (in fact, it states in the liner notes that no synthesizers were played), and which in the end turned out to be the perfect guitar for Queen's hard-rocking and overblown opera-rock style.
The only real things missing thus far then were the pop and ragtime influences that would appear so prominently from the third album on. Shown here though is the band in its' humble or not-so-humble beginnings when the band was in its' arty glam-metal phase, the heaviest and probably hardest-rocking period of their career. And what an exciting period it is at times. Side one is practically a tour-de-force in the guitar-soloing and pure excitement department. An impressive opener is the 'should-have-been-a-hit-single' "Keep Yourself Alive", which is a fantastic and hooky rocker that brings all the Queen elements to the fore with Freddie Mercury's tough-as-nails vocals (yup he was a great vocalist who was superb at falsetto vocals, but who also had a convincing sleazy-rocker voice) and short theatrical guitar solo in the middle.
Just as strong is "Great King Rat", a metallic rocker that contains about a ton of hooks, a bombastic bridge section, and breathtakingly solid guitar-work that really keeps the song going throughout. The other hard-rockers "Doing All Right" and "Liar" are both pretty good too, though the latter, as bombastic and entertaining as it may be, is just a little too tiresome, busy, and overwhelming to really be effective and justify its' length. But for a track with that much awesome guitar-soloing I can't complain too much. "My Fairy King", meanwhile, is the bands' first attempt at something truly operatic; down to the falsetto vocals and lyrics about 'lions' and 'dragons' this piano-led tune is a good prelude of things to come. So, overall I'm more than satisfied with the first five tunes on this set.
The rest is still pretty enjoyable, it's just that after those several thrills the record loses a bit of steam. Well, the melodic "The Night Comes Down" (check out that moody middle section) is a nice relaxer after the heavy ambitions of "Liar", but following that is a cheap thrill in Roger Taylor's "Modern Times Rock 'N' Roll", a rather generic and unnecessary tune. "Son and Daughter"(a heavy and sleazy blues track), "Jesus", and the instrumental "Seven Seas Of Rhye" (a much better version with vocals appears on Queen II), are all nice to listen to, but don't capture the true essence of Queen, or what I like to call 'Queen Magic'. Admittedly, half of this record is pretty addictive (I can certainly see why metal-heads call this their favorite period by Queen), but its' a little rough around the edges and not as cohesive as future albums. Still, in my opinion, it does beat out Aerosmith's, Lynyrd Skynyrd's, and Rush's debut albums from the same time period a tad.
HIGH POINTS: Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Great King Rat, Doing All Right. LOW POINTS: Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll.
It's always interesting to watch a band's unique style develop early on in their career, and the debut effort from one of the most exciting bands of the 70's is no exception to this. From the very beginning, Queen was fairly confident on what they intended to do - a theatrical approach to vocals and lyrics (centered of course around perhaps one of the great vocalists ever in Freddie Mercury), and a lot of studio trickery built around harmonies and a powerful hard rocking guitar sound and the incredibly unique tone of Brian May. These elements aren't quite as prominent as they would be on the next few albums (well, save for the guitar work), but the seeds of excess are already in place. This particular album tends to tread more toward 'hard rock' than 'opera', probably their most consistently heavy record ever. Martin Popoff of the Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal actually calls it the best album ever, and while I might not understand that reasoning at all, I can definitely see how Queen would appeal to metal fans more than their other stuff.
The first three songs on here really get the band's career off to a blazing start, with the opening rocker "Keep Yourself Alive" being my favorite. I just love the overall chugging drive and guitar theatrics on display here (especially at the guitar solo), as well as the awesome conviction of the vocal job and simple, but addictively catchy, optimistic pop goodness of the chorus. "Doing All Right" introduces, albeit in a less complex way, Queen dynamics - beginning as an exquisite piano ballad with subtle, slightly bluesy, guitar lines giving it color, it neatly shifts into a folksy section that turns into a powerful Zeppelin-ish breakaway rocker. And finally, "Great King Rat" has an absolutely thrilling mix of fast-paced melodies (including the 'great king rat was a dirty old man...' chant), unabashed pummeling bombast in the middle section, and guitar breaks/solos seemingly thrown in at perfect intervals during the song's near 6 minute length to draw my attention.
As far as the remainder of the album goes, it isn't exactly stunning or anything, but it mostly holds interest (check out the neat, layered acoustic work and 'nighttime' mood of "The Night Comes Down"), and effectively points the way to the future as well. "My Fairy King" is the first taste of the 'operatic' style, complete with absolutely silly (though fun if you're in the right mood for them) fantasy lyrics, repetitive piano and falsetto vocals and all that kind of stuff, and "Jesus" has a similar amount of theatrical edge to it in the pompous delivery of the verses and booming harmonies, being quite catchy considering how corny it is (not in a bad way, though! it's good camp!). The murky side of the next album is foreshadowed on "Son And Daughter" (very neat raw sound to the catchy guitar riff on here), and as the closer, there's even a short instrumental preview of "Seven Seas Of Rhye", which will get discussed more in the next review.
Finally, rounding out the album is another major highlight in the epic-styled "Liar", which combines quiet acoustic verses with call-and-response dynamics (i.e. the harmonies answer Freddie's claims of what he's seen and done and stuff with loud outbursts of the title in a very amusing way), breathtaking guitar solos, and an awesome adrenalized ending that's guaranteed to give hard rock fans headbanging pleasure. Only Roger Taylor's incredibly lame and stupid-sounding generic fast rocker "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll" is a real weak spot here, but the rest? Just fine. Maybe it borders on silly, tasteless and overly calculated at times, and the top highlights don't quite measure up to a few of the later classics (not to mention the sound isn't developed to its' full potential yet), but in many ways, this is one of Queen's freshest and most exciting efforts, and a no bones about it solid 8.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(Casey Brennan's review)
As one can see by the four faces of the band on the majestic cover of this album, this is the new flamboyant Queen whom are in control of their destiny. Ok, so the sound of this album isn't too far off from the glam-metal of the first one. But it isn't too close either. The band finally let their operatic tendencies go foot-loose on Queen II, and come up with an album that is overblown to the extreme, with lots of pompous lyrics, exaggerated melodies, and tons of guitar and vocal overdubs, all while retaining the heavy grandeur of Queen. Besides the slightly muddy production (which isn't a big deal anyway- it usually works in favor of the darker tunes), everything that Queen strides for on here succeeds in a big way. A softer and elegantly darker side of the band is shown in a few of the songs on the first half, while the five-song medley on side two is nothing short of a magnificent work in pretentious theatrics. This medley (which I will get to later) is simply the main course of this brilliant album.
The sound of glistening acoustic guitars and the hits of a few power chords on the short, one-minute track "Procession" is what starts off this album. It's a rather nice opening before the murky metal-rocker "Father To Son" appears and takes over. This messily-played tune pretty much contains equal amounts of sleaziness (as in the case of the bridge and guitar solo in the middle) and beauty (the ending 'kings will be crowned..' part), along with a short harmonic section that screams out Beach Boys (!), and plenty of other minor thrills abound. Think of it as a trashy rock-opera song. The band then goes into darker territory with the haunting "White Queen (As it Began)", which begins with a beautiful acoustic melody before the power chords come in and layers of overdubbed guitars bring the song to a climax. Freddie's vocals definitely highlight this breathtaking song.
"Some Day One Day" follows as another fabulous ballad (and the last of a trio of tunes written by Brian May on the album), albeit with a more optimistic mood this time. Probably the single thing I enjoy most about this track is how perfectly the comfortable chord changes go with the relaxing mood and atmosphere of the piece. After that then is the only stinker on the album in Roger Taylor's "The Loser In The End", a mindless hard-rock cruncher with absolutely no hooks at all or anything memorable, save for the hard-hitting and effective drum work. But hey, after that ends comes the part of the album that we've all been waiting for (well at least me). The medley, which is exciting, silly, over-the-top, and captivating at the same time, starts off with the unruly fast-paced rocker "Ogre Battle", which is a killer tune that includes plenty of great guitar licks, hooks, and feisty little solos throughout its' four minutes.
Stopping suddenly, it creatively flows into the dandy pop of "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke", a speedy harpsichord-laden tune with a ton of little melodies and over-dubbed Freddies all over the place. It's a crazy little ditty for sure, but it leaves me completely floored every time. A short and melodic one-minute piano interlude called "Nevermore" then follows and leads into a track that can be called "Bohemian Rhapsody's" older brother - the grand centerpiece of the album, "The March of the Black Queen". This amazing six-minute-plus track pretty much offers everything: humorously senseless lyrics (ex. water babies singing in a lily-pool delight/ blue powder monkeys praying in the dead of night), incredible bombastic melodies, a softer section with Freddie's angelic voice and piano-playing, and some really hard-rocking sections.
Some people despise this kind of stuff (or fluff I should say), but I can only praise it because it is done so incredibly well and gels almost perfectly (there are only a few very minor awkward moments throughout it). As if it wasn't enough for this track to be an even six minutes, it starts right up again for one last thirty-second verse, before flowing into the lightweight shuffle "Funny How Love Is", which is pretty fine itself with all those great vocal melodies. After the medley is completely finished, the vocal-version of "Seven Seas of Rhye" (a minor Queen anthem of sorts) comes on to officially end what is the most underrated release of Queen's career.
HIGH POINTS: The March Of The Black Queen, Ogre Battle, White Queen (As It Began). LOW POINTS: The Loser In The End.
I'm not all that sure if Queen II is actually better or worse than its' predecessor, but at least one thing is clear - the 'classic' Queen sound as most people recognize it is starting to emerge even more. You know, less in the vein of hard rock, more in the vein of overblown opera, as that huge art rock suite on the second side here will show you. While the peaks on here might be higher in terms of quality and in capturing their sound coming into full blossom (with more operatic elements and guitar/vocal overdubs), in terms of consistency things are slightly more uneven. Plus Brian May's guitar work, probably the greatest asset on the debut, is somewhat less captivating this time around for whatever reason (though the moments on here where he does shine are awesome), and sometimes I get the feeling (probably because A Night At The Opera exists) that some of this stuff is just a warmup for the trashy brilliance they'd pull off just a year later.
Well, that and the relative lack of inspiration on side one. I say 'relative' because other than Roger Taylor's second bad contribution in a row in the form of "The Loser In The End" (an even more plodding, unmelodic and generic power chord borefest than "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll"), I like everything on the side, but not too much of it excites me that much. "Father To Son" has a convincingly heavy, murky sound (along with an introductory bit that really sounds like a synth, even though 'no synthesizers were used on this record'), but the vocal melody is nothing that special, and it drags for a bit too long. I guess "Some Day One Day" is a pleasant acoustic/electric pop song from Brian May (with his lead vocals, to boot), but it never really goes much beyond just pleasant. However, this initial side does have one huge highlight in "White Queen (As It Began)", an extremely captivating acoustic-dominated ballad where Freddie Mercury's emotional-sounding vocal produces a breathtaking effect over that haunting vocal melody, and I absolutely love the wall of quiet background harmonies that appears in the middle, not to mention the heavier ending that brings perfect closure to the song.
While I would probably give the first half somewhere around a 7 or so, since most of it is still enjoyable and "White Queen" is quite great, the second half is something else totally. As a breathtakingly pompous suite of exciting, theatrical songs linked together almost like the band's own take of side two of Abbey Road, this is the first true glimpse of how thrilling and powerful their sound could be. The startoff song "Ogre Battle" actually reminds me more of a song that connects the two sides (pretentiously labeled 'black' and 'white') than anything else, and it's simply fabulous. The way it starts is enough to get my attention alone - the way chewn tape effects are used in the beginning to make the incredibly seamless transition into the normal ass-kicking rocker portion of the song is breathtaking, and the rest of it is great menacing riff-based drama, with some of May's most explosive work on here, packing in more great guitar riffs and solos than the entire first half combined, and then...
We're thrown into the ridiculous fantasy world of "The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke", a fast-paced harpsichord workout with complex production, vocal layerings, and entertaining melodies all over the place, and that flows into "Nevermore", a gorgeous interlude piece that I wish were longer than a minute, as the piano and vocal melodies keeps speeding up and slowing down in such compelling ways, but ah well. After that comes the masterpiece of the experience, one which very much paves the way for the glory of "Bohemian Rhapsody" - "The March Of The Black Queen" is perhaps just as inventive in terms of multi-part progressive structure, shifting from slow piano balladry to an addictive 'marching' tempo over a mass wall of vocal overdubs and several just plain fun melodies, even if it's not quite as challenging or melodic as its' more worthy successor (it took me a couple listens to exactly remember how it went). Still a great, complex piece that's the easy highlight of the album, though. But things aren't finished yet...
As on final stretch of the album comes the repetitive and maybe even cheesy, but really really naggingly catchy singalong "Funny How Love Is" (probably the showcase of the harmonies, and maybe the 'guilty pleasure' of the album for me) and the finally the closing 'updated' version of "Seven Seas Of Rhye". The debut's take was just a short instrumental sampler, but here you get the real thing - a riveting arena rocker whose main feature is the high-speed piano line that kicks the entire song into overdrive, a most worthy closer! All in all, I'd probably give this 'Black Queen' medley half of the album a very high 8.5 or maybe even a low 9, as the complex presentation, flow and excitement here excellently overcomes any dumb and pretentious surface weaknesses rather effectively, averaging out to another 8, if putting a number on 'art' in a soulless way like this is allowed. I see no problem with it, myself. These guys put their music out to the people to do however they see fit with it!
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(Casey Brennan's review)
This is the album which basically introduced the Queen sound that everyone knows. Ditching the metal aspects of the first two albums (though just in the purest sense, as the band does keep the dynamic and hard rocking qualities in their sound), the band adopts a much clearer production sound on here, which in turn enabled them to better emphasize on the overdubbed vocals and guitars that were becoming ever more elaborate. The band also incorporates ragtime and pop influences into the mix, adding a bit of kitsch flavor to the proceedings. It turned out to be a pretty good move too, as it gave them their first major and well-needed success with the opera-pop of "Killer Queen", a pretty strong number with good melodic capabilities and fantastic vocals.
A good deal of the other tracks retain the fine pop sensibilities of this tune, but Sheer Heart Attack isn't without its' fair share of rough n' tumble, fast-paced rockers. You don't think they'd actually name the album Sheer Heart Attack for nothing, do you? The album actually opens up with a hard riff-rocker called "Brighton Rock", a tune which starts off with a carnival music fade-in before the adrenaline-rushing and catchy verses come on, and which also has a middle section with various guitar effects and soloing. Besides being a tad boring at times during the latter part, it's an overall great song. Next, Roger Taylor brings in the spectacular hard rocker "Tenement Funster" (finally, on his third try, after the stinkers on the previous two albums), a midtempo, effectively-sung number with tuneful verses, a hard-hitting chorus, and a wonderful piano melody at the end that segues right into the fairly impressive "Flick Of The Wrist" (highlighting this tune are the 'ahhh' vocals during the guitar solo, and the 'Don't look back...' sections).
"Now I'm Here" and the lightning-fast "Stone Cold Crazy" rock out as well, while also giving the album an almost silly touch of diversity as they come after the thematic tunes "Lily Of The Valley" and "In The Lap Of The Gods" respectively. In fact the diversity found on this album and hereafter is pretty much due to all four members contributing material on a daily basis; it's mostly Brian May who contributes the fairly straightforward hard rockers, Freddie who contributes the pop/ragtime/operatic material, Roger Taylor the sleazy hard rockers, and John Deacon, well, I guess whatever came to his mind. Of course that is a bit of a generalization, but that's pretty much what each member stuck to.
Anyway, going back to the album, Freddie contributes operatic stuff like the aforementioned "In The Lap of The Gods", which has his vocals distorted and twisted beyond imagination (it's almost laughable), a highly pompous melody, and excellent staccato guitar ending, and the even more powerful "In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited", which is a bombastic and anthem-like closer. "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" comes as a two-punch ragtime number with a fun little melody, cute banjo solo, and silly lyrics - a worthwhile tune. Finally, filling out the albums' seams are a bunch of short little tunes like the piano tunes "Lily Of The Valley" and "'Dear Friends", and Deacon's snappy little ditty "Misfire". They aren't great, but they are enjoyable all the same. Oh yeah, one last cut is "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettos)", the only cut that I really don't care for from this release. With Sheer Heart Attack under their belt, Queen were now a focused band ready to stun audiences with their forthcoming magnum opus.
A pretty nice album. It features a few of Queen's best songs - "Now I'm Here" is a catchy heavy metal number, "Brighton Rock" has one of the best Brian May solos of all time, and "Killer Queen" is the catchiest music hall song of all time (in my opinion, it's better than similar McCartney numbers like "When I'm 64") due to the excellent Freddie vocals and dual guitars, and the closing "In The Lap Of The Gods Part 2" has a very rousing climax with lots of "La, la, la-la-la"'s at the end. A lot of this album, unfortunately, just kind of drifts by. Short ballads like "Dear Friends", "Misfire", "Lily Of The Valley", and the endless, semi out of tune "She Makes Me" leave absolutely no impression on me. They sound good while they're on, but you'll never really need to hear them again. Plus, a second music hall number, "Bring Back That Leroy Brown", sucks pretty badly. I don't like music hall-ish numbers unless they're dang near perfect, and "Leroy" is just a standard music hall number. Yawn.
The rest of the material is good, though. The catchy rocker "Flick Of The Wrist" isn't perfect, but it is, as I said, catchy. "Tenement Funster" is strangely dark, and though it isn't amazing, it is good. This album also has one of Queen's most aggressive rockers - the triple-speed "Stone Cold Crazy" (available in two nearly identical mixes on the new CD release) was later covered by Metallica, who amazingly enough weren't as energetic as good old Queen. This album is pleasant throughout, and certainly isn't a bad way to kill 40 minutes.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(Casey Brennan's review)
And here it is... Queen's magnum opus. A Night At The Opera, put simply, is the band at the pinnacle of their creativity. Pretty much everything that everyone loves about Queen is represented on this album, an ambitiously diverse and operatic affair that shows every aspect of the band's style successfully. Piecing together and recording the album was a big haul in itself; with all the meticulous overdubs, guitar parts, and various instruments, each of the band-members were often recording their own parts separately in different studios. In the end, though, it turned out to be a huge improvement upon Sheer Heart Attack (which is a fairly great album itself), and an awesomely huge mega-seller when finally released and in stores by late 1975.
Of course, the undisputable highlight on here is "Bohemian Rhapsody", a completely amazing and enthralling track that really pushes the band over the edge. This magically produced track is certainly one of the single most entertaining and musically breathtaking pieces of work I have come across - the pretentiousness of it alone makes for a fantastic listen. Taking a frustrating three weeks to record, this tremendous six-minute song starts off as an overwhelmingly great ballad before that famous middle part where dozens of layered and opera-type vocals shoot out in all directions to a wonderfully dynamic musical backing takes control. Finally that hard-rocking section, which gives me chills up my spine (hell, as does the rest of the tune), brings the song to a powerful climatic ending.
The rest of the record can't reach this magnificent high, but nonetheless, a lot of it really stands out. Intelligently, the album is sequenced so that the classic tracks come at the beginning, middle, and end of the album, while in-between are the lesser, though still highly entertaining, pop and hard rock tunes. The first show-stopper of the set comes in the mind-blowing opener "Death On Two Legs", a thrilling hard rock tune which starts off with a bit of classical piano before the doom-laden guitars come in and kick the song into first gear. The song basically proves that they didn't need synthesizers to create certain sounds, as Brian May's superb guitar pyrotechnics alone will carry you away into heavenly bliss. Following in fine pursuit is the proper-sounding music hall ditty "Laxing On A Sunday Afternoon", which contains not only an incredibly enjoyable melody, but also has an awe-inspiring ending with lots of overdubbed guitars and bombast.
If that isn't enough though, Roger Taylors "I'm In Love With My Car" blasts through as another mini-highlight. It may be the most straightforward tune out of the whole album, but the total conviction of the vocals and guitar-playing is so impressive that this track packs quite a punch. The Freddie Mercury harmonic-pop tune "You're My Best Friend" then follows as the band's most feel-good song of their career, while "'39" is an ultra-pleasant acoustic-strummed ditty with a good sing-a-long chorus and some more of those glorious Queen background vocals. the down-n-dirty blues of "Sweet Lady" (which is made by its' fast chorus) and the music hall kitsch of "Seaside Rendezvous" (the orchestrated vocals and little entertaining quirks are especially notable) have a bunch of nice qualities as well.
It all accumulates to the eight-minute plus epic "The Prophet's Song", which is the second real masterpiece of the album. Opening with the neat sound of a toy Koto (a Japanese instrument) it turns into a fascinating and 'progressively-arranged' heavy metal rocker, with several stunningly dark melodies in its' first half. It's the all-out operatic section in the middle part of the tune that really takes the cake though. The millions of over-dubbed and over-lapped vocals create a listening experience that is mind-boggling to the ear - it is done so beautifully well that it simply can't be over-looked. It's arguably the bands best moment of all (espeically when those 'la-la-la's come in) and truly a milestone in Rock history: Queen magic at it's most potent.
In between this and the last masterpiece of the album (which you should already know) are two shorter poppy tunes in the form of "Love Of My Life" and "Good Company". The former has an exaggerated piano melody and overblown vocals, which makes the song a real treat, while the latter is a snappy ditty with a highly fun back-beat and enjoyable ukelele playing along (and don't forget the interesting bridge). As far as melding heavy metal with opera and pop goes, no band could ever reach the grandness or do it as well as Queen does on A Night At The Opera.
Generally considered a classic and Queen's pinnacle, this album just doesn't strike me as being too different from other Queen releases - it has all of the same problems, from dumb music hall ("Seaside Rendezvous") to boring, indistinguished rockers (the moronic "I'm In Love With My Car" and the throwaway "Sweet Lady"), but the best material here is A+ top-of-the-line material that everyone should hear (and probably already has). The most famous track here is unquestionably the multi-part ultra-pretentious rock/opera number "Bohemian Rhapsody", which I love to death. The multi-layered vocals singing "Bismilla - No! We will not let you go - LET HIM GO!" still brings quite a smile to my face. Of course, you've heard it already, so I can't really tell you anything new about it. If you haven't heard it, well, but this album right now so you CAN hear it. On the other hand, the equally epic "The Prophet's Song" is every bit as good, though most people haven't heard it. I might even like it better! It's got a really dark melody and an unbeatable middle section with nothing but overlapped Freddies. Very hauntingly beautiful. Gets a hearty thumbs up from me!
Nothing stacks up against those two numbers, but the rest of the album still makes up a fine album. The opening "Death On Two Legs" is especially good, with a powerful guitar riff and Freddie's venomous vocals. "Love Of My Life" is slight, but still pretty. It's a fan favorite, but it does sound a bit weak after the superb "Prophet's Song". The rest of the material is all pretty solid - not perfect, but very solid. It's your basic Queen record (plus 2 astronomical songs). There are much worse ways to spend your money. Plus, this is the only place you'll ever hear "The Prophet's Song", so there's your excuse for buying it.
HIGH POINTS: Bohemian Rhapsody, I'm In Love With My Car, Death On Two Legs, You're My Best Friend, '39. LOW POINTS: Good Company.
I'm not sure if there have been all that many more appropriate titles for an album in music history than this. But that's just scratching the surface of Queen's overwhelming fourth album - this is probably the full representation of their overblown to the extreme operatic sound (and I mean that in a good way!), with multi-layered harmonies, ultra-exaggerated deliveries, a really curious amount of diversity throughout the songs, you know it all if you're familiar with the style, featuring the band's biggest hit ever and perhaps crowning achievement in ambitiousness that I'll get too later. However, I think this just could be the most frustratingly inconsistent record I've ever heard - I don't know if there's any other album that goes from overwhelming, magnificent, completely jaw-dropping high points to average, often filler-ish throwaways so easily as this one. But these highlights... yikes. I can't think of a better opening stretch out there than the first five tracks here, and that's even before we get to that Wayne's World thing.
First up, we have the ultra-vicious "Death On Two Legs", whose distinguishing feature is Freddie Mercury's total vocal conviction here - it's as if the ranting he's doing is directed straight at the listener. But it's musically stunning as well, with a bombastic piano intro and totally convincing hard rocking atmosphere to it. And that one quickly flows into "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon", a really short, but incredibly catchy piece of exaggerated opera that I still wish were longer (especially since that bombastic ending is so great too!). Heck, even in this stretch, Roger Taylor's "I'm In Love With My Car" comes off as the most important sounding statement ever recorded - it's just so hilariously overblown and again, incredibly memorable and entertaining, that in this case it's about absolute genius.
The results aren't even any worse when they go into more conventional pop and folk territory either. "You're My Best Friend" might be the most melodically gorgeous entry on the whole effort, and a deserved huge smash hit. Simply constructed, yeah, but beautifully and effortlessly sung by Mercury, and Brian May's "'39" is a great acoustic ballad with a Dylan-esque melody and even better, quite captivating story song lyrics - simply beautiful and breathtaking stuff in the way it's presented in his vocal style. At this point the album continues to flow like an all-time classic, but unfortunately, it's at this point where the inconsistency hits somewhat hard. I mean, "Sweet Lady" has an excellent opening, Zeppelin-esque riff, but the rest of the song substance wise really fails to live up to it - where the heck is the melody anywhere else? Boring and lumbering hard rock.
The music hall camp of "Seaside Rendezvous" could pass as melodically and musically entertaining, too, but there's just something about the overall sound and the way the arrangement is that rubs me the wrong way. And although "The Prophet's Song" has quite an impressive display of vocal layering in the middle (which really is breathtaking), I'm not really all that wild about the rest - it's a good enough and I suppose interesting progressive number, but it doesn't really seem all the way cohesive to me. "Love Of My Life", though reasonably pretty, is also a little disappointing coming in the wake of the earlier - the exaggerated nature of the melody is quite neat, but it doesn't really move me that much. And May's other song, "Good Company", is kind of an awkward ukelele-laced pop song that melodically doesn't make any sort of impression at all. Blah.
But thankfully, after all this 'mediocre to quite decent' material comes another classic that, along with that earlier stretch, makes me feel justified in giving this album such a high rating. Simply put, regardless of its' overplay, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is truly one of the greatest art rock statements of the entire decade, and even after hearing it so many times, it still thrills me to no end. The way it flows from that gripping, bombastic piano-laden ballad portion with great guitar breaks along the way ('mama... just killed a man.. etc.') to a jaw-droppingly cool multi layered vocal extravaganza and a great headbanging hard rock portion is one of the most smoothly flowing and breathtaking rock classics I've ever heard, with the album then ending afterwards on the short "God Save The Queen"). But you all know that already. So yeah, I may have complained a bit about the frustrating inconsistency of this, but believe me, the Queen sound here produces such a shattering effect on the high points here that it makes the lows a lot easier to overlook, which justifies the high rating.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
To follow-up the success of A Night At The Opera, the band decided to create a similar-styled sequel to it the next year. What they came up with was a set of songs that pretty much retained the diversity, trickery, and full-blown opera of the former release, though just a bit more tamed and lightweight this time out. How can you get more pompous and exciting than "The Prophets Song" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" anyway? All in all, my final verdict is that A Day At The Races is a great successor to the former release, and an almost total success in its' own ambitions.
Deserving the most attention on here are the Rock Opera tunes (which is about half the album), as they are melodically top-notch and majestically performed; there is probably no show-man that could pull this stuff off better than Freddie Mercury. The most ambitiously overblown numbers (and I mean that in a good way!), are in fact, more operatic in structure than anything that the band had done previously. The best example of this may be in "You Take My Breath Away", an exquisitely performed number with a great understated piano melody and a chillingly brilliant vocal job by Freddie. The grand vocal over-dubs which appear through-out and eventually bring the song to a breathtaking conclusion can send shivers down one's spine. Beautifully done I'd say.
As great as that one is, the ultimate show-stopper of the whole album would have to be the exciting "The Millionaire Waltz". Starting off with a delightful and up-beat piano melody against some low-key bass, this creative multi-part song then goes through a minor-melody section before suddenly turning into a magnificently bombastic heavy metal rocker for just a couple moments. Almost as suddenly, the tune quiets down and leaps into a tasteful instrumental section where Brian May contributes some of his distinctive 'opera-styled' guitar-work to a playful piano tune - quite a fine little showcase. Right afterwards comes the 'my fine friend' part, which in reality does sound a little flaky and corny (especially with what's around it), but really does work in the context of the song once one gets used to it. Finally, this elaborate tour-de-force ends with the same piano melody it began with.
Staying on a high note, the charming "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is the band's best rag-time/music hall number due to its' enthusiastic and fun melody (I'd take it over "Bring Back That Leroy Brown", which is still a good song though, any day). It's also one of their best structured ditties too. The mid-tempo highlight "Somebody To Love", in turn, is a great call-and-response pop tune with a very good melody and your distinctive Queen guitar-soloing in the middle by May. Still in fairly operatic mode is the spirited closer "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together), which although the weakest of the five tunes I already mentioned, is still quite fine.
The less overwhelming tunes (I mean that in a good way too!) and hard rockers that make up the other half of this release are pretty decent as well. Actually, at least three of them are pretty great. The driving heavy rocker that opens up the album, "Tie Your Mother Down" (a Queen classic in its' own right), and the elegantly Brian May-sung mellow rocker "Long Away", both compete with much of the rest of the material here-in, while Taylor's sleazy "Drowse" (the atmosphere is perfect on this one) is an overlooked gem that is almost as good as his contributions from the previous two albums.
Finally we have the decent popster "And You And I", which is melodically similar to "Somebody To Love" (which comes directly after it) but definitely weaker (not a bad tune by any means though), and the boring hard-rock stomp of "White Man", the only truly mediocre tune off of the whole damn album. Overall, A Day At The Races is a very swift and worthwhile follow-up to the classic preceding it - the best songs are as good as anything Queen could do. Only if "White Man' was a bit better would I have raised the rating a notch.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(Casey Brennan's review)
Queen's sixth studio release News Of The World is most notable for containing "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions", two mega-huge hits that open up the album. Usually played together on the radio, the former is a stadium pomp-stomp rocker that ends with a sizzling electric guitar solo (everyone across the country knows this one), while the latter one is a melodramatic ballad that shows Queen to still be at the top of their game. Fortunately, much of the rest of the material on here is just as good as that two-pack punch. Before I go into any further detail with the individual tracks though, let me just say that compared to the past few Queen releases, this one is a bit more rocking (and I'm talking about more straightforward rocking here - take "Sheer Heart Attack" for instance), and that the first real sign of an overly sexual and macho Freddie appears in at least one of the tracks (yes that's "Get Down, Make Love" I'm talking about).
This is one of the main reasons that this record gives off such a different vibe than the elaborately-produced A Day At The Races. Despite all this though, the usual diverse mix of rockers and anthemic/bombastic opera-type tunes let you know that the band is still sticking to the exact same formula as before. What a great formula it still is too! Besides the obvious hits on here, one of the top highlights may be the emotionally hard-hitting "Spread Your Wings", which has an anthem-like melody, a completely beautiful and 'heart-felt' vocal job, and awesome guitar crescendo in the middle. It certainly is one of Freddie's most convincingly-sung power ballads. Just as excellent is the sexual "Get Down, Make Love", a dynamic and musically interesting tune that has creatively dirty guitar-fills clashing with some powerful drumming during the verses, a heavy chorus, and a middle part with lots of neat sound effects (which sound like they come from video games).
Brian May's classical-influenced piano ballad "All Dead, All Dead", Taylor's full frontal-assault rocker "Sheer Heart Attack" (this one really goes well with the frightened crowd on the inside cover), and the exciting arena-rock glory of the six-minute plus "It's Late" are all very good as well. I've always wondered if "Sheer Heart Attack" was actually left off of the third album, or if it wasn't actually made until the recording sessions for this album. Nonetheless, it is still a pretty entertaining little rocker, if only due to the part where the band sings 'I feel so inar- inar- inarticulate' and the sudden stop of the track at three minutes and twenty-four seconds. Yeah, that ending sure is a heart-stopper... I used to almost get a heart attack when listening to the track stop in mid-riff.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the cabaret piano ballad "My Melancholy Blues", which has Freddie singing in some really girly-sounding, but pretty vocals; the melody is very decent too. "Fight From The Inside" meanwhile, is an ok gruff-voiced rocker that just kind of passes by (especially since it comes in-between two fantastic songs), and "Sleeping On The Sidewalk" is a standard piece of boogie, which lacks excitement and substance. "Who Needs You" is at least better than those two, as it has a well-paced calypso melody and fun vocals. While News Of The World turns out to be a minor step away from the highly grandoise sound of the previous two albums, it is still another great Queen album from their creative peak.
This album is probably best known for containing the "We Will Rock You"/"We Are The Champions" suite, which every single person alive knows by heart. You all know it, so there's no need for me to really comment on it except to say that I like it quite a bit after all these years. The rest of this album is, well, basic Queen. You have your melodramatic ballads ("All Dead, All Dead"; "Spread Your Wings"), your fast rockers ("Sheer Heart Attack") and your dirty sexual grooves ("Get Down, Make Love"; "Fight From The Inside"). My favorites are the aforementioned suite, the actually quite pretty "All Dead, All Dead" (about a cat, by the way), the even prettier "Spread Your Wings", and the punkish "Sheer Heart Attack" (which a lot of people seem to hate, but I likes it personally).
As for the rest, well, it strikes me as classic Queen filler. The epic-ish "It's Late" never does much, the groove of "Fight From The Inside" doesn't work quite right, blah blah blah, etc. It's all listenable, but you never really need to hear it again. I thought about giving this a 6, but then I remembered the bonus track - a weird, long, dancable remix of "We Will Rock You" that carries that guitar bit at the end into a long groove that, well, grooves! I actually like it better than the original. If you must get this (and it is a pretty good album), make sure to get the 1991 reissue.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
The title of this album was inspired by some graffiti that Brian May found on the Berlin Wall while the band was on tour in Germany. I don't know how closely the graffiti resembled that of the final front cover in the end, but I do know that Brian felt strongly about it, saying that the artwork went perfectly with the actual music on the album. Whether or not it does, the most important thing about Jazz is that it contains quite a bunch of excellent songs. And a great inside cover too, if you happen to like woman with big asses (I for one don't... but anyway). This record is just as great as the previous two releases, since once again there is no shortage of prime Queen cuts, and because the overall consistency of the album is pretty up there.
The band's creative surge hasn't weakened either as is evident in the intriguing lead-off track "Mustapha", which is a killer tune with Arabian-sung lyrics, an incredibly fast-paced tempo that stops and starts (thus making the tune rise in intensity), and a purely entertaining melody to boot. The instrumentation on this odd tune is no less than superb too, as the pumping piano that carries the tune in a force-able manner is effective, and the vigorous guitar orchestrations here are something you'd expect from Brian May on a particularly good Queen song. The first hit of the album though comes in the very popular "Fat Bottomed Girls", a tune which may be a tad overrated considering the status it's given among fans, but which is still a very fine sleazy hard-rocker. The rough-voiced vocals and memorable chorus are enough to make it all sound convincing.
Following that is the warmly melodic piano ballad "Jealousy" (a typical ballad from the band, but oh what a great melody it has) and then the humorous opera-pop tune "Bicycle Race", which is the second hit and one of the top highlights on here. The way Freddie's voice on the chorus becomes emphasized on the word 'bicycle' is a clever studio trick, and the middle 'race' section where an interesting guitar dual takes place is just stunning. After these four strong cuts, the album goes into a middling ground where three rockers in a row take over, followed by two short sweet ballads. The rocking "If You Can't Beat Them"(a decent riff on this one), "Let Me Entertain You" (which is highlighted by the haunting "We'll give you crazy performance... " part), and "Dead On Time" (a speedy riff-rocker which is maybe the best of these three tunes) are all pretty memorable, while the lovely piano ballad "In Only Seven Days", and to a lesser extent, "Dreamers Ball", are worthwhile additions too.
The hard-hitting groove-funk of "Fun It" picks up the pace a bit as a danceable tune with an enjoyable bridge, but It's Brian May's angelic voice on the tender "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" and the highly energetic piano-rocker "Don't Stop Me Now" which are the real winners though. The latter, with its' great chord changes, supersonic vocals, and ferocious optimism, is especially wonderful. Oh, and the song ends beautifully too. The thirteenth and final track is Roger Taylor's "More Of That Jazz", a strong and desperate-sounding mid-paced rocker that contains clips of tunes through-out the album, like "Bicycle Race", "Dead On Time", etc. in one fifth-teen second sitting. The band would change styles quite a bit after this album, so enjoy the band while they are still in this mode as much as you can (or just always put on one of their prime releases). And also, yes this is the third Queen album in a row to get a rating of 8... I don't throw around that rating for nothing, but this is simply another great record.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Philip Maddox)
A live release, and a fairly inane one at that. Most of these songs don't sound too different from the studio versions, and when they do, it's usually for the worse. One major exception is the opening punk version of "We Will Rock You", which is actually a song as opposed to an aimless groove. It's the definitive version of that tune, so pick this up if you see it for a buck. Good versions of "'39", "Spread Your Wings", "Don't Stop Me Now", and "Keep Yourself Alive" are all quite fine and are nice to listen to occasionally as alternatives to the studio cuts.
This album still has more than its share of problems, however. One problem is the fact that a huge chunk of disc 1 is a medley of tunes that should've been played in full - trust me, listening to half of "Death On Two Legs" or "Killer Queen" just doesn't cut it. "Now I'm Here" involves a lot of audience participation, which probably would've been great if you were there, but it's boring listening to the crowd sing for 4 minutes. "Brighton Rock" is extended beyond all boundaries, starting out decent and turning into a nearly 10 minute guitar solo which bores me after about 2.
Plus, "Bohemian Rhapsody" loses its best part! I was expecting some crazy improv during the opera section, but instead, the group left the stage and just played the record, which leaves me with an inferior version of the studio version. The group comes back for the guitar solo, but my mood has already been spoiled by that point. And, well, everything else just sounds like the studio version. The track selection is good (though I would have used "Fat Bottomed Girls" instead of "I'm In Love With My Car"), and the band is tight enough. Still, if you have the studio albums or a greatest hits album, don't bother.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
Queen kicks off the new decade with The Game, their eighth studio release. It was pretty much a fresh new start for the band, and a definite departure in sound from their distinctive 1970's formula, which everyone at this point had become highly familiar with. The band even changed their look quite a bit; they all had cut their hair (except for Brian May... that bastard) and started dressing less like the theatrical glam-rockers they were, and more like slick new-wavers. The music, of course, is far from new wave, but it's much more straightforward and normal-sounding than previous Queen albums. There is certainly a lot less pomp on here (even though a few of the tracks do retain some of the old vibe), and more of a reliance on making the tunes catchy and to the point.
So it's not surprising that this highly commercial release became the band's biggest-selling album to date. After all those years, I'd certainly say this success was well-earned too. It may be far from being the peak of the bands' career, but due to the inspired performances, and because the proceedings are kept fairly diverse, The Game, fortunately, turns out to be quite a worthwhile listen. What with embracing disco-tinged and stream-lined rythyms on some tracks, and even trying their hand at an Elvis Presley-styled rockabilly number on the big hit "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", things have got to stay somewhat interesting.
The album itself starts off with three more-or-less great tracks. The opener is a bombastic and melodic piano tune called "Play The Game", a track which retains the old spirit of the band with its' multi-layered voices and heavy guitars, but which contains the first use of synthesizer on a Queen record (the band were now more keen on the new advanced versions of this instrument). And the synths are used quite effectively too, as is heard in the section after the middle eight where they shoot up and down like starships against the guitars. After this excellent highlight, a tough and venomous bass-groove is set on "Dragon Attack", a kick-ass number with fierce vocals by Freddie and completely enthralling guitar-work from Brian May.
This one isn't as good as the danceable disco-tinged "Another One Bites The Dust" though, the second major highlight of the album. All that can be said about this famous cut is that it is a timeless and intriguing listen due to its' memorable hooky beat and catchy bass-riff. The rest of the album, however, can't reach the highs of the first three tracks. Besides the ultra-sweet and lovely May cut "Sail Away Sweet Sister" (which is a gem on here) and the anthem-like closer "Save Me", the rest is just nice. This goes for Deacon's average rocker "Need Your Loving Tonight", "Rock It (Prime Jive)", the sleek "Coming Soon", "Don't Try Suicide", and yes, even the enjoyable "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". Even so, this is a pretty solid set from the band, whom were about to work on a soundtrack album for a film called Flash Gordon as the sessions for this album were about to end.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
Queen's immediate follow-up to The Game was this soundtrack album to a fairly unknown and notoriously unpopular film. The director sure was right to use a band of this calibre for music to an action film, because think about it, Queen were always one of the most entertaining hard rock bands out there. And you sure know that in order to be successful, these types of movies need that entertaining and ass-kickin' quality in its' music to be effective (or at least a good plot. hehe). So I praise the band for doing this type of thing. However, as with most soundtracks, this one is very hard to sit down and enjoy all the way through. The main reason being that there is a real lack of 'actual' music on here. While there are bits and pieces of instrumental music on most of the tracks (18 tracks in all), there is just way, way too much cheesy film dialogue; it's basically the kind of script that you hear on any mediocre action film.
This leaves us with really only two songs throughout all of Flash Gordon. Luckily, both of them are very good tracks. "Flash's Theme" and "The Hero", which open and close the album respectively, are both good vehicles for the traditional Queen sound, with their decent piano and or/guitar melodies and hard-rocking, dynamic playing. Some of the synth-laden instrumentals (all of the band members are labled as playing synth on the inside cover - I don't know how true that is though) are not bad either. Unfortunately though, the thing that gets annoying real fast is how the main melody from "Flash's Theme" gets repeated over and over again in a number of the tracks(especially in the second half of this release) - almost to the point of exhaustion.
You can always hear it coming too... first it's that thumping beat, and then the band yells out "FLASH... A-AH!!"... followed by that familiar guitar part. Skip two tracks forward, and you just may hear the same thing again. It just may be an instrumental version of it that time. Skip a few more tracks, and then you might hear it again, but with the vocal yells again. Blah. Now I know that soundtracks are supposed to have a recurring theme like that in it, but when its' the only actual melody on the whole damn album it gets grating real fast! Even so, the band shouldn't get too scolded for this release as it's overshadowed by the two albums it comes in-between. Considering The Game's success at the time, a lot of people probably didn't even realize that this soundtrack ever came out anyway. That may be a good thing. But hey, I gotta complete my Queen collection.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
The band's real follow-up to The Game shows them incorporating more state-of-the-art technology production values into the mix. With techno beats and danceable grooves abound, Hot Space can be called the one album that is least characteristic of the traditional Queen sound. This may actually be why so many people see this as one of the first low-points of Queen's career. Of course, releasing something like this could have been a bad thing for the band, but, I for one, think that it's a very likable follow-up from the previous album. While there are no major highlights on this release, the songs themselves are still quite good and enjoyable to listen to. Very catchy too. In fact, it's this catchy quality that makes the tunes on this sexually-charged album so fun and memorable.
Most memorable of the lot is the strong lead-off track "Staying Power", a danceable horn-laden festive which is nothing short of entertaining fun; sure, the hot n' heavy lyrics may be shallow, but the groove is simply irresistible. The whole thing could have came out corny, but thankfully it didn't. The sound effects of this particularly successful outing are fresh-sounding and the fast and flashy horns that dominate the tune go well against the creative rhythm. Following that are "Dancer" and "Back Chat", two enjoyable techno-pop tunes which both have catchy choruses and simple melodies. The most notorious track of the bands' career, however, comes next in the form of a sexual heavy-beat dance tune called "Body Language". Most people regard it as one of the most atrocious songs ever (mostly due to the lyrics... 'give me, body - give me - body..'), but I'll take the risk of getting flamed and say that it's a very decent song. The lyrics, while stupid, are well sung and perfectly suitable for this kind of track, and how anyone can deny the neat bass-groove that carries the song is beyond me. I wouldn't call it a great track, but very good, nonetheless.
The Taylor-penned "Action This Day" continues finely, as a neatly-paced popster with some great fake-sounding falsetto-sung vocals during the choruses, while "Put Out The Fire" follows as a fairly normal, but well-done hard rocker from Brian May. Another mini-highlight is the Lennon tribute "Life Is Real" (wasn't everyone making a tribute song to him at this time?), which is built on a strong and memorable piano melody that really sounds like it could have been written by John Lennon himself. Finally, rounding out the album are three nice tunes called "Calling All Girls", "Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)" (which is a good but typical tune from the band), and "Cool Cat". So with ten tracks of pretty decent quality, Hot Space turns out to be a rather fine album and a good addition to the bands' catalog. Only the dated production sometimes mars things.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
It's not Hot Space that should be considered a real downfall for the band, but rather this overly weak follow-up. While the former actually has a bunch of catchy and enjoyable songs with decent melodies, this one basically lacks any melodies and hooks. Despite the lack of quality though, The Works did surprisingly well when released, making Queen become ever more popular as the mid-80's crept in. Even so, it's kinda unfortunate that the band was gaining momentum during this annoying era; it just goes to show that the publics' taste at the time was getting worse and worse. The whole album is sparked by the major hit single "Radio Ga Ga", which is also the single strongest song found on here. It's not a great song by any means, but it opens up with a neat synthesized rhythm, has a memorable chorus with well-paced lyrics (like when 'ga ga' is emphasized during part of it), and an overall enjoyable melody.
Unfortunately, only a couple other songs come close to this 'just good' song. The next two best songs that come to mind are "It's A Hard Life" and "Keep Passing The Open Windows", which both have convincing enough vocal jobs to guarantee them as somewhat worthwhile. However, as nice as the former track may sound, it is a good reminder of how much the quality of the bands' melodies have declined since The Game because it sounds like a very weak re-write of "Play The Game" from that album, and the latter track has a piano melody reminiscent of the hugely popular Joe Jackson tune "Stepping Out" from a year earlier, only with a much weaker melodic structure than that great song. Oh, and the overall bombastic performance of it also leaves something to be desired.
This is nothing compared to the mindless hard rock shit that Brian May contributes on here though. The best of his tunes is the mediocre "Hammer To Fall", which isn't at all that grating since it does contain some notable guitar soloing, albeit nothing else. What's really lame is the annoying power chord cruncher "Tear It Up", which is as generic of a rocker as you can get, and especially "Machines (or 'back to humans')", which is probably my pick for the album's major low-point. The lyrics are mind-numbingly dumb of course, but its' the stupid machine sounds, the brainless and unforgettable riff, the lack of any good hooks, and the length of the tune that really renders it to be a horrendous listening experience. The vocal job on this song is probably the worst from what I like to call the "Macho Freddie" years (yeah, Freddie was a macho guy at this point whose main topics to sing about were fighting and sex).
Meanwhile, "Man On The Prowl" is a highly forgettable piano rock n' roller, "I Want To Break Free" is a poor ballad only redeemed a bit by a short synth solo (this one was another single from the album, no kidding), and "Is This The World We Created..?" is a shallow tune whose lyrics about starvation prelude the equally as shallow Live Aid Fiasco, a year later. In the end, the few good moments on this album (which aren't that good anyway) aren't enough to jump the rating a tad to this mostly poor set of songs. So a high 4 it is.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
COMMENTS
I think to be fair to this album you have to keep in mind that this was the height of video/mtv mania, when songs were written for videos and, quite often, the video made the song. It was, whether we liked it or not, a forced multi-media art that, thankfully, has retreated.
Then we can look at the videos for the singles here. Frankly, I haven't owned this album in 6 or more years, but I can still sing you back most of "I Want To Break Free" - even the corny bridge. Simple - yes; to the extreme. If I recall correctly - bassist John Deacon wrote this. (He was responsible for most of the glitter pop including "You're My Best Friend" and "Another One Bites the Dust". ) The video was hysterical if not at all surprising - the band in drag - Brian May as an old woman in curlers, Roger Taylor as a ditsy blonde teenage girl etc. And the middle instrumental section was very artsy ballet where Freddie body surfs on a wave of somewhat nude bodies. Personally I felt the video was too strong and took away from the song - but it was highly entertaining and exactly what record labels and MTV wanted.
Speaking of which - there is the formula factor at work here. The previous outing, the very danceable and very gay Hot Space was a commercial nightmare in spite of 3 top forty hits - it instantly alienated a band's lifetime of fans. So we have a "back to what works" approach (which of course never works) and the last thing to work was The Game (notice the similarity in both the title and the album cover - The Works). "Man on the Prowl" is ok but a pathetic cloning attempt at another "Crazy Little Thing...". They reach back even further with a repeat of the powerful unison crowd vocals of "We Will Rock You" with "Radio GaGa"; the 1st single (much hyped) a powerful video and a very beautiful, well constructed and brilliant song. Unfortunately unleashed on an audience who at the time paid little attention to lyrics and meaning; and cared even less about radio; the song was dismissed as foolish and idiotic, and Queen had officially passed their prime in a youth obsessed culture. (the video featured footage from the silent film Metropolis as well as thousands of faceless Queen fan club members clapping their hands and afterwards holding them up in military fashion).
"Hammer to Fall" is the closest thing to old Queen. Particularly interesting is the pumped up, macho Freddie ironically singing Brian May's lyrics "Build your muscles as your body decays...just got time to say your prayers while you're waiting for the hammer to fall". To my recollection this is the only true rocker here and it's pretty good and the vocal is nonetheless great. (Mercury had by this time blown his voice quite a bit and resorted to lowering the keys or changing the melodies in live performances).
"Is This The World We Created" may be a bit sappy - but it's heartfelt...Freddie rarely sang a ballad without conviction, I like the whole minimalistic and poignant album closer touch - it's too bad it closed on a whole bunch of filler (all the songs I can't remember at all). It could have made a really good e.p. and for that I'll give it a 5.5
Kenny MacKenzie
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
The hilariously corny party cover to this Queen album goes perfectly with the vibe of some of the music on here. The best example would have to be with the opener "One Vision", a hard rockin' track which has a simple and effective riff, and a spew of sound effects that sparkle and glitter much like the crap you see floating around on the front cover. Due to its' fun catchiness and overall exciting edge, it's arguably the best track on all of A Kind of Magic (though not really a great song) as well. As for much of the rest of the album, there really isn't too many great things to say about it. The ballads, for one, are carried heavily by those annoying and lightweight mid-80's synths, and the rockers are usually just irritating to the ear at best.
Still, that's not the main problem (you can't blame the band for making a record in 1986 - even if it may be the worst year that Rock music has ever produced). The main thing wrong is that half of these songs have weak melodies or just plain out suck; even the popular Highlander soundtrack song "Princes of the Universe" ain't altogether that successful (I'll get to this one later though). Despite the weakness of the album though, it is a slight improvement over The Works (where even the best song can get annoying at times), because side one at least boasts a few enjoyable and memorable tracks. In fact, the quality of the first half of the album makes a rather decent listen - it's the second half of the album that just pulls everything down.
The danceable title track is certainly one of the stronger tunes, as it has a highly enjoyable and comfortable beat pumping it along, and great vocals of course. The 'It's a kind of magic' catch phrase that is found throughout this song can surely stay in your head for hours. Another good tune on this side is "Friends Will be Friends", a feel-good piano tune that opens up with a great opening guitar line, has a well-crafted and typical melody, and a nice chorus to boot. The light synth-tone of the bouncy "Pain Is So Close To Pleasure" isn't half bad either, even if it's a little bit on the repetitive side and not too substantial. The weakest of side one would then have to be the sappy ballad "One Year Of Love", which is an o.k. but pretty boring and melodyless easy-listening tune, with a sparse atmosphere and some light sax-work.
The lame second half sees us get two lame Brian May tunes in the form of "Who Wants to Live Forever" (boring!) and the annoying ballsy rocker "Gimme The Prize". The guitars, which are stolen from "Princes Of The Universe" (or it could be vice versa; who cares though), are grating to the extreme, and the soundtrack voices found in the middle are terribly corny - they just make a bad song worse. Brian May sure dug himself into a hole during this period. Meanwhile, "Don't Lose Your Head" is an average, nondescript synth-rock tune, and the closer "Princes Of The Universe" is pretty enjoyable in the beginning until it speeds up, gets fruity, and just loses me. This album is a step-up from the band's low-point two years earlier, but still doesn't contain enough of that Queen 'magic'.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
This is a comeback of sorts for Queen. Well, the only studio album from the band I don't have yet is The Miracle, which came before this, so I'm not really sure if it's better than that one. But most fans say that it's mediocre at best, so for now I'll go with their word (I hope I'm not screwed over by the fans and find it to be a topnotch album - which I doubt anyway), and I'll say that this is the bands best album since Hot Space (or The Game for most peeps). That doesn't mean that it's a great album by any means, but it is definitely a consistent listen and mildly pleasant album all the way around. The band uses some of the old tricks that they used back in their younger years (the title track may be the best example with its' operatic mid-section and overall melody), while keeping up with modern production standards by using lots of synths and such to give each track a different tone or feel.
It's also the same production that mars Innuendo a bit, as because of it, a number of the tracks aren't allowed to speak as many words, or just a lack a certain tastefulness that should be there. I can't, however, complain much more on that, since the majority of the tunes on here have at least something to offer. The opening title track, which contains a guest appearance by Steve Howe on acoustic guitar 'somewhere in the middle' (as quoted in the liner notes), is made well with its' dark melody and sinister synth backdrop during the verses, while its' seemingly out-of-place and snappy mid-section contains some beautiful Mercury vocals. The nonchalantly-sung "I'm Going Slightly Mad" has an ironic charm to it, the generic synth-pop ballad "These are the Days of Our Lives" is built on a well-structured melody, and "All God's People" is made by the brilliant vocal-job from the band during the verses.
Not a perfect track, "All God's People" is a very, very nice track in retrospect; the section where Freddie and the band engage in call-and-response vocals back and forth ('gotta stand up' 'better grow up', etc.) is fueled by an instrumental backing of flutes and drums, which sound like they came right off of a Disney movie like The Lion King (of course that particular movie came out three years after this album). And thats not even a bad thing! Elsewhere, the band brings us a decent generic rocker called "Headlong", "I Can't Live With You", the light n' easy "Ride the Wild Wind", and the gloomy closer "The Show Must Go On". They all have something memorable about them too, but quite frankly they aren't interesting enough to hold one's attention all the way through, giving off the feeling 'is it over yet?'. Still, that goes with most of the material on the album anyway.
Well, maybe except for "Delilah", which as a corny pop song about Freddie's cat, contains a catchy and upbeat melody that is easily the most fun thing off of the album. The fairly lifeless and dull synth-laden tracks "Don't Try So Hard" and "Bijou", along with the trashy and stupid rocker "The Hitman" (the heaviest track off of here) come out as the weakest of the bunch o' tunes. While not much more than a pleasant venture into the world of Queen, Innuendo was an album that showed the band getting back on track - sadly, it wasn't to be since Freddie Mercury died of AIDS less than a year after the release of this album. Rest in peace.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
(reviewed by Philip Maddox)
This is a compilation of latter day Queen cuts, plus a few tracks that didn't make the other compilation that came out at the same time (simply called Greatest Hits, which shouldn't be confused with an album of the same name that came out around 1980 or so). The early cuts are easily the best things here - "Bohemian Rhapsody" is as perfect as ever, "Under Pressure" (featuring the bassline ripped off by Vanilla Ice for "Ice Ice Baby") is a great duet with David Bowie and funky bass, "Tie Your Mother Down" is vintage Queen brand hard rock, and "Keep Yourself Alive" is Queen's best hard rocker - Freddie's vocal line and Brian's great riff and solos make the song a total classic.
The later stuff is much more problematic, however. There are a couple of sappy ballads that sound like lame Phil Collins ("One Year Of Love" will induce you to vomiting in particular), a handful of decent yet generic rockers ("Headlong" and "Hammer To Fall"), and some useless 80s pop ("Radio Ga Ga" is moronic despite its status as a "classic", and "I'm Going Slightly Mad" isn't much better). Still, some of the material is quite good. "Who Wants To Live Forever?" is a beautiful, moving, excellent ballad with some of Freddie's best vocals. I LOVE that tune.
"One Vision" is a very good hard rocker, "The Show Must Go On" is a good attempt to conjure up the majesty of old, and "The Miracle" isn't too bad, either. This is a good buy if you want to have something from Queen's later years without having to dig through the albums (and if this is the best stuff from those albums, I'll leave 'em right there on the shelf, thank you very much), but this isn't even close to being a definitive retrospective. If you only want one Queen disc, get the other Greatest Hits album (though it does have the abysmal dance number "Body Language", a robotic dance number that may very well be the worst song ever recorded by anybody, ever).
Post your comments / reviews for this album
COMMENTS
This is pretty lame for a retrospective, and I can agree with the 6 rating. The easy-to-find US Greatest Hits compilation is a much better buy, as it contains all of Queen's must-have classics except for the gorgeous "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Under Pressure," if you like that tune (it doesn't do a whole lot for me personally). But the problem I have with both of the US Queen collections is that the band doesn't quite have enough classic material to warrant two best-of albums. The result is that both releases contain a notable abundance of filler material, which is very problematic on hits compilations. Obviously, Classic Queen contains considerably more forgettable material than the US Greatest Hits, but even then, the situation would really be better if the band had just one concise hits package available, like their old UK collection. I think this is a point understood by most casual Queen fans (such as myself), and Chris Williams actually lays it out well in his personal review site, The Disclaimer Music Review Archive (or something like that). As for Classic Queen, it IS a worthy collection of the band's later, none-too-impressive highlights. I personally find "Radio Ga Ga" to be one of the more memorable queen songs I have heard, actually, and "I Want It All" is a solid latter-day Queen rocker. But at the same time, the album is not really worth owning like the US Greatest Hits is.
Index | Main band/artist reviews page