Queen's "Hot Space" C/D?

What is to said about Queen is that their 80-82 disco attempt sucked, while their 1984 synthpop attempt ("Radio Ga Ga") was one of the best things they ever did.

"Backchat" sounds AMAZING to my ears at this moment.

'Backchat' is great, easily one of my three highlights of Hot Space alongside 'Under Pressure' and 'Put Out The Fire'. I've never cared for the rest and I have a higher tolerance for mid-to-late period Queen than most!

does OP stand by his claim that the best Queen album is Hot Space? not hating, it's just...a pretty extraordinary claim, given Queen II, Night at the Opera, and News of the World

Definitely prefer it to Night At The Opera (a band with freddie mercury in it shouldn't have so many songs without freddie mercury on them), but today I'd have to admit News Of The World is a contender. Haven't heard Queen II and must admit my back-in-the-day stance wasn't particularly informed.

Still mad that this song wasn't a single. No way the video wouldn't have been awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lzFbZZ4n38

I concur that Hot Space is pretty slept-on. Really there's so much latter Queen that's excellent. But Queen II...that's like the original record-store-dude Oh, yeah, I guess they're ok now, but have you heard...this? kinda record

lol, the only Queen I have on my hard drive is Innuendo and The Works

I'm most familiar with the first couple albums and then from The Game through the end. All the Operas and Races and Newses and whatever are kind of a blur.

While I've only listened to Queen II once now, I can't imagine ever preferring it to News or Hot Space, just off their choice to put all the relatively wan May stuff on the A side and all of Freddie's drama on the B.

i respect the hypothetical record store clerk that plays side B for a The Game purchaser, though, obvs.

I thought the live versions of Hot Space songs came across pretty well to, closest Queen ever came to funk-rock in a ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IeyomJcG5c

This was Queen's "tension album", wasn't it? Musical differences (Freddie and John Deacon wanting to go the funk/disco route, while Brian May and Roger Taylor were wanting to stick with their tried-and-tested rock template), masses of cocaine, too much time spent in isolation in the studio, and growing tensions about Freddie's lifestyle at that time and his personal manager. I suppose if Queen were ever going to break up, it would have been at that time, and I suppose they nearly did given the amount of solo work that followed. Fast forward a few years to their success at Live Aid and Wembley, and they bounced back admirably... and Freddie's HIV/AIDS diagnosis, an extremely grim thing that I wouldn't wish upon anyone, solidified the band even further through the The Miracle and Innuendo. It made whatever happened between them during Hot Space look incredibly trivial.

should we have a "rank queen's albums" threads or should we make it this one

'cause I've been forgetting about Sheer Heart Attack (one of my favorite tricks ever: album's called Sheer Heart Attack, but the song of the same title doesn't crop up until three albums later) and that one's pretty fuckin high-quality too

xpost:

In fact, "tension albums" would be such a good idea for a thread. There's loads of documented cases of albums being made while band members are squabbling and relationships have been strained, for different reasons, and naturally they vary in quality (Rumours and Let It Be, just to name two examples). It's interesting looking at them and seeing who bounced back and who didn't.

Sheer Heart Attack was the first "proper" Queen album I heard in full (after being familiar with their two Greatest Hits compilations), and I remember hearing it and thinking "oh right, so they did make great albums, too!"

I think I heard Queen's albums in this order: Sheer Heart Attack, Queen, Queen II, A Night At The Opera... and then I just thought "fuck it, may as well get the lot".

they were big when I was in grade school - I was terrified by the cover of News of the World, like to me it gave off a very evil vibe. My mom loved Freddie Mercury so we had Queen records in the house, I really found them pretty menacing ("Get Down Make Love" also seemed really menacing and scary to me) but Jazz just completely owned me. however my music-loving 6th grade friends and I were rock partisans and were scandalized by the subsequent disco move and I moved on to prog rock like the dumb kid I was

I like Jazz a lot! Granted, I'll never be too keen on tracks like 'Fun It', but I find it to be one of Queen's most playful and downright nuts albums... and 'Dead On Time' rocks hard.

Jazz was the first record, well cassette that I bought. Mustapha is a whole bag of crazy.

Hot space, news and sheer are the three I know I can play happily front to back.

so after the Queenery the last week I finally heard this album and....yeah, "Backchat" is marvelous. On "Another One Bites the Dust," John Deacon listens to Chic and gets it every so slightly wrong in the best way; on "Backchat" he listens to Rodgers' guitar tone and gets it totally right.

As my friend likes to point out, Calling All Girls is like a secret English Settlement track and one of Queen's best pop moments. Absolutely love that one.

The album rules in general, I like pretty much everything on it.