After the triumph of Live Aid the year before; A Kind of Magic could be regarded as an opportunity missed to consolidate their position as the best band in the world. I am not a massive fan of alot of Queens 80's output and this Album represents the Nadir.
Firstly it's a very uneven listening experience. It includes songs from the HIGHLANDER movie which make some of the songs thematic and others not. 'Pain is so close to pleasure would have found a better home on one of Freds solo outings and the production is popcorn 80's at it's worst. 'One year of love' is a nice song but suffers from an overwrought vocal which ruins it. 'Princes of the Universe' has all the great epic trademarks of years gone by but somebody forgot to write a song. Ditto; 'Don't lose your head' but without the epic trademarks. 'Friends will be friends' is almost offensive; Mawkish sentimental lighter waving at it's worst - they nearly lost me with that, "friends will be friends - right til the end" - yeah, so is a cup of tea. Terrible lyrics.
It's not all bad news, 'One Vision is easily one of their best 80's rock moments and was justifiably chosen as the show opener on the Magic tour and 'A kind of magic' is a great strident pop song with wonderful guitar work from Brian May.
I hope no one's offended. Much sooner talk about my favourite but you did ask........
Bigfish · Member since
A KIND OF MAGIC...
After the triumph of Live Aid the year before; A Kind of Magic could be regarded as an opportunity missed to consolidate their position as the best band in the world. I am not a massive fan of alot of Queens 80's output and this Album represents the Nadir.
Firstly it's a very uneven listening experience. It includes songs from the HIGHLANDER movie which make some of the songs thematic and others not. 'Pain is so close to pleasure would have found a better home on one of Freds solo outings and the production is popcorn 80's at it's worst. 'One year of love' is a nice song but suffers from an overwrought vocal which ruins it. 'Princes of the Universe' has all the great epic trademarks of years gone by but somebody forgot to write a song. Ditto; 'Don't lose your head' but without the epic trademarks. 'Friends will be friends' is almost offensive; Mawkish sentimental lighter waving at it's worst - they nearly lost me with that, "friends will be friends - right til the end" - yeah, so is a cup of tea. Terrible lyrics.
It's not all bad news, 'One Vision is easily one of their best 80's rock moments and was justifiably chosen as the show opener on the Magic tour and 'A kind of magic' is a great strident pop song with wonderful guitar work from Brian May.
I hope no one's offended. Much sooner talk about my favourite but you did ask........
aion · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]Bigfish wrote: [/b]
A KIND OF MAGIC...
After the triumph of Live Aid the year before; A Kind of Magic could be regarded as an opportunity missed to consolidate their position as the best band in the world. I am not a massive fan of alot of Queens 80's output and this Album represents the Nadir.
Firstly it's a very uneven listening experience. It includes songs from the HIGHLANDER movie which make some of the songs thematic and others not. 'Pain is so close to pleasure would have found a better home on one of Freds solo outings and the production is popcorn 80's at it's worst. 'One year of love' is a nice song but suffers from an overwrought vocal which ruins it. 'Princes of the Universe' has all the great epic trademarks of years gone by but somebody forgot to write a song. Ditto; 'Don't lose your head' but without the epic trademarks. 'Friends will be friends' is almost offensive; Mawkish sentimental lighter waving at it's worst - they nearly lost me with that, "friends will be friends - right til the end" - yeah, so is a cup of tea. Terrible lyrics.
It's not all bad news, 'One Vision is easily one of their best 80's rock moments and was justifiably chosen as the show opener on the Magic tour and 'A kind of magic' is a great strident pop song with wonderful guitar work from Brian May.
I hope no one's offended. Much sooner talk about my favourite but you did ask........[/QUOTE]
I agree with you. Don't Lose Your Head and Gimme The Prize are as filler as it gets, absolutely unnecessary "songs" that they put in there just because they didn't have anything else... I also think that the fact that they needed to include One Vision on the album, the Live Aid track that they recorded and released months before the actual album sessions, proves that they were writing very little at this time. They got barely enough material from the A Kind of Magic sessions for a short EP, AKOM is just thinly disguised as an album. The Works is also a too short album and uneven, but not as much as Magic. IMO Hot Space is stronger than Magic, and The Miracle still much better.
paulosham · Member since
[b]Steven wrote: [/b]
I don't consider any Queen album lesser than another. To me, [b]Queen were, and still are to some extent, an experimental rock band[/b]. Freddie said it himself that he could never stick to just one genre or style. Their music constantly changed, and so did the style of recording their albums -- for example, News of the World sounded spectacular, but Jazz sounded inferior. They kept changing their formula, because they probably didn't want to become bored, or appeal to their audience in that matter. That being said, I don't rate any album as worse than another -- but I will say which ones I consider to be their most impressive and stunning
(Innuendo, A Night at the Opera, and A Day at the Races).[/QUOTE]
You've obviously never listen to Frank Zappa, that's experimental.
For me Hot Space is the weakest purely on a production basis, the sound is flat and some songs that should work really well just don't. but that's only my opinion, I know people who love it.
Yara · Member since
[b]paulsmith2001 wrote: [/b]
[b]Steven wrote: [/b]
I don't consider any Queen album lesser than another. To me, [b]Queen were, and still are to some extent, an experimental rock band[/b]. Freddie said it himself that he could never stick to just one genre or style. Their music constantly changed, and so did the style of recording their albums -- for example, News of the World sounded spectacular, but Jazz sounded inferior. They kept changing their formula, because they probably didn't want to become bored, or appeal to their audience in that matter. That being said, I don't rate any album as worse than another -- but I will say which ones I consider to be their most impressive and stunning
(Innuendo, A Night at the Opera, and A Day at the Races).
[b]paulsmith2001 wrote:
[/b]You've obviously never listen to Frank Zappa, that's experimental.
For me Hot Space is the weakest purely on a production basis, the sound is flat and some songs that should work really well just don't. but that's only my opinion, I know people who love it.
[/QUOTE]
Hi, Paul.
Hope you're doing fine.
It was great to read you mention Zappa.
I have been listening to and playing Zappa ever since I was kid, and it's hardly a mistery why things happend this way: father's influence. Indeed, I agree with you: Zappa's music is very interesting and engaging and it's one of popular music's great gifts.
His expectional talent and great musical insight, however, don't need necessarily to overshadow Queen's effors in the same vein, but using other references and breaking some new ground whenever possible while managing to play to huge audiences and hold their position as one of the most popular rock bands ever, which penned beautiful, in many ways original songs known all over the world.
As far as experimentation goes, well, I think Zappa took it to a higher degree. But Queen, in its own way, and within its context, were always willing to, as Freddie says before the great introduction to Staying Power at Milton Keynes, "try some new sounds". I think that was as true as risky - they did abitous albums with a lot of constraints on the budget, tried different things when they could just keep feeding the fans wth the same clichés, and most importantly, managed to bring with a vengeance and a lot of power to the stage a kind of music that, at the time, was more suitable for smaller venues or clubs.
Queen took the sound of Hot Space, which is in part a different beast from other albums labeled under the "funk" - "disco" and "r & b" categories back then. They, in my most humble opinion, successfully blended elements from all these style and added a mark of their own, turning the abum into an interesting, coherent and very influencial musical framework.
Then again, if that was not enough, they brought all these sounds to stage and big venues, and with the sheer power of Queen's performances: that was risky and required a lot of music intelligence from the guys, and they did it, they pulled it off and were quite influential in doing so - for many artists afterwards the thought of bringing that kind of music to stage with so much power and quality was not a dream or a phantasy or even an inconceivable move anymore - it was real, it could happen and it was a kind of sound that could be developed both in studio and live. That was encouraging to many artists.
Yes, I love the album. :))) Taste is very idyossincratic - I manage to like Hot Space and Zappa and give Queen and Zappa the credit they deserve in my view. These strange liasons occur to me as coherent as possible. :op
I think, however, that there's wisdom in the consensus, and according to it Hot Space is indeed a failure, an embarassment or simply Queen's worst album.
You say it's "your opinion", as if it were something isolated or irrelevant. No! It is very important because it does embody a wisdom in it: the album does have its share of flaws and imperfections and it runs on a very thin conceptual line, which was not familiar to Queen, that it's bound to draw negative reactions. There are solid, legitmate reasons for disliking Hot Space - it's a very tentative album in some ways, the guy's patience, most of all Freddie's to work in the studio was not that great...
It suffered from many flaws, as you said.
Though, what can I do, I like this bloody flawed piece of music. :)))
Thanks for the post!
Best regards.[/QUOTE]
jadedlady · Member since
I don't think there is a worst album [img=/images/smiley/msn/wink_smile.gif][/img] .
Bigfish · Member since
Sorry won't hear a word against HOT SPACE. Commercial suicide in the US but very brave and,yes, EXPERIMENTAL. Also, sentimental fool that I am, I was at Milton Keynes and it was my first Queen show so I'll always be fond of it - it reminds me of a fantastic day....
lalaalalaa · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]aion wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Bigfish wrote: [/b]
A KIND OF MAGIC...
After the triumph of Live Aid the year before; A Kind of Magic could be regarded as an opportunity missed to consolidate their position as the best band in the world. I am not a massive fan of alot of Queens 80's output and this Album represents the Nadir.
Firstly it's a very uneven listening experience. It includes songs from the HIGHLANDER movie which make some of the songs thematic and others not. 'Pain is so close to pleasure would have found a better home on one of Freds solo outings and the production is popcorn 80's at it's worst. 'One year of love' is a nice song but suffers from an overwrought vocal which ruins it. 'Princes of the Universe' has all the great epic trademarks of years gone by but somebody forgot to write a song. Ditto; 'Don't lose your head' but without the epic trademarks. 'Friends will be friends' is almost offensive; Mawkish sentimental lighter waving at it's worst - they nearly lost me with that, "friends will be friends - right til the end" - yeah, so is a cup of tea. Terrible lyrics.
It's not all bad news, 'One Vision is easily one of their best 80's rock moments and was justifiably chosen as the show opener on the Magic tour and 'A kind of magic' is a great strident pop song with wonderful guitar work from Brian May.
I hope no one's offended. Much sooner talk about my favourite but you did ask........
[/QUOTE]
I agree with you. Don't Lose Your Head and Gimme The Prize are as filler as it gets, absolutely unnecessary "songs" that they put in there just because they didn't have anything else... I also think that the fact that they needed to include One Vision on the album, the Live Aid track that they recorded and released months before the actual album sessions, proves that they were writing very little at this time. They got barely enough material from the A Kind of Magic sessions for a short EP, AKOM is just thinly disguised as an album. The Works is also a too short album and uneven, but not as much as Magic. IMO Hot Space is stronger than Magic, and The Miracle still much better.
[/QUOTE]
Well actually they DID have plenty of songs to choose from, like Hangman, Silver Salmon, Mad the Swine, I Go Crazy, and other songs they completely abandoned.
aion · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]lalaalalaa wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]aion wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Bigfish wrote: [/b]
A KIND OF MAGIC...
After the triumph of Live Aid the year before; A Kind of Magic could be regarded as an opportunity missed to consolidate their position as the best band in the world. I am not a massive fan of alot of Queens 80's output and this Album represents the Nadir.
Firstly it's a very uneven listening experience. It includes songs from the HIGHLANDER movie which make some of the songs thematic and others not. 'Pain is so close to pleasure would have found a better home on one of Freds solo outings and the production is popcorn 80's at it's worst. 'One year of love' is a nice song but suffers from an overwrought vocal which ruins it. 'Princes of the Universe' has all the great epic trademarks of years gone by but somebody forgot to write a song. Ditto; 'Don't lose your head' but without the epic trademarks. 'Friends will be friends' is almost offensive; Mawkish sentimental lighter waving at it's worst - they nearly lost me with that, "friends will be friends - right til the end" - yeah, so is a cup of tea. Terrible lyrics.
It's not all bad news, 'One Vision is easily one of their best 80's rock moments and was justifiably chosen as the show opener on the Magic tour and 'A kind of magic' is a great strident pop song with wonderful guitar work from Brian May.
I hope no one's offended. Much sooner talk about my favourite but you did ask........
[/QUOTE]
I agree with you. Don't Lose Your Head and Gimme The Prize are as filler as it gets, absolutely unnecessary "songs" that they put in there just because they didn't have anything else... I also think that the fact that they needed to include One Vision on the album, the Live Aid track that they recorded and released months before the actual album sessions, proves that they were writing very little at this time. They got barely enough material from the A Kind of Magic sessions for a short EP, AKOM is just thinly disguised as an album. The Works is also a too short album and uneven, but not as much as Magic. IMO Hot Space is stronger than Magic, and The Miracle still much better.
[/QUOTE]
Well actually they DID have plenty of songs to choose from, like Hangman, Silver Salmon, Mad the Swine, I Go Crazy, and other songs they completely abandoned.
[/QUOTE]
None of those songs are from the A Kind of Magic sessions.
Yara · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]Bigfish wrote: [/b]
.... 'Friends will be friends' is almost offensive; Mawkish sentimental lighter waving at it's worst - they nearly lost me with that, "friends will be friends - right til the end" - yeah, so is a cup of tea. Terrible lyrics.[/QUOTE]
Hahaha. "Friends will be friends' is almost offensive" is a candidate for my quote, I don't have one below my name yet. :))
Come on, the lyrics are cute, try not to think about lighter waving or a friendly fire, so to speak.... Think about a dear friend, or someone you still feel close to, and let yourself go in the sound waves of the heartbreaking theme. lol
[The things I do for Queen's sake!]
lalaalalaa · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]aion wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]lalaalalaa wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]aion wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Bigfish wrote: [/b]
A KIND OF MAGIC...
After the triumph of Live Aid the year before; A Kind of Magic could be regarded as an opportunity missed to consolidate their position as the best band in the world. I am not a massive fan of alot of Queens 80's output and this Album represents the Nadir.
Firstly it's a very uneven listening experience. It includes songs from the HIGHLANDER movie which make some of the songs thematic and others not. 'Pain is so close to pleasure would have found a better home on one of Freds solo outings and the production is popcorn 80's at it's worst. 'One year of love' is a nice song but suffers from an overwrought vocal which ruins it. 'Princes of the Universe' has all the great epic trademarks of years gone by but somebody forgot to write a song. Ditto; 'Don't lose your head' but without the epic trademarks. 'Friends will be friends' is almost offensive; Mawkish sentimental lighter waving at it's worst - they nearly lost me with that, "friends will be friends - right til the end" - yeah, so is a cup of tea. Terrible lyrics.
It's not all bad news, 'One Vision is easily one of their best 80's rock moments and was justifiably chosen as the show opener on the Magic tour and 'A kind of magic' is a great strident pop song with wonderful guitar work from Brian May.
I hope no one's offended. Much sooner talk about my favourite but you did ask........
[/QUOTE]
I agree with you. Don't Lose Your Head and Gimme The Prize are as filler as it gets, absolutely unnecessary "songs" that they put in there just because they didn't have anything else... I also think that the fact that they needed to include One Vision on the album, the Live Aid track that they recorded and released months before the actual album sessions, proves that they were writing very little at this time. They got barely enough material from the A Kind of Magic sessions for a short EP, AKOM is just thinly disguised as an album. The Works is also a too short album and uneven, but not as much as Magic. IMO Hot Space is stronger than Magic, and The Miracle still much better.
[/QUOTE]
Well actually they DID have plenty of songs to choose from, like Hangman, Silver Salmon, Mad the Swine, I Go Crazy, and other songs they completely abandoned.
[/QUOTE]
None of those songs are from the A Kind of Magic sessions.
[/QUOTE]
But they could have redone the songs for the sessions if they wanted. But unfortunately they didn't.
FriedChicken · Member since
Jazz
Rubbersuit · Member since
The Miracle for me
This was the first LP that Queen did that felt like a formula.
For some reason to me it felt more like corporate product than art. Maybe it has all to do with me and how I felt at the time, but I remember being deeply dissatisfied and it has never grown on me.
We Are The Champions · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]Rubbersuit wrote: [/b]
The Miracle for me
This was the first LP that Queen did that felt like a formula.
For some reason to me it felt more like corporate product than art. Maybe it has all to do with me and how I felt at the time, but I remember being deeply dissatisfied and it has never grown on me.
[/QUOTE]
I guess when you are discussing their worst album it about what style and era the albums were released!!
For me all their 70's albums are great - when they were more of an albums band and only released 2 tracks from each album. They then became a commercialised singles band in the 80's with more fillers on the albums.
The worst albums have to be from the 80's with the exeption of Innuendo.
1. Hot Space
2. A Kind Of Magic
3. The Works
4. The Game
5. The Miracle
There you have it.
Major Tom · Member since
The Works and The Miracle. Actually, I think most of the stuff they did in the mid-80s is shit. Too much synths and drummachines. A Kind Of Magic aswell, though I think that it has more "highlights" than the other two.
