DId Hot Space create an aversion to risk?

I think it was a natural process. Queen did not stick to a formula, they wanted to make products of their time. As time went by, their music changed. From rock to soul/funk to Euro-pop, and back to the roots on the last two albums.

What also played a role here is that after a period of being a very close band, the band members all sort of went their own way. Freddie got into the party scene, Roger did solo albums, John started a family. Working in the studio got harder as the differences between the band members grew. Queen were hardly a band and they were having a hard time working together. It's a Miracle that the band did not split up in the '80s.

Eventually, Freddie's disease forced the band back together to create The Miracle and Innuendo. As a band, not as individuals. There was no time for conflicts so all the guys were far more cooperative.

well, as many others have said, I truly enjoy "Hot Space". I was twelve when it came out and I guess my mom (huge Queen fan) didn't like it because it wasn't until years later that I heard the album in full (during a renewed interest in the band). There were four studio albums to follow and I think there definitely was an aversion to taking risk. They didn't go grunge. They didn't go industrial. They didn't go true Hip Hop. They didn't go New Jack. They incorporated the 80s sound and stayed with their own style from that point on. Thank goodness. Btw I think I actually listen to "Hot Space" and "A King Of Magic" more than any others these days. Admittedely though, this is likely due to me having "missed" those albums when they came being I was into something else.

Hot Space has grown on me recently, I must admit. Brian's tracks are probably the least funk based, and the worse ones are saved by live renditions (Staying Power particularly, the whole brass stuff I didn't like)

If I listen to Hot Space just as a record in isolation I really like most of it. The problem arises only when comparing it directly to their other works such as ANATO or Sheer Heart Attack. My opinion, and something the band openly admit, is that they DID actively try to write in a certain vein for that album based on the success of ...Dust as a single.

Although The Game had a certain style, it was still very much a Queen type album with lots of different styles but still with real instruments and the true Queen sound present on tracks like Play The Game and Save Me. There was no overall collective sense of the band going for a narrowed down certain style, which when we get to Hot Space is very much the case - in advance they actively wanted the album to have a specific genre feel and sound, and by 'compromising' and limiting themselves for the first time in this way they came unstuck.

Bizarrely though I would say the relative lack of success of Hot Space didn't make them risk averse instantly, because to me, Radio Ga Ga could be seen as a massive risk as the first single afterwards - when analysed it really is a most Un-Queen like single; a repeated drum machine pattern, synths, no real rhythm guitar or solo to speak of, very 'euro pop' sounding. However, it worked and is now seen as one of the most classic Queen songs of all time. This really could have happened to Staying Power or Back Chat!!

I completely agree with that: The Works album as a whole is quite different from Hot Space, but the lead single (and its video) is basically a follow-up to HS only with better technology and more emphasis on the sing-along chorus. It shares most of what people criticise about HS: drum machines, loads of synthesisers, robotic feeling (this time even more), lack of a killer guitar solo, there are no guitar harmonies, there's no piano (only a synth doing piano sound, which is not quite the same), there's a guest musician (which they didn't need for albums like Opera or Races), they (ab)use the Roland Jupiter 8 arpeggiator...

I think they kept taking risks until the end, including their post-Freddie activities on which, as most of you know, I disagree with the use of the Queen name (but I know that's not my call, of course) but I respect their quality.

Some of the risks they took after Hot Space:

* Not touring the States even though roughly half of their income came from what they sold there.

* Releasing 'Ga Ga' as a lead single.

* Dragging up for the 'Break Free' video.

* Releasing a Xmas single.

* Agreeing to do another soundtrack even though Flash had sold far less than Hot Space and in fact I think the only Queen albums that sold less than Flash were 'Queen' and 'Queen II'.

* Appearing at Live Aid with no soundcheck and no lighting rig and even though they were facing internal conflicts and the whole Band Aid thing had a 'new generation' vibe. For people like The Who and (pseudo) Led Zeppelin, that concert was catastrophic. Queen risked a lot by going there and obviously did a great job which silenced (most of) their critics or doubters. Looking at it in hindsight it was an obvious move, but right until 13th July, it was a risk.

* Releasing a single as non-formulaic and complex as 'Princes of the Universe' in a country where, at the time, the biggest seling hits were things like The Final Countdown, Papa Don't Preach and Rock Me Amadeus.

* Taking time for off-Queen projects, even though Starfleet, Fun It, Strange Frontier and Mr Bad Guy had all sold poorly.

* The Magic tour was also something that right now seems quite obvious, but back then it was a big risk and Freddie, of all people, had reservations about it, which were swiftly eliminated once the tour began and he felt in his element but still, it WAS a risk. It paid off, but it WAS a risk.

* When the biggest hits of the moment were things such as Like a Prayer, Eternal Flame, Don't Worry Be Happy and Orinoco Flow, the single Queen chose as their lead (and also their comeback after their longest hiatus up 'til then) was I Want It All. From a risk-free perspective, things like Invisible Man or even Rain Must Fall would've been more obvious choices when seeing the list of big selling hits from other artists.

* Likewise, neither Scandal nor The Miracle were single material, let alone for *that* year. Two further risks, and results were not positive: both songs are excellent but as singles they were flops.

* By the time Queen finished the Innuendo album (and decided on which the lead single would be), the biggest hits of the moment in both sides of the Atlantic were stuff like Ice Ice Baby, The Postman Song and the song from Ghost. If Queen were into 'an aversion to risk', they'd have chosen Delilah as a lead single (stupid song but a lot of stupid songs were being hits back then) instead of ... Innuendo (granted, Headlong in America, which was still hugely risky considering what was going on at the time).

Bumped. Good times.

You said there are no guitar harmonies on the Works. I hear plenty in KPTOW and It's A Hard Life.

^ He said the lead single not the album

Oh, never mind then.

I think Queen had got to grips with synths better in The Works (including Radio Gaga) than they had in Hot Space. I think they had to go up the learning curve across The Game, Hot Space and The Works. In some ways Machines was about that - learning to blend.

And going up the learning curve is, at least in my experience, risky: Either through underwhelmingness or over-extension. With Queen we saw some of both.

Well, around half the synths on that album were played by people outside the band, so maybe it's not that they honed their craft, they merely found someone who could play better.

I dont think it created an aversion to risk. It created an aversion to making a record not all parties were tuned in to. Keep that for your solo stuff.

It could be quibbled that that kept happening, although possibly on a much smaller scale.

Songs like 'Bijou', 'Delilah' and 'Gimme the Prize' have been confirmed not to have suited everyone's taste at the time, but they still got included.

But yeah, I suppose they became more democratic as a whole. 'Hot Space' was a case of Freddie forcing the other three to do it his way, and it was an epic fail.

On the very next record he had to compromise a lot more: the first two singles were not written by him, he had to move from NYC to LA, some of Roger's, Brian's and John's songs had a different keyboardist, and his 'Hot Space'-esque ideas had to be saved for his one and only solo album.

He still retained some influence, though, as he re-arranged 'Ga Ga' (and possibly 'Break Free'), wrote more songs than anyone else on the album, and he got his way on the 'Hard Life' video, which possibly cost them more money than they ever made from the single, and where the rest of the band were demoted to extras.

I love Gimme the Prize... awesome song. Love Hot Space too. Everything from the cover, through the album, all the way to live performance.

Sebastian pointed out quite a few risks there. Great job.

I think they intentionally tried to hit the charts by stealing styles that were popular at the time.

I don't have shazam otherwise I would have found out the name to a very gay 80's tune someone was playing recently. Must have been Smiths or pet shop boys. But it sounded a lot like BACK CHAT.

AOBTD hit and they wanted to maintain top chart relevance. Madonna did it with scouts effectively taking whatever sound was new and current and applying it to her subsequent releases.

Of course it detracted from the classic QUEEN sound. They'd have gotten bored with that eventually.

Derivative:
BC
KPTOW
OYOL
Invisible man
HEADLONG

At least one per album after their brazen success with AOBTD.

Anyways. Interesting post. I love it when people misspell album titles. It just sounds funny reading HOSTPACE and A KING OF MAGIC *(I think Yul Brynner was in that one)