Hot Space - a little gem

I'm really not sure if fans "hate" The Works, I'm not getting this vibe. It is certainly seen as a far less strong record than general public and even some critics saw it. I personally blame the production. Many songs on The Works are absolutely fine, but the whole record lacked proper texture, it sounds like a bloody compilation. I think that's why many fans, who are obviously more sensitive to such things, have a problem with it.

As for Hot Space, well, the production is even worse and so are the songs. Very few good ones - UP, LPDA, POTF and that's about it. Live versions of SP and BC are fine too. But generally speaking, there is no denying it was a failed effort to capitalise on the success of AOBTD. It must have hurt when they received American sales figures after the first week or two. Ouch.

Toon_86 wrote:

Hot Space has some good tunes, Staying Power, Las Palabras, Life is Real, Pressure of course, Action this day. But some duffers, I never liked Dancer or Calling All Girls. I don't really get the hatred on this thread and others for The Works though. GaGa, Tear It Up, Hardlife, Hammer to Fall, Break Free, Machines, Is This The World, its a great album. The only song that kind of grinds on me now is Man On The Prowl, when it was obviously trying to recapture the CLTCL vide, and I was never a big fan of KPTOW. It was an album that brought Queen back to the masses in the 80's. If they didn't release The Works, which from a singles point of view had 4 top ten singles, they would never have done Live Aid, the Radio Gaga hand clap at Live Aid would never have happened. The Works had a massive effect on Queen and their popularity around the globe, I don't get the hatred for it.

Cheers,

Al.

Sorry for double post.

Sebastian wrote:

I think the woman at the end of 'Dancer' is a Munich Hilton employee.

Yes. It's Brian's wake up call. Mack confirmed that in a recent interview (which is fantastic, if I find the time I'll translate it).

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

I still think it is a neat summary of all the bad taste that dominated the early '80s. If you want to consider that a good thing, fine. I personally don't. The only good thing I can say about Hot Space is that it was a new, different sound from Queen's earlier records.

The best thing about the album was the cover.

JomaDuckSoup wrote:

Sebastian wrote:

I think the woman at the end of 'Dancer' is a Munich Hilton employee.

Yes. It's Brian's wake up call. Mack confirmed that in a recent interview (which is fantastic, if I find the time I'll translate it).

he coulda done with a "wake up call" long before writing/recording sessions commenced :-)

I watched a documentary on "Twisted Sister" on Netflix yesterday and I really wonder as to 'why' Queen would do a disco album? What does Twisted Sister have to do with it? Well, there was much backlash against disco in the USA starting in the late 1970s. Twisted Sister was a heavy rock band, that was openly against disco at their concerts. Twisted Sister also had most of the following and played most of their concerts within 150 mile radius of New York City in the late 1970s, early 1980s. This overlaps with timeline of Freddie's activities in NYC. Queen was considered a heavy rock band and had such fan base in the States. Freddie must have been aware of the anti-disco backlash and Queen's fan base, no matter how removed from reality living the dream in the bath houses disco bubble. Why on earth would Queen do disco, as disco was dying and their fan base openly hated disco, is a million dollar question.

Because of Another One Bites the Dust. Brought them more record sales and success than anything they did previously by a long way. You can sort of see why they were seduced by it.

mooghead wrote:

Because of Another One Bites the Dust. Brought them more record sales and success than anything they did previously by a long way. You can sort of see why they were seduced by it.

There seems to be this general idea, but i don´t agree with it because AOBTD isn´t disco. And Hot-Space isn´t disco either!

They were influenced by what they heard in clubs in Munich and maybe Freddie was more into it than others because of the gay scene that was happening in clubs.
I think that because they weren´t all focused in the same direction the album lacks some strenght, but i completely understand where Freddie was coming from. When donne right, this kind of music can sound great with great public appeal - "Relax" by FGTH comes to mind.

I love Freddie´s solo album "Mr Bad Guy" and i remember Freddie saying something like it being an extention of "Hot Space". For me it makes sense, and the fact that others didn´t support this direction, is what makes this album more weak. If other Freddie songs like "Man made paradise" and "There must be more to live than this" were included as first intended the album would be stronger, and the same thing applies to "The Works" as well. Sometimes we just have to go with the flow, but i can understand why both Brian and Roger didn´t want to compromise the Rock direction completely, but this kind of sound that Freddie brought to Queen was the thing that kept them interesting throughout the 80´s. What Freddie did to the song "A kind of Magic" is just extraordinary. And clearly Taylor submited to this sound, because after 1982 he started to write synth oriented songs for Queen - "Radio GaGa", again with the magic finger of Freddie - and his solo records.

Democracy didn´t always worked in Queen´s favour, because from "The Game" until "The works" there were some poor decisions being made:

For the "The Game" record
-"Don´t try suicide"
-"Draggon attack"
-"Rock it (prime jive) - a great song for Roger solo album, not for Queen;
-"Coming Soon", same as above.

For "Hot Space":
-"Body Language"

In terms of songwriting that´s about it for me. I would leave other songs out only because it didn´t suit the feeling of this record. For example "Put out the fire"

For the "The Works":
-"Tear it up"
-"Machines (or back to humans)"
-"Man on the prowl", not because it´s a bad song per se, but because it´s a forgetable song.

And i would leave "Is this the world..." out as well. They could have included "Love Kills" original 1984 version which is great, and other Freddie solo songs.

The great thing about this records is production. Mack is a genius and it shows! Despite the fact that the "The Game" is my least favorite album, i believe that it is the greatest Queen record in what the sound is concerned. The way Mack captured all instruments and voices it´s just ahead of everything they did until then.

I *love* Dragon Attack. What's wrong with it? :-)

Mr.QueenFan wrote

The great thing about this records is production. Mack is a genius and it shows!

I think The Game sounds great (thought a marked departure from their 70s sound), but The Works is engineered/mixed/produced terriblly, and A Kind of Magic sounds really too clinical and precise (as does Hot Space in places). I much prefer David Richards to Mack on anything to do with Queen.

I know, I was expecting a 'But AOBTD wasn't disco' response but it is well documented by the band, music press etc.... that the change of direction led to a drift from what they were doing. It was successful in a lot of different charts (not sure if there was ever a specific 'disco' chart). In short, if AOBTD had never have happened then I don't think Hot Space would have. As I have said before, a commercial high led to a creative, and commercial low, it is a true paradox.

strange how such a creative band dropped a big turd eh?

Yes, very strange. Except I don't think they could be called creative anymore by that point.

mooghead wrote:

I know, I was expecting a 'But AOBTD wasn't disco' response but it is well documented by the band, music press etc.... that the change of direction led to a drift from what they were doing. It was successful in a lot of different charts (not sure if there was ever a specific 'disco' chart). In short, if AOBTD had never have happened then I don't think Hot Space would have. As I have said before, a commercial high led to a creative, and commercial low, it is a true paradox.

good point

I think the problem with Hot Space is its sound. The songs are fairly good, but they sound awful, flat and too trebley. Recently I was listening to "The invisible man", you can love or hate it but you can't say that it doesn't have a powerful bass and a full rich tone. "Back chat" for example is a good song but it sounds like a demo recording, sparse instrumentation in the mix and god-awful engineering. Maybe Hot Space sounded good to Queen on a cheap-ass sound system when they were high and partying in Munich's discos.
It would be interesting to have the album properly remixed from the original multitracks, and with properly I mean please leave Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua McRae and such outside the studio.