Innuendo

Thanks Real Wizard.

I agree with your points. I've been listening to the title track plus my favs recently off the back of this thread and have been enjoying it very much. 26 years is probably enough distance. Funnily enough, Mad The Swine is also tarnished with the same 1991 brush.

Great that so many people share The Miracle as a summer album (unavoidable I guess). Wacaday,

I make no secret of it, I love Innuendo, It's quite real, in terms of emotional breadth and never shies away from the (secret???) pain and heartache the band felt at the time. What I'm confused about is the need to say ridiculous things like "take away the tragic 'dying man with endless determination' aspect away"... well, ":sweetheart", perhaps in your role as armchair critic to the masses you've forgotten that musicians require inspiration to create. You can't take that away, that was the reality and inspiration in which this record was recorded. It's as riduculous as saying one should take away the death of Clapton or Plant's children and you don't have All My Love or Tears In Heaven...impossible!!! Freddie's illness endowed the album with an intensity not felt since perhaps NOTW or Races, IMO. Now, perhaps, just throwing this out there, some who feel a need to "take (it) away" just MIGHT be (rightly) very uncomfortable thinking about death, about Freddie's death, about AIDS, whatever. That's OK. Seriously, we all accept death in our own time, on our own terms, many are uncomfortable with the slightest mention. Not pointing fingers, either, just saying it's OK. But you can't impose a rule about "no fair considering if someone is dying" on the world. (slams door) I've lost very dear friends... young.. and there are no words for the pain. Queen, however, found Words. Music. Mood. Emotion. And (again) as someone who has lost too many people close to me, those songs are a comfort since they relate to my pain in a way "mere mortals" (kind words of friends, relatives) seldom can. It's great art, Innuendo. And if the record strikes you as cold, isn't death also cold? Isn't AIDS? Look, this record was big, boisterous, angry, sad, "classic", "modern", and thoroughly unfashionable at the time, but exactly what loads of fans wanted and to this day I rejoice in it. Not a perfect album (c'mon, Delilah???) but a damned great one - FIVE stars out of five, absolutely (in my head). The songwriting, the performances, the arrangements, the bravura musicianship... all stellar throughout.

My top 5 from it:
1. The Show Must Go On (which for me, eclipses Bohemian Rhapsody & We Are The Champions as Queen's best song of all time)
2. Bijou (a remarkable song, but on the Q+PR tour, Brian played it flawlessly, without so much as a squeak in Chicago and I was a MESS of tears... it was awesome and I wish I could relive that!!!)
3. Innuendo (isn't "epic" the only word here? OK, your'e right, powerful, nuanced, )
4. Don't Try So Hard (another song which can be a true comfort to a bereaved soul)
5. I'm Going Slightly Mad - Hitman - Headlong (ok, i'm cheating with a 3-way tie... so sue me... LOL)

So don't put aside the reality, please, it's part of the beauty. I just have to speak my mind when "...fools, they make these rules..."
Cheers,
Don

I was at the Q+PR show in Chicago, and thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the show ...

For me ... Bijou and the guitar solo was uninspiring and transformed the rest of the show toward mediocrity.

@GonnaUseMyPrisoners Thanks for that post. Glad to see "Innuendo" not being dissected with a pair of blunt needles for a change!

[QUOTE] [b]GonnaUseMyPrisoners wrote:[/b]

So don't put aside the reality, please, it's part of the beauty. I just have to speak my mind when "...fools, they make these rules..."
[/QUOTE]

Yet, you're also being one of those 'fools' by making a rule of not putting aside the reality. Pot ... kettle.

[QUOTE] [b]GonnaUseMyPrisoners wrote:[/b]

I make no secret of it, I love Innuendo, It's quite real, in terms of emotional breadth and never shies away from the (secret???) pain and heartache the band felt at the time. What I'm confused about is the need to say ridiculous things like "take away the tragic 'dying man with endless determination' aspect away"... well, ":sweetheart", perhaps in your role as armchair critic to the masses you've forgotten that musicians require inspiration to create. You can't take that away, that was the reality and inspiration in which this record was recorded. It's as riduculous as saying one should take away the death of Clapton or Plant's children and you don't have All My Love or Tears In Heaven...impossible!!! Freddie's illness endowed the album with an intensity not felt since perhaps NOTW or Races, IMO. Now, perhaps, just throwing this out there, some who feel a need to "take (it) away" just MIGHT be (rightly) very uncomfortable thinking about death, about Freddie's death, about AIDS, whatever. That's OK. Seriously, we all accept death in our own time, on our own terms, many are uncomfortable with the slightest mention. Not pointing fingers, either, just saying it's OK. But you can't impose a rule about "no fair considering if someone is dying" on the world. (slams door) I've lost very dear friends... young.. and there are no words for the pain. Queen, however, found Words. Music. Mood. Emotion. And (again) as someone who has lost too many people close to me, those songs are a comfort since they relate to my pain in a way "mere mortals" (kind words of friends, relatives) seldom can. It's great art, Innuendo. And if the record strikes you as cold, isn't death also cold? Isn't AIDS? Look, this record was big, boisterous, angry, sad, "classic", "modern", and thoroughly unfashionable at the time, but exactly what loads of fans wanted and to this day I rejoice in it. Not a perfect album (c'mon, Delilah???) but a damned great one - FIVE stars out of five, absolutely (in my head). The songwriting, the performances, the arrangements, the bravura musicianship... all stellar throughout.

My top 5 from it:
1. The Show Must Go On (which for me, eclipses Bohemian Rhapsody & We Are The Champions as Queen's best song of all time)
2. Bijou (a remarkable song, but on the Q+PR tour, Brian played it flawlessly, without so much as a squeak in Chicago and I was a MESS of tears... it was awesome and I wish I could relive that!!!)
3. Innuendo (isn't "epic" the only word here? OK, your'e right, powerful, nuanced, )
4. Don't Try So Hard (another song which can be a true comfort to a bereaved soul)
5. I'm Going Slightly Mad - Hitman - Headlong (ok, i'm cheating with a 3-way tie... so sue me... LOL)

So don't put aside the reality, please, it's part of the beauty. I just have to speak my mind when "...fools, they make these rules..."
Cheers,
Don
[/QUOTE]

My Post didn't go through, the short version is I agree with every word you said. Lyrically the most mature and personal record they ever did I love the fact it deals with real life issues.

[QUOTE] [b]mike hunt wrote:[/b]

Lyrically the most mature and personal record they ever did I love the fact it deals with real life issues. [/QUOTE]

Oh yeah, that 'All God's People' is pure Shakespeare. No non-sense at all. And 'Delilah'... sure, real-life issues, a cat peeing on a Chippendale - it really hits the nail on the head for the common man!

All God's people is fine, and I already said delilah and Hitman are poor songs. Slightly Mad is a song I could relate to at times, these are the days of our lives describes a man or woman getting older and appreciating life through their kids. Innuendo deals with life and death, the unkown and is a pretty deep song in general. Don't try so hard is a nice inspirational song, we could all relate to trying too hard at times (what a beautiful world, this is the life for me. What a beautiful world, it's the only life for me). My point is these songs arn't based in fantasy like the early stuff, or living the Rock n Roll lifestyle of Jazz and The Game. The Show Must Go On is a song that anyone could relate to in real life when they lose a person or if you get sick and your dying, but somehow these songs don't come across as depressing. They come across as optimistic despite the circumstances.

I've decided I really like Delilah.

Dysan, how long have you been a Queen fan? Seems like your listening too Innuendo for the first time. First you didn't like the title track, then decided you liked it after a few listens. Now Delilah.

[QUOTE] [b]dysan wrote:[/b]

I've decided I really like Delilah.[/QUOTE]


Yeah it's a funny one. If you didn't know Freddie was "gay as a daffodil" you'd have first heard the lyrics thinking he's singing about a girl.

Then it's the "bitch who gets her own way all the time"....then you find out it's a cat....unless you're R Kelly or GG Allin and are into that whole urine thing...it's spoiled at that point. But the meows are ridiculous and hilarious.

As a song i think it translates very well to his feelings for his cat. The optimism and love he got from enjoying a pet. Smiles n all that. I think it's underappreciated although it's very VERY silly.



(Aherm::as if Brighton Rock/falsetto, Bring Back that Leroy Brown, Seaside Rendezvous, Lazing on a Sunday afternoon WEREN'T silly in their own right:::aherm)

If it wins the listener over with its charm then it's related you to his joy for the damn cat...i think it succeeds.

Probably just came up with it in a few minutes.... then it got really embellished.

Are there any details on where the demo was recorded? Did the fellas have mini studios set up locally/in house?

Although as fans we're only hearing 3rd generation boots of it. .it's deliberately under processed, mainly for record keeping.

I get the charm of Delilah and all that, it's really not that bad, but please don't compare it with Brighton Rock or any of those silly little gems Freddie did in the 70's. Leroy Brown, Seaside, or lazing on a sunday. Those songs were on a different level.