Capitol Records 'A Kind Of Magic' US Singles Fail

'The public needed some traditional Queen music.'

Hold my beer:

A Under Pressure
B Medley (We Will Rock You - Friends Will Be Friends - We Are The Champions)

'I don’t think it would have sold too well.'

*scratches head*

Re-releases... nooo. Traditional in the sense it’s very Queen-like, but not older material. That’s a very Mike Love thing to do, throw the old stuff back at people to make a buck.

And if live, not everyone likes live music.

[QUOTE] [b]MisterCosmicc wrote:[/b]

I love the single version of Who Wants To Live Forever, a nice loud finale. Wish Freddie sang the whole thing on the single/album versions. Not a fan of Brian’s singing on Queen songs (except No One But You)... love his solo songs though, he developed a rock edge.

I love Queen’s 80’s stuff. I love their old stuff, but will I relate to the lyrics more on their 80’s songs, so it’s a more emotional event for me while listening to songs than listening to something for pure pleasure. I’m a depressed individual with a long list of breakups LOL.

I know a guy who loves Highlander. It’s one of his favorite films and the funny part is that a lot of Highlander obsessed fans place Queen’s A Kind Of Magic album in high regard, they consider it Queen’s best work.

Anyone notice a lack of heartbreak songs by Freddie after 1985? Jim Hutton, we could have had so much more... so hearing Friends Will Be Friends is as close as we go in the breakup department from Freddie... plus I love the instrumental track.

Here’s something interesting I read. [/QUOTE]

Freddie thought the movie was great, never heard that before.
I pretty much adore the album, except for OYOL, it's pure 80's cheese IMO.

I love that album. It's the first proper non-greatist-hits Queen album that I ever owned. There are no skipable songs.

Your first is always special.

[QUOTE] [b]MisterCosmicc wrote:[/b]

No 'Who wants To Live Forever'
No 'Friends Will Be Friends'

Yes 'Princes Of The Universe'
Yes, and maybe the worst choice, 'Pain Is So Close To Pleasure'

What was going on with Capitol Records at that time? I know the soundtrack... but Princes Of The Universe, while a huge part of Highlander... it wasn't really a song that'd be a great single. I mean it should have been a single, but maybe at the end. Not a radio format track.

'Pain Is So Close To Pleasure' is alright, but in the USA for American buyers who usually preferred their hard rock stuff or ballads? Americans are very black or white... one or the other... something else, they get nervous.

I think both Friends Will Be Friends and Who Wants To Live Forever could have been fucking HUGE in the USA. Who Wants To Live Forever maybe could have been a bigger hit than A Kind Of Magic![/QUOTE]


May's letter to fans dated 26th March 1997...


"As far as I can tell, a number of things happened concurrently with the last Queen U. S. tour:

1) The Hot Space album was perceived by Radio as Queen forsaking Rock and Roll for Disco—our timing was perhaps a little premature, which is evident when you compare this material with what Michael Jackson was to be doing with Ed Van Halen and Slash in years to come.

2) Relations with Radio were not taken care of—we had a new man in charge of Promotion on the road, who, unknown to us at the time, was very high handed and rude with the media people, and gave them the impression that we no longer cared. We only discovered the huge extent of the damage much later, when trying to get Freddie's solo record played. There was great resentment (radio people, like the rest of us, need to feel loved, and important!), and word of mouth on our tour was distorted by people who now wanted to see us fail.

3) We got caught in the cross-fire of an attempt by Capital Records to withdraw from the Independent Promotion circus (a.k.a. Payola) which dominated radio plays at that time. Capital dropped the man who was the lynchpin of their connection with the network of radio station bribery, and the next week, 95 per cent of radio stations dropped our record, Radio Ga Ga…

4) We made a video, in drag, as a spoof on a soap series, which was viewed as very funny, and something of an innovation, in Europe, but to the media in the U. S., it was seen as a threat to Morality. Yes, seriously—I was around to see the reaction of some of the TV people first-hand—they were horrified! Again, some of the media were looking for fuel for the fires of hatred (or at least distrust!), and a Homophobic undertone further undermined Queen's image in the U. S. The rest of the world did not seem to find any of this a problem!!! Which brings us to:

5) When the question of touring came up, we always looked at the response to our latest album around the world. There was a massive explosion of interest in most of the countries of South America, in Africa, in the East, in Eastern Europe, and parts of Western Europe which had been slow in the early days while we were enjoying great recognition in North America. It made sense (and fun!) to go touring in the countries where there was growth and even hysteria, rather than flogging an apparently Dead Horse in the US, where we felt there was a tide of something which for our intents and purposes was not dissimilar from the McCarthyism which had driven the previous generation's artists out. And there was a stubborn streak in Freddie, it has to be said, which was determined not to go back anywhere where we would be SMALLER than we had been before. Having toured football stadiums in most of the civilised world, it would have been depressing to go back to the U.S. and do theatres—or at least Freddie was adamant that this should was so [sic]. To be honest, without his insistence we probably would have eaten humble pie and gone back in, as Elton did, and win respect all over again. But in the event, the decision was to wait. For a renaissance that never came. I guess I was eager to show my own feelings later; my blind faith in touring my own Brian May Band in the States, was a nice reaffirmation that we have loyal and great friends there, but a disastrous demonstration of how little the word spread, and how-to-lose-a-lot-of-money-very-quickly! It was also very hard for me to keep up the morale of my band, playing a show designed for fair-sized arenas to audiences in tiny clubs. So you see, we did not really give up the U.S.A. without a fight—we just postponed it, in hopes that the Right Time would come. We certainly dreamed, the quality of the Made in Heaven album being acclaimed so highly, and sales around the world being so phenomenal, that America would respond after Freddie's death if not before. But it was not to be. I guess we just didn't play the necessary games. Or maybe it's in the Future……! But I doubt it. Music becomes a huge part of people’s emotional life, but always at the moment when it is ringing in their ears everywhere. There is a huge chunk of Queen Music which rang in everyone's ears from Budapest to Buenos Aires to Beijing, but was silent in America. That can never be changed now.”



This article verifies what May is talking about, regarding Capital Records and Payola....

"Capitol ran into serious legal difficulties during the mid-1980s when it became a target of U.S. federal anti-trust inquiries and grand jury proceedings arising out of its use of independent promoters and payola. Payola is the practice of making undisclosed payments to radio stations or personnel in consideration for airplay of a record. The nature of payola and why it is an issue were incomprehensible to Thorn-EMI's board of directors in the U.K. All it knew was the company was in trouble.

Radio airplay is one of the most important factors in the success of a pop record, Negus, K. (1992) Producing Pop – Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry (p. 101). In a way this is counter-intuitive because one might think the more one can hear a song on the radio the less likely one is to purchase it on record. In fact the opposite is so because radio airplay reinforces consumer impressions and activates a desire to acquire a permanent instantiation of the recording."

https://musewire.com/capitol-records-under-bhaskar-menon/


It's safe to say it's true about Queen getting lack of airplay in that area from '84 onward throughout the 80s.

The thing I took from that at the time was that they were happy to reap the rewards of bunging a radio station to get on air, but when that stopped it showed the the US were never actually that bothered about playing Queen records (other than the obvious) so Queen went off in a huff.

The other side of the coin was probably that the popularity in SA was due entirely to their BIG US success the previous years - which was due to bungs. Swings and roundabouts?

I'm looking for the words "Hot Space was a poor album" in Brian's explanation and can't find them anywhere.

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

The thing I took from that at the time was that they were happy to reap the rewards of bunging a radio station to get on air, but when that stopped it showed the the US were never actually that bothered about playing Queen records (other than the obvious) so Queen went off in a huff.

The other side of the coin was probably that the popularity in SA was due entirely to their BIG US success the previous years - which was due to bungs. Swings and roundabouts?[/QUOTE]

Queen weren't paying the radio stations. It was Capital's independent promoters / payola. They become the target of an investigation. Therefore the stations focused instead on other record labels who weren't under investigation. To the radio stations, it was about making money, after all.
Without airplay, the masses weren't hearing Queen's new tracks, so they weren't buying them as they didn't realise they had new stuff out.
Baring that in mind, it makes sense that straight up rockers such as One Vision and I Want It All didn't do anywhere near as well as you'd expect in North America.

I didn't say they did that, I said they reaped the rewards of the practice.

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

I didn't say they did that, I said they reaped the rewards of the practice.[/QUOTE]

As did many artists at the time. Those on low budget record labels or those under investigation (such as Capitol) mostly found themselves excluded from airplay.

Yeah and?

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

Yeah and?[/QUOTE]

My last comment was self explanatory.

Exactly.

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

Exactly.[/QUOTE]

If you understood that it's self explanatory, why ask "Yeah and"?