The Game or The Works?

The Game is the better album because they were still treating new ground (for them). The Works sounds clinical and like they were purposely trying to bring back the sound and production qualities they'd largely left behind on the previous two albums.

Innuendo is by far the best thing they'd done in years, and while having the classic Queen sound still sounded fresh.

agreed. ^
The Game was new ground and a crossover (for Queen) - if not for rock bands in general. The stripped-back feel of many of the tracks was nothing new - they'd been here previously with NOTW, so all this left was the crossover. the crossover stuff had been done by major rock bands through the mid 70s; Eagles, ELO, Doobie Bros, Zep, Bowie, Elton and many more had ventured into other (non-classic rock) mainstream genres. Although, i appreciated (at the time) Queen trying something different, it was the first LP (back then) where they started to lose me.

The Hot Space sound was 8 years too late. so onto the Works. I never liked the Works - it underlined the change in Queen that they'd become a singles band - Game & HS being the LPs that where the "4 singles per LP" rot set in.

For me, concentrating on radio-friendly singles makes a band's material less valid (long-term) and renders them disposable. the very notion of creating lots of singles on one LP is effectively time-stamping your recordings with the trends/styles of that time. this is usually applicable to the instruments, production, writing and arrangements - songs date badly because of this. (IMO) HS, Works and AKOM date horribly for these very reasons. This wasn't unique to Queen, many 70s bands ventured down this "more immediate" fashion cul-de-sac in the 80s. the only solution was to back right out of it and revert to what they did best.

For me, Queen redeemed all of their 80s output, by "goin' back" when they released The Miracle. I know for many this LP isn't liked (and yes there are a few singles on it), but I do like it, because it's Queen sounding like "classic Queen". Innuendo (although not 80s) underlined this intended return to glory.

That is entirely what The Works album was "The Works" !
After so many fans had ruffled there feathers over Hot Space the band went back to basics what Queen fans wanted more guitar orientated songs
So Brian made sure he had guitar work in "Tear It Up" & "Hammer To Fall"
Incidentally the headbangers mix was awesome !

pls delete

The Miracle gets off to a weak start with Party..by track 3 It gets much better. Breakthru and Scandal are good tracks. It's Brain's best album as a guitarist since Jazz.

Brenski "The Miracle" & "Innuendo" for me where when Queen had lost the fun in there music, and Songs like "Delilah" "Party" "Kashoggies Ship" were cheap fillers and not high class Queen.
which i never play at all.
I liked the sleeve design on "Miracle" but the album only had a few decent songs on it i.e "I Want It All" "Breakthru" & on "Innuendo" i liked " All Gods People" "Im Going Slightly Mad"
but what annoys me is that Queen worked on a lot of songs for "The Miracle" and discarded many and there could have been so many gems there.
I honestly think Queen started to slip with the "Kind of Magic" album and onward they declined.
Is there a perfect Queen album from start to finish without any fillers? Well yeah everything from "Queen" to "News of the world" then you get albums with a few good tracks on them afterwards
but some not so good tracks also which start to become fillers.

[QUOTE][color=SaddleBrown] [b]Benross wrote:[/b] [i]Brenski "The Miracle" & "Innuendo" for me where when Queen had lost the fun in there music, and Songs like "Delilah" "Party" "Kashoggies Ship" were cheap fillers and not high class Queen. which i never play at all.[/color][/i][/QUOTE]
sometimes, i think you don't even read your own posts. [b][i]"Delilah"[/b][/i], [b][i]"Party"[/b][/i] and [b][i]"Kashoggies Ship" [sic][/b][/i] (it's Khashoggi's Ship) - are the very definition of "fun" - so either you want "fun" - or you don't?. Added to that, [b][i]"Invisible Man"[/b][/i] [b][i]"Breakthru"[/b][/i] [b][i]"I'm Going Slightly Mad"[/b][/i] [b][i]"The Miracle"[/b][/i] and [b][i]"Rain Must Fall"[/b][/i] are very upbeat/positive songs - especially considering the themes within. [b][i]The Miracle[/b][/i] also (with hindsight) reflects the changing times - the themes running through tracks like [b][i]"I Want It All"[/b][/i], [b][i]"The Miracle"[/b][/i] and even [b][i]"Was It All Worth It"[/b][/i] convey a message of hope for the future. Paint that album against Freddie's illness and the world stage in 1989: Berlin, (Gorbachev's) Russia, (Perestroika and glasnost), and an end to the Cold War - and this LP is heralding in a new era.

Conversely, - if you are talking "fun" - your two favourite albums from the 80s [b][i]"The Works"[/b][/i] and [b][i]"The Game"[/b][/i] are littered with misery and maudlin: [b][i]"It's A Hard Life"[/b][/i], [b][i]"I Want To Break Free"[/b][/i], [b][i]"Keep Passing The Open Windows"[/b][/i], [b][i]"Is This The World We Created?"[/b][/i], [b][i]"Don't Try Suicide"[/b][/i], [b][i]"Sail Away Sweet Sister"[/b][/i] and [b][i]"Save Me"[/b][/i].

Factor in the message of lament and negativity running through [b][i]"Radio Ga Ga"[/b][/i], [b][i]"Machines (or back to humans)"[/b][/i]and [b][i]"Hammer To Fall" [/b][/i] and your two favourite 80s albums are nowhere near the fun you think they are - unless you fail to understand the themes?
[b][i]"The Works"[/b][/i] - in particular - released in 1984 (very apt), is very Orwellian in theme. Even the [b][i]"Ga Ga"[/b][/i] video "Metropolis" stylings portray images straight out of Orwell's "1984" and the early days of The Cold War.
[b][i]"The Works"[/b][/i] is symptomatic of and running through with typical [b]"Cold War" era[/b] themes - an abject misery-fest.

For me, [b][i]"The Miracle"[/b][/i] and [b][i]"Innuendo"[/b][/i] are infinitely superior to [b][i]"The Game"[/b][/i] and [b][i]"The Works"[/b][/i] in almost every conceivable way.

Innuendo Is classic Queen..yes, they should of excluded Delilah but the rest Is great.

[QUOTE] [b]mike hunt wrote:[/b]Innuendo Is classic Queen..yes, they should of excluded Delilah but the rest Is great.[/QUOTE]
and exactly which of the band would be willing to be perceived as [b][i]th c***[/b][/i] who told a dying Freddie:
[i]"no, you can't put a song about your f**king cat on the LP - i don't care how ill you are...it's a pile of sh*t"[/i]

Some sort of mild passive aggression or subtly resisting full participation to complete the song could have done it.

Instead Freddie managed to get them all miaowing while Brian produced feline sounds from his guitar.

Try playing Delilah then All Dead, All Dead back to back. That works.

Brenski That is your opinion and it is not compulsory for every Queen fan.
We all have our favourite albums so my opinion is not to be taken in a less favourable way to your opinions.
Innuendo had a strange feel of death to it and they sound like they were trying to hard to make the album work bit it fails to get the right ambience.
At Least with The Game & The Works the band were at full throttle where Innuendo Freddie said to the band "just fucking write me anything to sing darling" and you can tell by the album they did.

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

Innuendo Is classic Queen..yes, they should of excluded Delilah but the rest Is great.[/QUOTE]

Amen to that, I completely agree

[QUOTE][color=SaddleBrown][b]Benross wrote:[/b] [i]Brenski That is your opinion and it is not compulsory for every Queen fan. We all have our favourite albums so my opinion is not to be taken in a less favourable way to your opinions. [/color][/i][/QUOTE] i never said it was compulsory. and i also did not say your opinion is less valid - i merely pointed out the flaws in your reasoning. if you'd said "i prefer the works because it's more poppy, or catchy".. or whatever - then that would work, but you didn't. Your reason was that Innuendo and Miracle contained no fun.
I provided examples of where Miracle and Innuendo were much more "fun" than the Works. Honestly? if you can see more fun in the Works, then you definitely do not understand the themes/lyrics of the songs at all. The Works is steeped in negativity, gloom, heartbreak, suicide, lies, mortality, and Cold-War misery.

[QUOTE][color=SaddleBrown][b]Benross wrote:[/b] [i]Innuendo had a strange feel of death to it and they sound like they were trying to hard to make the album work bit it fails to get the right ambience.
At Least with The Game & The Works the band were at full throttle where Innuendo Freddie said to the band "just fucking write me anything to sing darling" and you can tell by the album they did. [/color][/i][/QUOTE]far from it. Miracle and Innuendo actually sound like Queen being Queen again. The plastic pop synthesised radio-friendly stuff of 80-86 was very much of its time - and dates quite badly.

Fun is maybe not the right word and also a bit subjective. I don’t think the intended meaning of the original poster is to describe frivolous or quirky song subjects.

There can be a sense of joy, satisfaction or thrill with Queen at their best.

Personally I don’t really get that from The Works but each to their own, Going by the amount of extra material that didn’t make the album it certainly seemed a more creative period than Hot Space or Magic. It was also a very successful album in most of the world,

One sense of “fun” that I get from the Miracle is a vibe that the band seemed to enjoy being together which comes through in the songs and videos.

Lets put it another way maybe the word "Fun" should be replaced with the word "enjoyable" there that sounds more reasonable for Brenski.
I think The Works is more enjoyable to listen too by 1% than The Game album.
Works for me lol