Yes, Adam, to end it, your feelings about "incomplete" songs and songs that are "fucking around with sounds" are why I think it's a bad album. If Sheer Heart Attack, ANATO or ADATR featured two incomplete tracks, one rambling experiment, four remakes (which I feel are all worse than the original) and close to the worst lyric writing in Queen's history, I don't think I'd be liking them a whole lot more than MIH. And circumstances don't enter into the equation. I believe, and God bless the remaining members for releasing it for THEIR reasons, not mine, that if Freddie were alive, he'd never let an album like MIH see the light of day.
You're obviously younger than I and that shapes both of our experiences good or bad. This is a band releasing product, good thoughts or not. And as both Roy Thomas Baker and Mack said on various doc's, these guys were a better band when they had a common goal and spent time in the studio together. I don't think, special project or not, chemistry as a band can be built by exchanging sound files. You seem pretty angry about all this, I don't think you're a bad guy for your thoughts, I hope you don't think I am for mine.
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well this is my first post in about 5 months .. this place sure doesnt change much does it ... well here it goes ... Made in heaven to me was an album that i cried over ... even if they had a few remakes .. that to me seemed like Freddies last ditch effort to get his breath out and show the world that he still had it. Sure if they would have ended with Innuendo it would still be grand but im sure they would be critisized just as much if the made in heaven album was never released ... and even today they get critisized for bringing in Paul Rodgers as a front man temporarily. In some instances i can see the argument ..but atleast they have the strength to carry on which is what Freddie wanted if im not mistaken , he wanted the material from made in heaven finished and rushed out to his adoring fans and Brian John and Roger did as asked.. so where is the problem? I surely dont see any ... some people just will never settle down and accept them for what they are a great rock band.
I love the 'Made in heaven' album. 'A winter's tale' is my favourite song, that's mainly why I bought the album. I love the 'It's a beautiful day (reprise)' with 'Seven seas of rhye' because they go so well together and I love the hidden instrumental at the end. I love all Queen's music like the ballads and rock and disco but I've come to prefer the later albums. I don't know why but I think the 'Innuendo' album and 'Made in heaven', have got more feeling and just sound fantastic. 'Bijou' is one of my favourites off 'Innuendo' and 'A winter's tale' is my favourite ever!
Thankyou!!!
Thankyou!!!
You hit the nail on the head with your last line OgreBattleField1980. They were a great rock band. MIH sounds like a middle-of-the-road collection of songs, with nothing resembling a rock song to be found. When I got into Queen, Queen were a hard rock band first, they just happened to play any type of music flawlessly. Most of the first album through to Jazz featured rock and roll. There's nothing even close to any rock and roll on MIH. Maybe that's why it doesn't work for me.
it doesn't work for you because you don't realize MIH was not suppose to be 'sheer heart attack' A Winter's tale wasn't intended to sound like 'tie your mother down' or 'stone cold crazy' wouldn't it be kind of silly if freddie would have sang 'Death on two legs' on his death bed, or another one bites the dust' it wouldn't sound natural. instead what you got is a terrific mellow (reflective) album that brings all these emotions to surface. orgebattle brought up a great point in saying that freddie wanted these songs to be released, that's why he recorded them.
With all due respect, Mike, I know the catalogue like the back of my hand. I'm pretty sure that I realized MIH wasn't supposed to be SHA. There's a similar thread going now where lots of people dislike The Miracle for valid reasons (synth heavy, drum machines, lack of coherence.) My reasons for disliking MIH are totally valid, I sometimes think that people treat it with kid gloves because it was Freddie's swan song.
Again, if Queen, at their creative peak, put out an album that opened with an incomplete song, then a cover song, followed by a song that wasn't good enough to make the cut on a previous album, three more covers, a dance tune that sounds totally out of place, and finished up with a 13 minute track that doesn't go anywhere musically, we'd be wondering were their creative powers went. They pulled together the best bits they could, if you like it that's fantastic, obviously I think it's their weakest work with AKOM and The Miracle.
Again, if Queen, at their creative peak, put out an album that opened with an incomplete song, then a cover song, followed by a song that wasn't good enough to make the cut on a previous album, three more covers, a dance tune that sounds totally out of place, and finished up with a 13 minute track that doesn't go anywhere musically, we'd be wondering were their creative powers went. They pulled together the best bits they could, if you like it that's fantastic, obviously I think it's their weakest work with AKOM and The Miracle.
We need to gain a little bit of persprective here.
Remember that the band had a contract that committed them to another album after "Innuendo". This is EXACTLY THE SAME as what happened to Led Zeppelin ("Coda" released in 1982) and The Who ("Face Dances" 1981 & "It's Hard" 1982).
What made it slightly easier was that Queen had made a point of stressing that Freddie had continued to record for as long as he could - however, this made people think that what was left was a *wealth* of material, when in fact (judging from what has been released), much of it wasn't worth the digital media it was recorded on.
I attended the fan club launch at Hammersmith Odeon and was throoughly disappointed by the whole thing. IWBTLY, Mother Love and Let Me Live were the ONLY tracks that I felt worthy of being released by Queen and that they could easily have reduced the whole thing in size to an EP and thus had a number one single added into the bargain. Added to that was the screening of the Champions Of The World film which was littered woth the same mistakes lifted from the Magic Years collection.
Ultimately, Queen fulfilled a contractual obligation by getting some product to market. They had talked it up WAY beyond it's real worth to the Queen catalogue which had the added effect of building up fan's anticipation and getting the media interested in the band again post-Freddie.
New fans liked it because it was the only time they could remember an album release by Queen. Old fans disliked it because the material on there was, on the whole, sub-standard.
Remember that the band had a contract that committed them to another album after "Innuendo". This is EXACTLY THE SAME as what happened to Led Zeppelin ("Coda" released in 1982) and The Who ("Face Dances" 1981 & "It's Hard" 1982).
What made it slightly easier was that Queen had made a point of stressing that Freddie had continued to record for as long as he could - however, this made people think that what was left was a *wealth* of material, when in fact (judging from what has been released), much of it wasn't worth the digital media it was recorded on.
I attended the fan club launch at Hammersmith Odeon and was throoughly disappointed by the whole thing. IWBTLY, Mother Love and Let Me Live were the ONLY tracks that I felt worthy of being released by Queen and that they could easily have reduced the whole thing in size to an EP and thus had a number one single added into the bargain. Added to that was the screening of the Champions Of The World film which was littered woth the same mistakes lifted from the Magic Years collection.
Ultimately, Queen fulfilled a contractual obligation by getting some product to market. They had talked it up WAY beyond it's real worth to the Queen catalogue which had the added effect of building up fan's anticipation and getting the media interested in the band again post-Freddie.
New fans liked it because it was the only time they could remember an album release by Queen. Old fans disliked it because the material on there was, on the whole, sub-standard.
i'm an old fan and i like it, don't get me wrong, i don't put MIH on the same level as vintage queen, you really can't compare MIH with 'anato' i think we all know that, but considering what brian and company had to work with, i think it came out dam good, like i said 'a winter's tale' and mother love are among my favorite ballads from queen. heaven for everyone is solid, to me there's not much to complain about, it probably fills out my top ten, behind the first 8 and innuendo.
I still place MiH as better than most Queen studio albums behind Q2, SHA, aNatO, aDatR, & tM. IaBD, MiH, LML, aWT & IaBD(reprise) are all classic songs IMHO.