News of the World

This is a truly fantastic album, the 1977 follow up of "A Day at the Races". Whether you're a Queen fan or not, you'll know at least two of these songs as the album opens with Brian's "We Will Rock You" and Freddie's "We Are The Champions". So if you've never bought any Queen before, this is a good place to start! Personally, my favourite tracks are "Spread Your Wings", the epic and emotional "It's Late" and "My Melancholy Blues", a spectacular and powerful blues-style masterpiece. As I was brought up on Queen, I love this album, there isn't a single track on it I don't like but I think anyone would think this, life long fan or not! I highly recommend it to anyone, young or old! I'm only 17 but still think it's fantastic, Queen still have, (and always will have!) that special something, whether it's in Brain's outstanding talents, Freddie's beautiful voice or just the combination of the right people at the right time. So if you're young, I still recommend you buy this - you won't regret it, they're fantastic!

After the everything-including-the-kitchen-sink production of "A Night At The Opera" and its follow-up "A Day At The Races", where on Earth could Queen go? Somewhere completely different is the answer this album provides.
Despite opening with two of Queen's most famous anthems (the second of which, "We Are The Champions", is possibly their most classically Queen-sounding single alongside "Bohemian Rhapsody"), this album is largely free of the bombastic, grandiloquent production which had become their trademark. This was 1977, the year of punk, and this album seems to represent Queen acknowledging the shift in public tastes to embrace a more stripped down, fuzzier, dirtier sound. Their equivalent of recording in the garage, perhaps - albeit a garage decorated with Persian rugs, chandeliers, marble cherubs, and fountains spewing champagne.
"Sheer Heart Attack" is the most prominent example of this. Fast, energetic and intense (and a staple encore in their live set for a few years subsequently), this is Queen letting off steam in a way most unusual for them on record.
The tender and melancholy "All Dead, All Dead", written and sung by Brian May, immediately switches the mood, and is one of only three songs containing his marque complex multitracked guitar work.
John Deacon's "Spread Your Wings" is simply beautiful; a narrative lyric about an unhappy young man's resolve to escape the confines of his small-town existence, dead-end job under a sneering boss and "leave his dead life behind". The sparse production adds an extra dimension to the song - I could be a little over-analytical here and suggest that it emphasises the emptiness of the protagonist's life and the desperation of his plight, but that would be a bit pretentious. Oh well, I've done it now anyway.
"Get Down, Make Love" is something of an oddity. Stark production rules again, bringing Roger Taylor's heavy drums to the fore alongside Freddie Mercury's lusty vocals, until the guitar-led chorus. Then we get to the middle section - a cornucopia of very strange noises indeed. A variety of effects are applied to Mercury's vocal gymnastics, and a listener unfamiliar with Queen's "No Synthesisers" ethic during the 70's could be forgiven for thinking they are hearing one here. It's actually May's guitar, played through something very technical and clever (at the time) that I know absolutely nothing about, other than that it makes his guitar sound very other-worldly and not at all like a guitar...
"Sleeping On The Sidewalk" is a one-take almost-live blues song. In many ways it sums up the overall feel of the album - the sound of a real band playing together and enjoying themselves. According to May, the first take was recorded totally live as a guide, but subsequent attempts to capture it lacked the "lazy" feel of the original, so what we hear on the album is for the most part assembled from the original take.
"Who Needs You", another Deacon composition, is again a simple arrangement simply produced, before "It's Late" returns us to the bleary, muddy, dirty sound explored earlier on the album. This is all-out hairy rock with a great stadium chorus, overblown but not over-produced and an energising, invigorating listen. Turn it right up.
One would think that this would be the logical big finish for the album, but Queen instead opt for a more subdued ending with Mercury's "My Melancholy Blues", a comment on his new-found glamourous lifestyle and its downside. It's actually quite a dark piece - Mercury reminds us here that despite his wealth and the allure attached to being a rock star, he's still a human being with human frailties. Even rock stars get lonely.
This album successfully bridges the gap between the bombast and operatics concluded on "A Day At The Races" the previous year, and the more poppy sound explored on "Jazz" the following year. Always prepared for a challenge and never satisfied to simply stick to one formula, Queen would continue to explore new sounds throughout their career. "News Of The World" is a fine example, and represents one of several significant and refreshing moves forward.

In many ways Queen’s 6th studio album News Of The World represents a bridge between the earlier more operatic flamboyant Queen and the bands straightforward pop of the 1980’s. Once easily the most musically dominant member of the band, Freddie Mercury’s contribution to this album is noticeably reduced, and it may well be that with the development of Roger Taylor and John Deacon as songwriters (here contributing four songs between them) that there simply was no longer room for the more over-the-top experimental tracks of the past, which gives a harder edge to this album than A Day At The Races. The band retain their 70’s penchant for genre-hopping however, which makes News Of The World a very varied album, and the songwriting is incredibly high throughout.

The biggest indication of the strength of this album is the fact that it opens with the ferociously strong double opener of ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ yet still manages to maintain it’s high quality for the rest of it’s length. Next up is Roger Taylor’s ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, a very tough rock track which is basically Queen doing punk (amusingly the Sex Pistols were recording at the same studio around this time) complete with squealing feedback and some very choppy guitars from Roger. The complete opposite of this comes next with ‘All Dead, All Dead’, a very sombre and mournful piano-based ballad by Brian May, who also provides the lead vocals. John Deacon’s ‘Spread your Wings’ was a surprising non-hit single from the album, a great rock song with a powerful chorus it’s hard to see why this one didn’’t do well in the charts. Closing off the original A Side is ‘Fight From The Inside’, another Roger Taylor contribution, with Roger providing lead vocals as well as bluesy guitars and a funky distorted bass.

Freddie Mercury opens the second half with ‘Get Down, Make Love’, a sort of proto- version of such 80’s tracks as ‘Body Language’, though with no synthesisers it’s up to Brian May to provide some bizarre guitar FX, and there’s a nice a nice oriental feel behind the sleaziness. Brian May’s takes lead vocals on ‘Sleeping On the Sidewalk’, and if there is a slightly weak track on News of the World this is it – it’s not a bad song as such, but being a deliberately low-key 12-bar blues (sounding as though it was recorded live with no overdubs) it sounds more like a throwaway B-Side. John Deacon provides one of the albums highlights with ‘Who Needs You’, a beautiful calypso ballad with some fantastic finger-picked guitars. Next Brian provides the albums only epic track with ‘It’s Late’ – a real gem of a song and one of the bands best rock songs, presumably only its length prevented this from being a single. Finally Freddie closes the album with the tongue in cheek bar-room piano ballad ‘My Melancholy Blues’.

After the slightly below par A Day At The Races this was a massive return for Queen, and stands as one of their very best albums. Essential.