Queen

Taking a cue from Oscar Wilde and referencing, with great humor and snark, his own debilitating illness, Freddie came up with a haunting and smart single.The pumping beat, the haunted house echo, “Mad” is a singularly fantastic track. It’s all Freddie, all over the place. Samples of asides pepper the Continue Reading

So, Freddie didn’t die. Not yet, anyway. And the swan song that was the aptly named album The Miracle was only the prelude to their final act. “Innuendo” is the strangest and boldest opening to a Queen album since, perhaps, Sheer Heart Attack. A 6 minute magnum opus with outsized Continue Reading

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000167 EndHTML:0000007299 StartFragment:0000000457 EndFragment:0000007283 Historically speaking, this should have been the coda. This was Freddie’s final statement. The man was dying, basically.  A somber opening, a vocal wail, a calliopal carousel melody that gives way to a giant metal guitar version of the riff, overlaid and overlaid and then… Continue Reading

Deep in the bowels of this record is a redux of “Cool Cat”. A lazy, obnoxious, bass driven leftover sounding piece of uselessness called “My Baby Does Me”. “My Baby does. My Baby does me. Baby does. My baby does me good.” A lot of that. I would say, hey, Continue Reading

Brian May had been under the scrutiny of the tabloid press in the mid 80s for his relationship with actress Anita Dobson. Freddie was dying of AIDS but no one knew for sure.Drawing upon these real life events Brian wrote “Scandal”. Kudos for writing what you know, I guess. Like Continue Reading

Deacon/Mercury are back! And just as maudlin as ever. The musical cousin to “Who Needs You” and “I Want to Break Free” there is no song in the band’s catalog that sounds more “80s” than this one.In fact, it could be a third rate Culture Club song. And I don’t Continue Reading

So, it’s pretty obvious that this is two different songs pasted together. But, I really don’t mind, because I dig this song a lot. It’s my favorite on the album and has been since the day I ripped into that oversized CD package and listened in the car in the Continue Reading

One of the strangest tracks on the record for me. It’s so obviously recorded in a studio. It’s cold and it’s electronic and produced and well, it’s written by Roger.But then it’s got the call outs.“Freddie Mercury!” Roger shouts before the vocals.“John Deacon!” to highlight the bassline.“Brian May Brian May!” Continue Reading

Who doesn’t? One of the biggest metal tracks in the canon, “I Want it All” is a post-apocalyptic dust bowl, get in the ring, shred-tastic track. In many ways it’s the anthem they hadn’t really written in years. Certainly not, “Friends will be Friends”. Sadly, while this song should have Continue Reading

I’m on the fence about this one. Queen has always had a penchant for schmaltz but with Freddie in the throes of full blown AIDS they really seemed to step up the maudlin. I think the nadir of this song (Besides lyrics like “the one thing we’re all waiting for Continue Reading