Review Summary: That’s not to say A Day at the Races is a bad album, it isn’t. Does it have great songs? Yes. But is it that step forward Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera were? No way.
To change and adapt is important in any entertainment industry. Indeed what’s popular one moment can become unpopular the next. That doesn’t say that not changing can be a bad thing sometimes it can be good. Look at The Kinks for example whilst everyone else was becoming obsessed with psychedelic music during the late 60’s they produced arguably their best two albums Something Else and The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society and all by sticking by their Folk/Pop origins. But both of those albums ended up being commercial flops.
But even The Kinks had to change with the times eventually and did so with 1970’s Lola vs Powerman and The Money go round and it became their biggest commercial hit for ages mainly because of the smash hit Lola.
So what do The Kinks have to do with Queen?
Well everyone will probably know that The Kinks were very famous in the mid 60’s for hits such as You really got me and All day and all of the night. Like Queen had with Bohemian Rhapsody the band had become a world wide sensation but despite this there was a lingering determination from the band to evolve and become more than what they were hence eventually came Something Else and The Village Green Preservation Society by which time the band had evolved not only brilliant artists (which they always were anyway) but artists capable of being brilliant throughout an album.
Queen were in a similar mould they had the big hit of Killer Queen in 1974 and although Sheer Heart Attack wasn’t a stunning album it was still a good one. Then came Bohemian Rhapsody their monster hit going number 1 just about everywhere. Also the album A Night at the Opera became not only a big hit but a critical success too. But despite this and if you read my review of that album you’ll know that it does have it flaws and Queen still needed to take that one step further to make that truly great album.
That’s not to say A Day at the Races is a bad album, it isn’t. Does it have great songs? Yes. But is it that step forward Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera were? No way. It’s biggest problem is that we’ve heard it all before and done better in a manner of speaking A Day at the Races is A Night at the Opera II minus the fun.
Even the cover is exactly the same as Opera, except what is coloured white in Opera is black here and vice versa. So this is where The Kinks comparison comes in. Where as The Kinks despite their success were keen to improve and take their music up to the next step because deep inside they knew they needed too, Queen on the other hand thought they had already made it (ok commercially they did) but also that A Night at the Opera was the career defining moment the press at the time made it out to be. Well that can now be argued as true given Queen’s studio album record but one can definitely say that it was no masterpiece.
And sticking to your guns isn’t necessarily a band thing. For example look at Pink Floyd who after their 1973 masterpiece Darkside of the Moon came up with Darkside part II Wish you were here, that was great wasn’t it? The difference though is that Darkside of the Moon was a masterpiece and was the bands defining moment. Also it had been set up before with the excellent Meddle.
The thing is Queen hadn’t done anything to suggest they were at Floyd’s class just yet; sadly they never did despite their potential. Anyway enough of the band comparisons, there’s a music album to review isn’t there?
Well there’s an unnecessary one minute or so Instrumental at the beginning and if you remember my Queen II review you’ll know how much I love those. The album finally begins with the bombastic and excellent Tie your mother down this is an extension of Keep yourself Alive and Now I’m Here but done more flamboyantly and hard rocking ‘Get your party gown, get your pigtail down, get your heart beatin’ baby’ Freddie belts in a Brian May penned track. It also has a similar subject matter to that of Brighton Rock only that now it has been progressed into about a boy wanting a girl to stop being a Mummy or at times a Daddy’s girl. And it rocks hard as hell and not in Queen or Queen II rock but in Brian May rock. It’s only 3 minutes and 47 seconds too proving that Queen were great at Rock/Pop and this song and many others just proves it.
The albums problems though start as early as track two. There’s a ohhh… vocal harmony before the band sing in harmison ‘Take it all away.’ That was a promising start but sadly the song You take my breath away turns into a cliched non inspired piano love song Mercury piece with a few vocal harmonies chucked in for novelty measure which is reality is really a poor mans Love of my Life.
The same problem happens with the Brian May sung Long Away. It’s basically him trying to do another 39 but minus the passion. I’ll admit Brian May’s a good singer but only when he sing with heart felt emotion and passion is he affective. Here he just seems to be going through the motions as sadly a lot of this album will seem like.
The Millionaire Waltz, a Jazzesque piano led song, starts well but like The Prophets Song or more so Sweet Lady it leads nowhere. The come back to me medley just seems worn out and tired and more woringly boring. Now remember In the Lap of the Gods… revisited where Freddie sang whoo la la with so much heart and conviction that you’d think his life depended on it. The Millionaire Waltz’s emotion is replaced with studio trickery and unnecessary vocal harmonies it just doesn’t feel the same, actually it feels fake.
You and I is a decent Pop tune but nothing more. Even a Brian May guitar solo is becoming boring now and even more so than it ever did in Queen or Queen II… now that’s worrying that even the musicians in this album sound bored.
The album finally gets back onto its feet though with Somebody to Love. This was also the first single from the album and I can see why, it’s uplifting beautiful brilliant and more importantly just a great darn song. It's everything that You take my breath Away tried to be but was not. The vocal harmonies work nearly as perfectly as they did on Bohemian Rhapsody the band even seem like they’re having fun, Brian’s guitar solo is awesome. Easily one of Queen’s top 10 songs.
Sadly though the brilliance that was Somebody to Love couldn’t last forever and next comes one of the worst songs on the album and one of Freddie’s worst moments White Man. The song is an uninspired 5 minutes waste of time. The chorus is tepid, Freddie tries his best to make an anthem of this but it falls flat. It’s basically what the chorus and the middle to end of Sweet Lady was… awful.
Good old fashioned lover boy is a gem though. It kind of reminds all of the things that made Killer Queen great, wit, charm , cunning and a killer chorus ‘Oh love, oh loverboy, where’d you go tonight hey boy’ ok hardly dynamite with a lazerbeam but like Killer Queen it’s got good humour because Freddie sings it so seriously that it becomes funny.
Then comes the awful Drowse and this to Roger Taylor is what Modern Times Rock’n’ Roll and Tenement Funkster were to him… dreadful. Skip at all costs.
The albums ends with the decent Teo Torriate. Now don’t get me wrong I liked this song it was a good heart felt song and the Japanese led chorus was beautiful but it lacked that spark a truly great song like Somebody to Love or even Love of My life had. Maybe it just sounds good here because of the going through the motions pap we had to put up with on the other tracks, who knows.
So there it is the album A Day at the Races. So as usual here’s the quick recap to help me mark this thing.
INSTRUMENTAL
Pointless, although it returns just as pointlessly by the end of Teo Torriate. 1/5
TIE YOUR MOTHER DOWN
A rock ‘n’ roll gem. If only more of the songs had as much attitude as this one. 5/5
YOU TAKE MY BREATH AWAY
Starts well but becomes boring and a bit tedious. 2/5
LONG AWAY
Decent song but is more a 39 part 2. 2.5/5
THE MILLIONAIRE WALTZ
A dull dud that tries to be epic but falls flat. 1/5
YOU AND I
OK I guess, but at times boring. I just couldn’t care about this song. 2/5
SOMEBODY TO LOVE
Easily the best song on the album & one of Queen’s finest. 5/5
WHITE MAN
Boring, dull, pointless. 1/5
GOOD OLD FASHIONED LOVER BOY
Classic Queen wit & humour is for all to see. 5/5
DROWSE
Does what the title says. 1/5
TEO TORRIATE
It is a good song but never quite becomes great. Still it’s worth a listen. 3/5
So that gives A day at the Races an average of 2.59 which is the same as Queen II.
Comparing to other albums.
Queen 2.7
Queen II 2.59
Sheer Heart Attack 3
A Night at the Opera 3.98
TO CONCLUDE
This was definitely a back step for the band most of the album has either been done before or just uninspired and careless. OK I do criticise the first two albums a lot but at least the band were giving 100% effort. On A day at the Race at times you could almost feel as if the band themselves were bored. Now was this because of a lack of care or over confidence who knows, Queen as I stated earlier maybe thought that they were in the leagues of Floyd & Zeppelin but sadly even after the success of Bohemian Rhapsody they were way short. Still it has just enough gems to stop it being a complete dud.
2.5/5
