Review Summary: If anything News of the World is a bigger step back than A day at the Races ever was. Yes not only have the vocal harmonies basically vanished but instead they’ve reverted back to the attempted heavy metal days of Queen and Queen II.
The year is 1977 Punk rules the airwaves suddenly bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin aren’t popular anymore (well outside the US anyway) another band suffering in a dip in popularity is Queen. The euphoria that surrounded their 1975 smash Bohemian Rhapsody seems to have died as quickly as it lived.
Somebody to Love although a big hit wasn’t the smash the band hoped for and the album A day at the Races fared even worse. More importantly musical tastes had dramatically changed. Gone were flamboyance and extravagance, coming in was rebellion, expression and ferocity especially from middle class acts who wanted a piece of fame.
Queen knew they would have to change just like they did for their breakthrough successes Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera and when We Will Rock You hit the airwaves it seemed that change had come it’s simple yet refreshing drum beat of dah dah dum wasn’t only catchy it was infectious. Just as much was the soon to follow We are the Champions a song of which just by itself seemed as if the band were crying out not to be forgotten or left behind like so many other acts suddenly were.
As I stated earlier in my A day at the Races review the problem with that album is that Queen became stuck in a rot and seemingly had no forward direction and most of the songs in that album therefore became tepid or uninspired.
We will rock you and We are the Champions promised to change that though so when News of the World came out everyone must have been expecting a new and vitalised Queen to come roaring out of the barriers just like they did for A Night at the Opera or just as a track like Tie your mother down had promised. So was this Queen moving forward with a new purpose? Had the band learned from their mistakes? Well actually no.
If anything News of the World is a bigger step back than A day at the Races ever was. Yes not only have the vocal harmonies basically vanished but instead they’ve reverted back to the attempted heavy metal days of Queen and Queen II and just like those releases bad heavy metal.
We will rock you and We are the Champions open the album on a false dawn these are great tracks but the rest bar a track or two are uninspired retreads of things that were already done. This is not moving forward or new it’s the same old stuff they did before only now the mistakes are far worse. It’s like having a copy of a 3rd generation tape, you just know it’s gonna be bad.
We get to Sheer Heart Attack; the title alone reverts back to earlier and better days. And although on the surface seems like a Queen dig at punk but is really a poor mans Stone Cold Crazy. Here though the production is poor, the song just abruptly stops for no reason, the lyrics are forgettable or non-sensicle at best but worst of all if this was an attempt at Punk then the band have still missed the point for the same reason they did on their first two releases when they attempted Heavy Metal I’ll state in capitals PUNK IS AN EXPRESSION NOT JUST NOISE!
If people really think that the only reason that bands like The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Jam became popular were because they were loud then they’ve completely misunderstood what Punk was all about. Yes it was loud music but it was about expressing the desire to have and wish for better things or at time to express hate for the life one was living. It was not just screaming and swearing it was a form of self expression. There were more established bands who did understand that. The Rolling Stones got it completely right for their 1978 smash Some Girls. David Bowie responded by hiring New Wave producer Brian Eno of Roxy Music fame for the brilliant Low & Heroes albums.
In otherwords these were artists who were expressing themselves in response to the changing times. What we have here in News of the World though is the same as we did for A Day at the Races yes the production is a little different but the feeling is the same. Trepid, not there, and just artificial. In otherwords they didn’t change they just reverted back to either doing Zeppelin or Sabbath rip offs or whatever else they could rip off. The other apparent is that they just rehashed what they had done before cos you know it was so successful.
For example All Dead, All Dead is perhaps now the third version of 39 after Long Away and it really feels like a 3rd generation copy too. The lyrics mean nothing and Brian May is simply going through the same motions that he did during the 2nd generation version on A Day at the Races.
At least Spread your Wings is a decent song even if it feels more like In the lap of the gods… revisited part II. Fight from the Inside though is just dreadful and it should be no surprise as it’s a Roger Taylor performed song. Remember all those fun times we’ve had with Modern Times rock ‘n’ roll, Tenement Funkster and Drowse well the funs just become quadruple guys.
But low and behold things couldn’t get worse could they? I mean remember all those good times in the early days when I would constantly compare some Queen songs as bad Zeppelin rip-offs. But they soon seemingly grew out of that by the time Sheer Heart Attack came out and even though A day at the races was hardly great at least there was no unnecessary Zeppelin style riffs or songs or whatever else the band wanted to try and copy. But then there’s Get down make love.
Dear God if you’ve ever wanted to know what a bad Zeppelin rip-off sounds like then here it is. Granted the piano intro is promising but then Robert Plant… sorry Freddie goes on and on about wanting to make love and squeeze lemons… ok there’s no lemon squeezing in the song but if they could I’m sure they would have fit it in some how. There’s even the Zeppelin style guitar wah wah in the middle of the song with Freddie bellowing out ‘Make love, make love’ only here it’s a million times more cheesy. If you want to hear this song done better I advise you go out and buy Led Zeppelin’s debut album and check out a song called Dazed and Confused trust me you won’t be disappointed.
Then comes the boogie pimp Sleeping on the sidewalk that ain’t to bad to be honest. It’s basically Brian May attempting to do some cool American rock ‘n’ roll and it works kinda well. Certainly better than any Zeppelin rip-off ever could.
Who Needs You is a simple latino style medley that sadly passes the listener by. Then comes finally another great moment in this album It’s Late. This is a rip-roarious power ballad of a song. Kinda like an expansion of Now I’m Here. For the first time in ages Freddie’s vocal’s sound purposeful and not like their just going through the motions. It’s a love song about how just when you’re about to reveal your true feelings it turns out to be too late.
The album ends on the decent if not average medley of My Melancholy Blues. It suffers in truth to the same problems that You take my breath Away from A day at the races does in that it’s decent but nothing more. Still it ends the album on a kinda sombre if not disappointing note.
Phew got through that at last. So here’s the usual recap.
WE WILL ROCK YOU
Classic that anyone can sing along to. 5/5
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS
Another classic that anyone can sing along to. 5/5
SHEER HEART ATTACK
Punk/Hard Rock attempt gone all wrong. 1/5
ALL DEAD, ALL DEAD
Does what the title says. 1/5
SPREAD YOUR WINGS
Decent song. Nothing special though. 2.5/5
FIGHT FROM THE INSIDE
Another awful Roger Taylor song. 1/5
GET DOWN MAKE LOVE
Led Zeppelin cover… what it’s not??? 1/5
SLEEPING ON THE SIDEWALK
Average if not bad Brian May boogie. 2/5
WHO NEEDS YOU
Like the Spanish style guitar even if there’s nothing else to like. 1.5/5
IT’S LATE
Great anthem track. Wish more of the songs in this album were as good as this one. 4/5
MY MELANCHOLY BLUES
Decent ending. Not spectacular but decent. 2.5/5
That gives this album an average of 2.4 which ranks it so far as Queen’s worst.
Here’s the grades for the others.
Queen 2.7
Queen II 2.59
Sheer Heart Attack 3
A Night at the Opera 3.98
A day at the races 2.59
TO CONCLUDE
I was really glad when this album finished (which is a bad sign). I never felt like this whilst listening to any of the previous five but this album apart from the first two songs and It’s Late was pompous, uninspired and just plain dull and boring.
2/5
