Queen In Their Prime, But NOT Here. Queen - A Day At The Races
Written: Jul 01 '03 (Updated Mar 29 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: Freddie's Voice.
Cons: Not even near Queen's best work
The Bottom Line: Only 5 songs here make it worth getting which makes this just OK by Queen's standards. If someone else were to release this in 1976, it would be genius.
scapp70's Full Review: A Day At The Races by Queen
I am the biggest Queen fan that there is. I love every Queen CD that they have out. This is Queen in 1976. Right after the masterpiece A Night At The Opera, and right before another genius album News Of the World. Every Queen fan will probably tell you that this is their favorite or close to it. As an album compared to other music of other artists it is great. But, compare it to other Queen music and it doesn't stand up like the rest. It sounds like a lot of effort went into the production of this album, but maybe not as much to the song writing.
One of the great things about this album is the artwork. The cover is genius because of the obvious similarities to A Night At The Opera. The cover is black with almost the same art. All the same characters are there, but they are a bit more animate. With the two titles, being lifted from classic Marx Brothers movies, it was almost expected to look similar. When you open up the CD booklet to the middle you have a classic shot of Queen performing the song '39 at the Hyde Park show in September 1976, just two months before the release of this album. Then there are the four headshots of each member of Queen.
The music: Intro / Tie Your Mother Down is a heavy rocker with a big beat feel. The Intro is a myriad of Brian's guitars that he himself compares to the "House Of Stairs," you know that painting with the staircases going every which way, and you can't tell which where they're going. It does sort of come off as that kind of deception of a gradual climb. I realize that Tie Your Mother Down is a Queen classic, but I have grown a little tired of it. When the guitar riff comes in after Brian's Intro, it does grab you and make you pay attention, maybe this is the reason that Queen always performed the song in their concerts. Brian attempts to play the slide guitar for the solo here, and it works to some degree.
You Take My Breath Away is a very lovely ballad that Freddie sort of croons. Freddie really took his time here and with the beautiful layered vocal harmonies throughout the song. There are so many Freddies multi-layered over one another singing and matching so close that his many voices seem to phase. Freddie contrasts all of his voices with a quiet sparse piano which eventually becomes seasoned with some orchestral guitar from Brian May. John Deacon plays exceptional bass on this track as he is locked into Freddie's left hand on the piano. Freddie's lyrics describe a desperate love affair:
"You can reduce me to tears with a single sigh
Evry breath that you take, any sound that you make is a whisper in my ear
I could give up all my life for just one kiss
I would surely die if you dismiss me from your love...You take my breath away"
Long Away is another song that Brian May is very proud of. In my opinion, it is an OK song. It is so different from the kinds of song that Brian has written and contributed to Queen's previous four albums. The hook of the song is within the chorus,
"did we leave our way behind us, such a long long way behind us.."
Brian himself provided the lead vocals on this one, and as always he does them well. I compare this song to Someday One Day from Queen II. Someday One Day is the first song with lead vocals by Brian, and they both have a big acoustic guitar sound, with a sing-a-long quality with the chorus.
Now it's not all bad, and Freddie's The Millionaire Waltz is a great song, and very underrated as far as I'm concerned. It's almost seems out of place as the quality is too good to be on such a mediocre CD. This piano heavy song is in 3/4 time as to keep with the title. When we get to the end of the middle of the song, the tune breaks away from the piano dominant waltz, into a heavy metal blast that lasts all but just a couple of seconds, and then SNAP! right back to the piano waltz. Freddie's vocals during the heavy part ("Come back to me, oh my love...") is among his best vocal performances. His voice is just so powerfully clear and controlled, it gives you goosebumps. This is one of the best examples why so many regard him as the best singer in rock music.
You & I is John Deacon's contribution to this CD. The third in his career so far in Queen. It sort of points in the direction of Spread Your Wings on the next album, but no where as near as great. Freddie sings great here too, as he usually goes the extra mile, vocally, for John's songs. When John writes a song, Freddie seems to sing a bit differently, outside of the usual Freddie Mercury style. I think that this song was a single in some countries, and it does have a commercial feel to it. It starts off with a catchy piano thing and then the bass and drums. Brian and his guitar keep a low profile in this song until the guitar solo.
Somebody To Love is next. The gospel song that Freddie tried to pull off. I don't believe it quite makes it; primarily on it's lack of soul. Freddie just gives a great performance vocally. They should have left this out of the set list when they played live back then. It really sounds bad. Another song that FM radio ignored then and now plays to death today. Critics compared this song to their previous album's Bohemian Rhapsody maybe because they were both singles, maybe because they are sort of long in length, or maybe because of all the vocals, but the two sound nothing alike.
White Man is a heavy song by Brian May. It is about the plight of the American Indians. It's good; it drags on a bit I think. They used to segue this song with The Prophet's Song from A Night At The Opera when doing it live. Roger's drums have never sounded so loud on a Queen album then they do here. Freddie sings so well here too.
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy is a very, um, what's that word they use for gay with Freddie? Oh yeah, camp. This is totally 'camp.' I love this song. Queen used an outside person for the first time on this track for vocals. I'm not sure why, but they utilized their engineer, Mike Stone, to sing the two lines "Hey boy where's you get it from/ Hey boy where did you go?". But it really confused me when I was a kid. He sings one line in the song ('Hey boy, where'd you get it from, hey boy where did you go.') But, like I said it works. These piano songs that Freddie writes when they are poppy like this really brings out the complex-style of bass playing from John Deacon. In fact he shines on all the songs on this LP. This was a single also, but here in America it did nothing. It's too bad because it's a great song. It is probably because of the song's camp that it did nothing in America.
Drowse by Roger Taylor. I used to skip this song when I was a kid (6 and 7 years old). Now I like it a lot more. Not one of Roger's best, but a highlight on this album. I love Roger's voice on it. I don't think that they ever did it live. Interesting lyrics as Roger always writes, "Downtown with the chewing gum bums". Brian is on the slide guitar again.
Teo Torriate (Let us Cling Together) is another bilingual song by Brain May, and the first. It is a really really good song. Freddie sings so great on this one. This song is slow and gentle, and sort of gets really heavy in the same way as Millionaire Waltz does toward the end of the middle part of the song. Freddie's voice in the heavy part is just as amazing as in the Millionaire Waltz, or better.
As this song ends the Outro starts up and it is identical as the intro was at the beginning of the disc.
This song, along with Millionaire Waltz, Drowse, Good Old Fashioned Loverboy and You Take My Breath Away are the only songs that really show the Queen level of caliber. The rest are mediocre. Well, you may say, "Hey that's five songs out of ten that you say are great!". That's true, but Queen usually put out perfect albums where every song is perfect, not just half.
On the Hollywood Records release there are 2 bonus tracks. The first is Tie Your Mother Down. This, for me is an improvement over the original. It changes the song drastically in some parts and sounds like the great QUEEN instead of the blah Queen.
The second is Somebody To Love. They double Freddie's vocals and put a lot of reverb on his voice, I guess in an attempt to make it even more powerful. It fails miserably, as it is the only part of the song that sounds dumb. The music and background vocals sound great though. I like the extra Freddie vocals found here though, that were edited out the first time around on the original.
It's hard to say that I do not recommend it. What I mean is that don't buy this CD first, get the good CDs, and then pick this one up.
Don't pass this CD up, but don't hold it up as one of their best either.
Songs:
1. Tie Your Mother Down
2. You Take My Breath Away
3. Long Away
4. The Millionaire Waltz
5. You & I
6. Somebody To Love
7. White Man
8. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
9. Drowse
10.Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)
11.Somebody To Love (Remix - Bonus Track)
12.Tie Your Mother Down (Remix - Bonus Track)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~For more Queen CD Epinions from Scapp70~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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