By the time of their 20th anniversary year in 1991, Queen were already musical legends. They’d sold millions upon millions of records all over the world, released perhaps the most iconic single of the popular music age, had hits in all kinds of musical genres from hard rock to synth pop to funk to rockabilly, pioneered stadium rock in South America where they performed before audiences in excess of 250,000 people and stolen the show at the biggest concert ever, Live Aid.
They could have rested on their laurels, having already firmly cemented their position as one of the all-time great bands and established their legend as rock’s untouchable live showmen. But they carried on making new music, and unlike other groups such as Status Quo or the Rolling Stones, they never began to fade down the charts into embarrassing obscurity – except in America, where their decline was more due to a lack of touring and Freddie Mercury’s sexuality than it was the quality of the music.
However, all was not entirely happy in the Queen camp. After a three-year break from group activity in the late 1980s, they had returned to the charts in 1989 with “The Miracle” album which, despite five hit singles in Europe including the continental smash hard-rocking “I Want It All”, is not generally regarded as one of their best, dominated as it was by essentially lightweight pop numbers.
There was also of course the impending shadow of Freddie Mercury’s AIDS, an illness which the members of the band were made aware of during the 1990 recording sessions for “Innuendo” and which the outside world, although it would not be informed until the very day before Mercury died, was already beginning to suspect.
His doctors had told Mercury that he probably would not even make it to the end of the sessions for “Innuendo”, so the recording time for which he was available became very precious indeed. Drummer Roger Taylor has suggested that in some senses the situation in which they found themselves had a positive influence on the album – having to put any personal creative differences aside for the good of the group and forming a ‘united band’ front to shield Mercury from intrusive press attention. This sense of comradeship certainly seems to have helped the music, as in terms of invention and musicianship, “Innuendo” is light years ahead of “The Miracle” and indeed in my own personal opinion is a serious rival for “A Night at the Opera” as Queen’s best album and one of the top contenders for the greatest album of all time.
It begins dramatically with the atmospheric drum intro to the title track, “Innuendo”, an epic six-and-a-half minute Roger Taylor number that encompasses several different musical styles in a manner reminiscent of “Bohemian Rhapsody” sixteen years beforehand. Taylor once described it as ‘A very British track – Oscar Wilde meets Led Zepplin’. The song is by terms epic hard rock and sensitive, acoustic-led Flamenco, a bizarre combination that works, aided by some great skill on ‘wondering minstrel’ guitar by guest musician Steve Howe.
Mercury’s vocal soars to some incredibly powerful highs on this track, as it does throughout the entire album, making it almost unbelievable that he was a seriously unwell man suffering from a fatal illness who knew that his days were very much numbered. Although “Innuendo” has obviously been through a lot of production work, the basic track was laid down in a large hall next door to the Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, Queen’s own studio where the album was recorded. This live atmosphere is still detectable in the tack and helps to give it a real energy, and all-in-all provides and excellent introduction to the album.
Track two is the wonderfully eccentric “I’m Going Slightly Mad”, a song written by Mercury because he knew that he had the strain of AIDS that would effectively make him ‘mad’ – perhaps fortunately, in the event it took his life before it took his senses. The charmingly comical lyrics – “I’m one card of a full deck, I’m not quite the shilling, one wave short of a shipwreck, I’m not my usual top billing” and so on – should raise a smile, but this is offset by the somewhat haunting arrangement, given an even eerier tone by guitarist Brian May’s distorted solo.
The third track is a reminder of the fact that Queen, when they chose to, could really rock. Brian May had a habit of coming up with fast-paced, instantly catchy hard rock anthems that set the heart pumping and the adrenaline racing, and “Headlong” is no exception. Another powerful Mercury vocal is accompanied by May’s rip-roaring guitar work, and in a sense these two qualities were always at the core of the highly distinctive ‘Queen sound’ that made them the legends they were.
“I Can’t Live With You” is another real rocker from May, and like many tracks of his from the late 1980s and early 1990s, it is about the breakdown of his long-lasting marriage to his wife Chrissy and his new relationship with the popular British TV actress Anita Dobson. This personal touch lends some emotion to the track that, although it fits into the traditional Queen rock mould in some senses, has a unique quality to it that sounds very modern and indeed gives the track a contemporary edge that shows Queen were still changing and developing right up to the end.
Mercury sounds as if he is having tremendous fun singing the lead vocal and yet again you can’t help but admire the man’s courage and determination to carry on working right up until it was physically impossible for him to do so. The famous Queen studio harmonies built up from overdubs of Mercury, May and Taylor’s voices are present on the backing chorus here – in some moments reminiscent of the gospel choir the three of them artificially created using studio overdubs of their voices on their famous 1970s hit single “Somebody to Love”.
Bass player John Deacon, perhaps the lowest-profile member of the group, contributed some of their most famous songs down the years. “You’re My Best Friend”, “Another One Bites the Dust” and “I Want to Break Free” all came from his pen, and the fifth track of “Innuendo” sees his sole contribution to the album, “Don’t Try So Hard”. A more sedate number than the previous couple of tracks, this is certainly not Deacon’s best effort, but at the same time it is probably his best effort since “I Want to Break Free” on 1984’s “The Works” album, and Mercury’s powerful, high vocals must be heard to be believed in some places.
The sixth track, “Ride the Wild Wind”, is a fast-paced, passion-stirring number from Roger Taylor, whose half-whispered backing vocals provide an excellent compliment to Mercury’s low, drawling lead. It is Taylor’s energetic drumming that really drives the pace of this song along, accompanied as ever by some excellent guitar work from May.
“All God’s People” is one of the tiny handful of Queen tracks to have been co-written with somebody from outside the band, in this case penned by Mercury with his keyboardist/producer/songwriter friend Mike Moran. Mercury and Moran originally wrote the track for Mercury’s 1988 solo album “Barcelona”, collaboration with Spanish opera diva Monsterrat Caballe. Then under the working title “Africa by Night”, they brought May in to guest on guitar for the track, but it was never completed during the “Barcelona” sessions.
Mercury, reluctant to waste it, returned to the tapes with the rest of Queen and completed “All God’s People” during for “Innuendo”. A powerful track with the Queen studio harmonies creating an energetic vocal, the tone of the lyric in some ways is a throwback to the ‘religious’ songs Queen included on their first two albums – after twenty years, they had come full circle yet were still able to explore new musical avenues. This song also sounds as if it could have come straight from the soundtrack to a film such as “The Lion King”, it has that suitably epic feel to it yet also has a narrative form that would suit such a musical Disney romp.
Track eight, “These are the Days Of Our Lives”, is quite simply the most wonderful song ever recorded in the entire history of popular music. I realise that this is a very personal viewpoint, but the song stunned me when I first heard it and I have loved it ever since. Another Roger Taylor composition, in some ways it is a very simple song, a straight forward ballad with Taylor on bongos, a sublime but never overstated bass line from Deacon and sublime guitar work from May, accompanied as ever by a wonderful lead vocal from Mercury. But the lyric – about looking back fondly on days gone by – gives this song a magical quality unmatched by any other I have ever heard.
Some people view this as a very sad song, and this is understandable. The lyric can be seen as a reflection on a part of your life coming to an end and never being able to revisit good times you had many years ago. This interpretation of the song is probably so widespread because of the circumstances that surrounded its release – it was put out as a double a-side with the re-released “Bohemian Rhapsody” in most countries after Mercury’s death in late 1991, dominating the charts in the UK at No. 1 for five weeks. The video was the last Mercury ever filmed, a simple black and white performance video with the emaciated Mercury, who was only just able to stand by this point, heavily made up and lit so as to try and hide some of the sickness in his features. Many see the end of the video, where Mercury stops singing, looks straight-to-camera and whispers “I still love you” as being the singer’s final goodbye to his fans, and viewed this way it does come across as a very poignant song.
Despite all of this, as strange as it may seem I prefer to see “These are the Days of Our Lives” as a happy song, a pleasant memory of good times had in years gone by, and by saying both that “those were” and “these are” the days of our lives during the lyric, it encourages us to remember that there are good times to be had even hear and now, and there will be in the future too – “no use in sitting and thinking of what you did”, Taylor tells us. Wise words indeed.
The tone could hardly change more dramatically as we move on to track nine, “Delilah” – no, not a cover of the Tom Jones standard, but a lightweight, upbeat pop-orientated song that Mercury wrote as an ode to his favourite pet cat. The production of this song is in some ways reminiscent of the light and fluffy pop-based material that made up the majority of “The Miracle”, but the song is such a classic piece of camp Queen silliness that it is actually very difficult to dislike. And it goes to prove that even in such dark times so near the end, Mercury and the band still had a tremendous sense of fun and enjoyment about their music – just listen to the ‘meow’ sounds May manages to get out his guitar!
Providing yet another dramatic change of mood and contrast of production, “The Hitman” is another May track that forms one of the heaviest things Queen ever recorded. Not nearly so well-constructed as “Headlong”, its closest equivalent on this album, it nonetheless has some stunning guitar parts from May and some thundering drumming from Taylor, led by Mercury’s awesome lead vocal performance that shows he could handle heavy rock such as well as he could lightweight pop and sentimental ballads.
May’s beautiful guitar work forms the basis of the penultimate song on the album, “Bijou”, more of an instrumental number that happens to have a brief vocal section tacked onto it. The solo here is simply stunning, it really is a beautiful piece of music from May and proves, if proof were needed, that he fully deserves his reputation as one of the all-time great guitar players, up there with the likes of Santana, Hendrix and Clapton. Although this probably would have been just as good as a pure instrumental, Mercury’s brief vocal fits well and does lend some emotion to the track.
The final song on “Innuendo” was also the last Queen single ever to be released before Mercury’s death, so it is perhaps both fitting and ironic that it is called “The Show Must Go On”. Many people think that this track was written by Mercury as a defiant statement that he meant to continue for as long as possible, but in fact it is another Brian May composition, and one of the guitarists very best works.
Once he had informed the three of them of his illness, Mercury refused to discuss it with the band any further aside from declaring that he wanted to carry on working until the very end. May wrote this song as a way of summing up his own feelings and those of Taylor and Deacon, but Mercury’s vocal performance does lend it a very personal and poignant quality that suits the track well. It is a powerful, well-constructed Queen anthem in the traditional mould, although it some sense it is a sad song the air of defiance that runs through it lends it a strength, augmented by May’s guitar solo and Mercury’s vocal, that does credit to the whole band and in particular Mercury.
The show, of course, could sadly not go on, as the band knew only too well when “Innuendo” was finally released in January 1991 after several delays caused by Mercury’s ill health. Despite what his doctors had told him he had made it to the end of the sessions and even seen both the album and title track single slam straight into the UK charts at No. 1. He actually carried on recording well into 1991, the vocal tracks he laid down eventually seeing the light of day on Queen’s final album, “Made in Heaven”, in 1991. As well as this he recorded videos for three of the songs to be released as singles, “I’m Going Slightly Mad”, “Headlong” and “These are the Days of Our Lives”. He died at his home in London on the evening of Sunday 24th November 1991, just twenty-four hours after announcing to the world that he was HIV positive and suffering from AIDS.
With “Innuendo” however, he had left a stunning epitaph that shows to the full why he was and is still regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of popular music. His range, his power and the emotion he drew into his performances has rarely been matched, and coupled with the excellence of the three other musicians and songwriters in the group, made Queen, in my own humble opinion, the greatest band who ever lived. If you want proof of that, or if you simply want to enjoy fifty-three minutes of stunning music, listen to “Innuendo”.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.