As the JAZZ album liner notes read, Queen had written and recorded their 7th album from July to October 1978 in two places: Montreux, Switzerland & Nice, France. Most likely to escape the hefty British tax, this is the first Queen album recorded outside of the UK
On this record, Queen have discarded the Queen sound of yore, and move ahead into a new direction musically for the most part. No song found on JAZZ would sound like any song off of their first four albums: Queen (1973), Queen II(1974), Sheer Heart Attack(1974), and A Night At The Opera(1975). This is all in spite of the fact that Queen has hired the producer from these four albums, Roy Thomas Baker. A few similarities could be found on A Day At The Races or News Of The World, but for the most part, this is a big change in Queen's sound.
A great example is the magnificent Mustapha. Written by vocalist Freddie Mercury, it begins with an a cappella chant sung by Freddie: "Iiiiiiiiiibrahim". The song is sung in the Arabic language for the most part except for the phrase "pray for you". The music has a very middle eastern sound, and it sounds authentic and convincing, even if Queen only used piano, guitar, bass & drums. It gets very heavy toward the middle of the song. Their is a great site that I found that displays and translates the lyrics to this song. Check it out, I found it very helpful: http://www.pemcom.demon.co.uk/queen/jazz/mustapha.trn.html it's pretty cool. There is a Mr. Bungle song off of the album California called Goodbye Sober Day that may be influenced by Mustapha. It uses the same idea of heavy metal middle eastern sounds.
The singles start with Fat Bottomed Girls, written by guitarist Brian May. This is a straight ahead rocker that is a tribute to..uh..well, the fat bottomed girls. Spinal Tap had definitely borrowed this idea for their song Big Bottom. Spinal Tap's song is a lot more funny though. There is a big chorus with a lot of vocals singing it. I think this may be the first where most of the voices sound like Brian May's. Usually when Queen does their million overdubs, it's Freddie we hear, but here it is Brian lots and lots.
Fat Bottomed Girls with it's double A-side partner, Bicycle Race went to a modest 24 on the American Billboard charts. Bicycle Race brings to mind a lot of naked ladies on bicycles. That being said, this song also is a style departure for Freddie. The lyrics are pretty cool too:
You say black, I say white
You say bark, I say bite
You say shark, I say hey man
Jaws was never my scene and I don't like Star Wars.
You say Rolls, I say Royce
You say God, give me a choice
You say Lord, I say Christ
I don't believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I want to do is Bicycle, bicycle
It is well known that Freddie was brought up and buried in the Zoroastrian faith, yet on at least three occasions in his lyrics he has mentioned Christ as Lord, this one, Jesus from their self titled, and also from their first album Great King Rat. That's always been a mystery to me, but then again off the subject a bit so let's get back.
Don't Stop Me Now was released as single b/w More Of That Jazz in the US and reached the high position of 86. Pretty pathetic for such a great song, but hey it could be worse, it could have not charted at all. This song has all the elements of a great song done live, where the audience would love to sing a long (see Live Killers). This Freddie song is a different type of song for Freddie to write, only because to me, it sounds like it could be a song written by bassist John Deacon. It is very heavy on the piano and very commercial.
Speaking of not charting at all, Jealousy was released April 27, 1979 in the US b/w Fun It. This is a very strange choice for a single release. The song incorporates the sitar for the first and last time in a Queen song, it is also very piano driven, and melancholy.
Oh, how wrong can you be
Oh to fall in love was my very first mistake
How was I to know? I was far too much in love to see
Oh Jealousy, look at me now
Jealousy, you got me somehow
You gave me no warning
Took me by surprise
Jealousy you led me on...
A better choice would have been Let Me Entertain You, or If You Can't Beat Them.
Let Me Entertain You is a fast and furious song with catchy heavy fast guitar licks. This song worked very well live, and this is apparent on their Live Killers album. There is a bit of self mocking in the lyrics, an example here is an obvious poke at the song Teo Torriate from A Day At The Races:
Just take a look at the menu
We give you rock a la carte
We'll breakfast at Tiffany's
We'll sing to you in Japanese
We're only here to entertain you-
Freddie's voice is incredible on this song. This may be the heaviest song on the CD. The song's structure is built a bit like the next song, Dead On Time written by Brian May.
Dead On Time has the same type of fast heavy guitar riff as the wallbearer of the song. The song is very fast, and the lyrics give a feeling of being late as well:
...Hurry down the highway
Hurry down the road
Hurry past the people starin'
Hurry hurry hurry hurry
Leave on time, leave on time
Never got your ticket but you leave on time...
Leave on time leave on time
Gotta 'keep yourself alive' gotta leave on time
Gotta leave on time, leave on time
Dead on time...You Dead!
John Deacon wrote a short amazing song called In Only Seven Days. It is a song about a dude taking a holiday at the beach Monday, saw a girl there on Tuesday, Thursday he saw her and asked her out, they had sex on Friday, and possibly on Saturday. So each verse states the day of the week, and is very catchy and very sing-a-long like.
Fun It written by drummer Roger Taylor is a very pop-oriented song. It is almost a duet sung by Freddie and Roger, who seem to sing everything together, or sometimes just Freddie. Heavy drums are present as they are on most of the songs. The production of the drums, and in general is much better here on JAZZ, than on the first four albums, where there is muffled drums and overbearing guitars. JAZZ has the best sound production up to this date.
Dreamer's Ball is a song written by Brian May. This song although very different, is the same genre as Freddie's My Melancholy Blues from News Of The World. It is a blues jazz song with vocals that is of the like within this genre. But the big difference between the two songs, is that Melancholy is piano, bass & drums, Dreamer's is all guitar with bass and some drums. The lyrics are written with one of those Gertrude "Ma" Rainey or Bessie Smith types of 1920s blues singers singing them, sort of authentic sounding as well:
Oh I used to be your baby
Used to be your pride and joy
You used to take me dancin'
Just like any other boy
But now you've found another partner
And left me like a broken toy.
Oh it's someone else you're takin'
Someone else you're playing to
Honey though I'm aching
Know just what I have to do
If I can't have you when I'm wakin'
I'll go to sleep and dream of you..
More Of That Jazz is another song written by Roger Taylor. This song is very reminiscent of Fight From The Inside from the previous album News Of The World. Sort of punky yet slow and heavy. This song, since it has the album title in the album gives a very quick song collage of every song on the album. Roger Taylor admitted that the lyrics mean nothing, and were just words thrown together. For example:
Only football gives us thrills
Rock and roll just pays the bills
Only our team is the real team
Roger is again to blame for the album's title. He suggested Sheer Heart Attack, News Of The World, and now JAZZ. He said he loved the name at the time because while he was driving, he saw spraypainted on a wall in huge pink letters JAZZ, he thought the word looked very powerful, and wrote a song with the word in the title, and eventually titled the album.
Brian also wrote a very countryish type song called Leaving Home Ain't Easy. The background vocals are again dominated by Brian. Maybe he's the only one singing in this whole song. It's all acoustic and the electric guitars are made to sound like fiddles or dulcimers..well sort of. The song really sounds like an Eagles song. The Eagles could have easily done this song and made it their own. Brian even did the background vocals in an Eagle fashion.
Rating 4½ stars
Songs:
1. Mustapha
2. Fat Bottomed Girls
3. Jealousy
4. Bicycle Race
5. If You Can't Beat Them
6. Let Me Entertain You
7. Dead On Time
8. In Only Seven Days
9. Dreamer's Ball
10.Fun It
11.Leaving Home Ain't Easy
12.Don't Stop Me Now
13.More of That Jazz
14.Fat Bottomed Girls (Remix - Bonus Track)
15.Bicycle Race (Remix - Bonus Track)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~For more Queen CD Epinions from Scapp70~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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