The Bottom Line: Recommended, but only because it's by Queen and they are generally very good. Don't buy it as your first ever Queen album though. It might put you off.
After their acclaimed 1986 album “A Kind of Magic” and the resultant European stadium tour, which proved to be their last, the members of Queen took a break from group activity. Freddie Mercury recorded the solo album “Barcelona” in collaboration with Spanish opera diva Montserrat Caballe; guitarist Brian May produced albums for spoof heavy metal band Bad News and his future wife and actress Anita Dobson while also guesting on records by artists such as Black Sabbath and Meatloaf and working on material for a solo album which would not see the light of day until 1992; drummer Roger Taylor formed a side project band called The Cross who released an album, which was not successful, and went on a UK tour, which was; and bass player John Deacon contributed to the soundtrack of the movie “Biggles” and undertook some session work with other artists.
By 1989, Queen were back together as a group again after their three-year sabbatical, with the release of their 13th studio album, “The Miracle”. After such a break expectations were obviously high, but in the event it proved to be something of an unlucky 13 for the band as, despite a handful of very good tracks and a strong European chart performance, the album was a comparative disappointment and, in my own personal opinion, the weakest of their career, falling below even the much derided (but in my view underrated) “Hot Space” of 1982.
It begins with the pop-rock flavoured “Party”, which sets out the lightweight mood of the album perhaps in contrast to the actual feelings of the band at the time. While making this album, both May and Taylor had recently or were in the process of ending long-term relationships, and although even his band mates did not know it for sure yet, Freddie Mercury had been diagnosed as HIV positive and was suffering from AIDS. Taylor has described Mercury during the making of “The Miracle” as being “not particularly well, but not particularly ill either”, and on the whole the happy tone of this album seems to be an attempt on the band’s part to convince themselves that nothing was wrong. In interviews around the time of the album’s release they even spoke about the possibility of a tour, something that was quite out of the question given Mercury’s health.
“Party” blends into its sequel song “Khasoggi’s Ship” almost seamlessly, although the second track is the more distinctive of the two because the electronic drums of the former are replaced by the real drums of the latter, lending the song a much heavier feel. It is another fairly short track and although it has some decent guitar parts from May there is nothing that makes it stand out as a particularly outstanding piece of music in any way.
The third track, “The Miracle”, is a sickly-sweet number that speaks of peace and harmony, a lightweight rock track that does not sink so low as some of the more electronic numbers later in the album but still sounds like Queen selling themselves short. The song is actually far more memorable for its video, in which a group of young Queen look-alikes perform a Queen stage show while miming to the song, being joined on stage by the real band at the end. The video is hugely entertaining and the young tribute band very good, prompting Mercury to quip “can they do a whole tour for us?” However, stripped of the visuals, the album’s title track is somewhat less than miraculous.
At this point the listener is almost driven to ask despairingly, “will the real Queen please stand up?” and thank goodness they do as Brian May rescues the album with its fourth track, “I Want It All”, one of May’s good old-fashioned hard-rocking Queen numbers. With a powerful vocal from Mercury, a pounding rhythm section from Taylor and Deacon and some fancy guitar work by May, this rock classic was released as the first single from the album and became a massive hit all over Europe, peaking at No. 3 at the in the UK singles chart where it entered, the band’s highest ever new entry to that date. Unfortunately, by succeeding in matching the band’s previous high standards, “I Want it All” only goes to show just how average most of the rest of the material on “The Miracle” is by comparison.
The album plunges straight from the sublime to the ridiculous as “I Want it All” is followed by the frankly poor “The Invisible Man”, one of the weakest song writing contributions ever from drummer Roger Taylor. John Deacon’s bass line is distinctive but hardly memorable in the same vein as his classic riffs such as “Another One Bites the Dust” or “Under Pressure”, and the overall production of the song is far too lightweight and electronic – perhaps if the whole thing had been a little heavier it might have work, but the result is frankly weak. May contributes a very good guitar solo which rescues some pride, but stuck in the middle of such an ordinary pop song it sounds more than a little out of place.
Faith in Taylor’s reputation as a song writer is immediately restored by his second successive contribution to the album, “Breakthru”, one of my personal favourite Queen tracks and undoubtedly the superior of every track on the album bar “I Want it All”. Driven by another powerful rhythm section from Taylor and Deacon and carried further by an energetic lead vocal performance from Mercury and some more good guitar from May, this song is an anthem of unrequited love and wishing to make feelings known the object of those feelings. Something many of us can identify with, the song also raises a warm smile in places as it sees the welcome return, albeit only in small sections, of the famous Queen studio harmonies created by multi-tracking of May, Mercury and Taylor’s voices.
“Rain Must Fall” is quite frankly appalling. It is undoubtedly the poorest song John Deacon ever contributed to the Queen catalogue. The musical arrangement and production sounds as if someone has left the ‘demo’ function switched on on a particularly expensive synthesiser – at best it sounds like a demo, and at worst like an amateur group. Mercury’s vocal performance is as good as ever, but there is no rescuing one of the poorest, lightweight pop songs Queen ever recorded. There’s nothing wrong with happy pop music when done well – but unfortunately, this is definitely not done well.
Mercifully, the material gets a little heavier and more substantial with “Scandal”, another Brian May rock track which isn’t nearly so good as “I Want it All” but has a very atmospheric intro and is infinitely preferable to the electronic pop of “Rain Must Fall”. The lyric was written by May about the newspaper coverage of his split from wife Chrissie and new relationship with actress Anita Dobson, and is sung with great gusto by Mercury. Nevertheless this is no more than an average Queen rocker, not particularly poor but not particularly great either – it says something about the quality of “The Miracle” that this is one of the better tracks, as on most of their 1970s albums it would have been just another song of no real note.
“My Baby Does Me”, a Mercury/Deacon collaboration does have some nice atmosphere to it, although I think the slow pop track with funk leanings would have sounded a lot better with real drums rather than the electronic beat that spoils things here. There are some nice guitar licks from May, while nothing particularly special they add some much-needed weight to the track. There’s a great moment at the beginning where Mercury, whose voice is as strong and unique as ever, murmurs “turn it up a bit please”, as the intro plays. Not the worst track on the album by any means, but hardly one of those Queen songs that live in the memory.
The cassette and vinyl versions of the album closed with “Was It All Worth It”, the 10th track that sounds almost like a kind of farewell – and had Mercury not been as courageous and determined to carry on making music as he was, it might have ended up that way. A semi-autobiographical track penned by Mercury and May looking back over the career of a rock band, sung in the first person by Mercury, it talks of all the high lows.
As with “Scandal” and especially “I Want it All”, this song stands out because it is a lot heavier and guitar-driven, far superior to the poppier tracks on the album and more like classic Queen rock. The vintage studio harmonies also put in an appearance here, and coupled with an anthemic chorus, fantastic guitar solo and real drums complementing Deacon’s bass for a decent rhythm, this is a fine closing to the album. As has been pointed out before, in some ways it sounds like a poor man’s version of “The Show Must Go On” from the following album, and while it can’t harness the same emotion as that track, it has similar Queen-standard anthem qualities to it.
The CD edition of “The Miracle” contains three extra tracks not found on the other formats, the first of which is “Hang on In There”, a Brian May-penned pop/rock track originally recorded for the b-side of the “I Want it All” single release. Far worthier of inclusion than many of the other album tracks, this is fairly standard stuff from Queen but the harder edge to it than the pop-orientated material that dominates “The Miracle” makes it sound much worthier of the band, and coupled with an instantly-catchy tune, make this a very decent song.
“Chinese Torture” is a purely instrumental track, and like “Brighton Rock” on 1974’s “Sheer Heart Attack” and “Bijou” on the album following “The Miracle”, “Innuendo”, is mostly a chance for May to show off his impressive guitar skills. Not as long as those other tracks, coming in at less than two minutes in length.
The CD edition closes with a rather pointless 12-inch mix of “The Invisible Man” – the original version was bad enough as it was, so why on Earth the band thought we would like to hear even more of it is anybody’s guess. And they even manage to ruin the guitar solo, which was just about the only saving grace of the standard version.
Altogether then, the predominance of electronic drums and light-weight pop make this possibly Queen’s weakest album, although with songs such as “I Want it All”, “Breakthru” and “Was it all Worth It” is has high enough high points for it not to be considered a complete write-off. You can see that it was an attempt to appear happier and more commercial perhaps, to fit in with the pop acts that predominated the charts in 1989, but as with “Hot Space”, Queen’s previous attempt to be led by musical trends rather than to lead, they are much weaker when they’re not just doing their own thing.
If you like Queen and have several of their albums but not this one, then it’s probably best to get this one out of the way so that the last you ever buy is not a disappointment. If you don’t like Queen but want to buy your first album by the band, this isn’t it – go for “Greatest Hits” or “A Night at the Opera” or “Innuendo” instead.
At least Queen managed to get all of this sub-standard material out of their system before they moved onto their masterpiece album – “Innuendo”. But that’s another story…
Recommended:
Yes
Great Music to Play While: Getting ready to go out
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