Queen 1982 Album

[Nadal Braymiller]

Aswe spoke, he also expressed his appreciation for the talents of Eddie Van Halen. (Several months later, he and Eddie would collaborate on an bluesy instrumental album called Star Fleet Project. This, in turn, led to Brian requesting that we do a second interview.)

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At the time of this 85-minute interview, Queen seemed to rule the airwaves. A dozen of their singles had already climbed into the U.K.\u2019s Top-20, with \u201CBohemian Rhapsody\u201D reaching #1. Queen\u2019s recently released Greatest Hits compilation was well on its way to becoming the biggest-selling album in U.K. history, a record it holds to this day.

Queen had conquered America as well. Ten of their songs had landed in the U.S. Top-20, with 1980\u2019s rockabilly rave-up \u201CCrazy Little Thing Called Love\u201D and 1981\u2019s \u201CAnother One Bites the Dust\u201D topping the charts. Stateside, Queen had enjoyed strong album sales as well. Sheer Heart Attack, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Live Killers, and Hot Space had been certified gold. News of the World, Jazz, The Game, and Greatest Hits were awarded platinum status for sales in excess of a million copies.

With Freddie Mercury\u2019s singing, Brian May\u2019s extraordinary guitar playing, John Deacon\u2019s bass work, and Roger Taylor\u2019s drumming, their concerts were an experience to behold! Brian\u2019s quiet, gentlemanly nature offstage gave little hint of the flash he delivered onstage. Playing a unique guitar he and his dad built during his youth, Brian cut the figure of the quintessential British rocker \u2013 tall, lean, and in control. No one else sounded like him.

Brian displayed a dazzling array of effects, tones, and techniques during Queen\u2019s sets, at the time among the most theatrical in rock. Midway through each concert, he launched into an extravagant solo showcase that featured him battling spaceship-shaped lighting pods and using echo machines to create three-part harmonies and counterpoints.

To prepare for my Guitar Player cover story interview, I attended Queen\u2019s July 9, 1982, concert in Oakland, California. I then asked an Elektra Records publicist to send me the band\u2019s catalog. As I listened to every Queen album in chronological order, I paid close attention to Brian\u2019s sonic innovations. So in addition to covering his musical background, influences, and tools of his trade, I was able to question him about his playing techniques on specific songs throughout the band\u2019s career-to-date. Brian appreciate my research.

Hot Space is the tenth studio album by the British rock band Queen. It was released on 4 May 1982 by EMI Records[8] in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States. Marking a notable shift in direction from their earlier work, they employed many elements of disco, funk, R&B, dance, pop and new wave music on the album.[3][1] This made the album less popular with fans who preferred the traditional rock style they had come to associate with the band.[3] Queen's decision to record a dance-oriented album germinated with the massive success of their 1980 hit "Another One Bites the Dust" in the US.[1]

"Under Pressure", Queen's collaboration with David Bowie, was released in 1981 and became the band's second number one hit in the UK.[9] Although included on Hot Space, the song was a separate project and was recorded ahead of the album, before the controversy over Queen's new disco-influenced rock sound.[10] The album's second single, "Body Language", peaked at number 11 on the US charts.

Before 1979, Queen had never used synthesisers on their albums.[11] Beginning with The Game, Queen began using Oberheim OB-X synthesisers on their songs, including "Play the Game" and "Save Me". On Hot Space, the band went even further, introducing the drum machine for the first time. A departure from their trademark seventies sound, most of Hot Space is a mixture of rhythm and blues, funk, dance and disco, while the rock songs continued in a pop rock direction similar to their previous album (an exception is the song "Put Out the Fire").[1][2]

The horn arrangement for Mercury's "Staying Power" was added by Arif Mardin (who also produced Chaka Khan and added horn sections to Bee Gees and Aretha Franklin records).[15] "Staying Power" would be performed on the band's accompanying Hot Space Tour, albeit much faster and heavier, with real drums replacing the drum machine and guitars and keyboards replacing the horns. (This arrangement contained no actual bass guitar, as John Deacon played guitar in addition to May.) It was also played on Queen's The Works Tour, until it was dropped from the setlist halfway through the European leg of the tour. In Japan, the band released "Staying Power" as a single in July 1982. Mardin's contributions were recorded at Record Plant Studios in New York. The original demo of the track featured a guitar instead of horns.

"Back Chat", written by John Deacon, is the track most influenced by black music. In addition to normal bass duties, Deacon also plays rhythm guitar[17] and synthesiser on the song. As the album's final single, it stalled at number 40 on the UK charts and failed to chart in the US.

"Body Language" is atypical among Queen songs, as there is very little guitar on the track, with the song being driven by a rhythmic bassline. Mercury, who composed the song on synth bass, had previously explored the instrument's potential with his contributions to the Flash Gordon soundtrack.[18] The song's lyrics describe the gay cruising culture which Mercury was immersed in at the time. The "Body Language" video, featuring scantily clad models writhing around each other in a bathlike setting, proved somewhat controversial and was banned in a few territories. The song also appeared in the 1984 documentary film Stripper, being performed to by one of the dancers. Whilst the video was restricted to late-night showings on MTV, it nonetheless helped the song become the album's biggest hit in America, reaching number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1982.[19]

"Action This Day", one of two Taylor songs that appear on the album, was clearly influenced by the new wave movement/style current at the time; the track is driven by a pounding electronic drum machine in 2/4 time and features a saxophone solo, played by Italian session musician Dino Solera.[20] "Action This Day" takes its title from a Winston Churchill catchphrase that the statesman would attach to urgent documents, and recapitulates the theme of social awareness that Taylor espoused in many of his songs. The band performed "Action This Day" at every show on the Hot Space Tour with a more conventional arrangement, replacing the drum machine and bass synth with a rock rhythm section and replacing the saxophone solo with an actual synthesizer. The verses are duets between Taylor and Mercury, while the chorus is sung by both.

"Put Out the Fire" is an anti-firearm song written by May, featuring lead vocals and falsetto by Mercury, and backing vocals by Mercury, May and Taylor. May recorded its guitar solo under the influence of alcohol (after many unsuccessful attempts).[18]

Though never released as a single, "Put Out the Fire", the album's most traditional Queen song, later appeared on the Queen Rocks compilation in 1997. A new video was also produced for the accompanying video compilation, featuring a live performance of the song intercut with footage of fire and explosions.

Mercury wrote "Life Is Real" as a tribute to John Lennon, whose murder in 1980 had also previously prompted the band to perform his song "Imagine" on tour. It is also one of the few Mercury songs whose lyrics were written before the music.

May's lyrics for "Las Palabras de Amor" were inspired by Queen's close relationship with their Latin-American fans, and have been interpreted as an allegory for the Falklands War.[15] A top 20 hit in the UK, "Las Palabras de Amor" marked the band's sixth single to feature at least one in-studio appearance on Top of the Pops, the others being "Seven Seas of Rhye" (three performances, only partially still existing), "Killer Queen" (two performances, one of which only partially exists), "Now I'm Here" (two performances, with only one of them partially existing) and "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" (one performance). For this mimed performance, May is seen playing a grand piano, although he only played synthesisers on the recording. May also sang lead vocals for the harmonised line "this night and evermore".

"Cool Cat", written by Mercury and Deacon, originally featured David Bowie on backing vocals and a few lines of spoken word to a rhythm during the middle eight. According to Mercury in a 1982 TV interview, Bowie was unhappy with the results and requested that his vocals be removed days before its parent album was slated to be released.[21] With the exception of the electric piano (which was played by Mercury), all the instruments are played by Deacon, including guitars, synths and a drum machine.[22] On the album version, Mercury sings the entire song in falsetto.[23] The alternate take with Bowie's vocals still intact is widely available on various bootleg recordings[24] and surfaces from an early 1982 vinyl Hot Space test pressing from the US. Deacon can be heard using the slap bass technique throughout the track. The song was used in 2023 in an Amazon Prime commercial [25] featuring a young woman who, among other things, has a bobblehead of Mercury and buys a jacket on Prime similar to the one the bobblehead is wearing.

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