The Works (album)
| The Works | ||||
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| Studio album by Queen | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | EMI / Parlophone / Capitol , Hollywood Records (USA) | |||
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Title (number) |
9 |
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Guest musicians:
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Queen and Mack |
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Studio (s) |
Record Plant ( Los Angeles ), Musicland Studios ( Munich ) |
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The Works is the eleventh studio album by the British rock group Queen , released at the end of February 1984 . It was produced from August 1983 to January 1984 in Los Angeles and Munich .
Track list
LP side 1:
- Radio Ga Ga (Taylor) *
- Tear It Up (May)
- It's a Hard Life (Mercury) *
- Man on the Prowl (Mercury)
LP side 2:
- Machines (or 'Back to Humans') (May / Taylor)
- I Want to Break Free (Deacon) *
- Keep Passing the Open Windows (Mercury)
- Hammer to Fall (May) *
- Is This the World We Created ...? (Mercury / May)
* Singles
The title I Go Crazy, written by Brian May, appeared as the B-side of the single Radio Ga Ga .
The album was produced by Queen / Mack and recorded by Mack. Another sound engineer in Los Angeles was Mike Beiriger, assisted by Stefan Wissnet and Ed Delena.
Details about the individual songs
Radio Ga Ga
For the first time, Radio Ga Ga, a song written by Roger Taylor, was selected as a pre-release single. The title, influenced by electropop , became one of Queen's most commercially successful singles. The synthesizers had been programmed by Fred Mandel , who had accompanied the band as keyboard player during the second phase of the Hot Space tour. For the video , the director David Mallet edited excerpts from Fritz Lang's science fiction silent film Metropolis from 1927. According to Taylor, the creation of the piece goes back to his three-year-old son, who commented on an ongoing radio program with the words "Radio Poo Poo".
Tear It Up
Brian May's Tear It Up is apart from Is This the World We Created ...? the only track on the album for which no alternative version has been released.
It's a hard life
The intro to Freddie Mercury's It's a Hard Life is based on the well-known aria Vesti la giubba from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, which was first performed in 1892 . In the video, unloved by Roger Taylor and Brian May and shot by Tim Pope in Munich, the actress Barbara Valentin , who is a friend of Mercury, can also be seen.
Man on the Prowl
With Man on the Prowl , Mercury composed another rockabilly track after the hit single Crazy Little Thing Called Love . Both Mercury and Fred Mandel can be heard on the piano. The “Extended Version” of Man on the Prowl is almost twice as long as the album version.
Machines (or 'Back to Humans')
Machines is the first Queen title co-written by Brian May and Roger Taylor. Characteristic for the piece is u. a. the combination of drum computer and acoustic drums. Den, Fairlight CMI 'synthesizer / sampler programmed co-producer Mack ; Taylor's “robot” voice is generated by a vocoder . The instrumental remix by Machines includes samples from Goin 'Back (released in 1973 under the name "Larry Lurex"), Ogre Battle and Flash . This version originally appeared as the B-side of the North American single edition of I Want to Break Free ; it is also included on the 1992 compilation The 12 "Collection as part of the Box of Tricks .
I want to break free
The single remix of John Deacon's I Want to Break Free also included on the compilation Greatest Hits II is unusually much longer than the album version; both versions are noticeably different from each other. The third version of the song published on the maxi single, called 'Extended Mix', also contains short excerpts from all the tracks on the album. David Mallet's video for the song, in which the Queen band members in women's clothes parody the British soap opera Coronation Street , is famous ; ballet scenes performed by Freddie Mercury together with the Royal Ballet can also be seen. In the United States, MTV refused to broadcast this video.
Keep Passing the Open Windows
The title words are quoted from John Irving's novel The Hotel New Hampshire . Mercury had originally written Keep Passing the Open Windows for the 1984 film adaptation of Hotel New Hampshire , co-produced by Queen manager Jim Beach ; however, there was ultimately no involvement of Mercury or Queen in the soundtrack of the film.
Hammer to fall
The Hammer to Fall by May thematizes the danger of nuclear war , especially during the Cold War ("In the shadow of the mushroom cloud"). The "Headbangers Mix" contained on the 12 ″ single differs from the album version in that it has an additional intro and an extended guitar solo after the last chorus. In 1986, an excerpt from Hammer to Fall was also used in the film Highlander , for which Queen recorded much of the film music. The live interpretations of the piece at Brian May's solo appearances in the 1990s and at the ' Queen + Paul Rodgers ' concerts differ significantly from Queen's previous version: the first verses were accompanied at an extremely slow pace and only by May's guitar interpreted as a ballad.
Is This the World We Created ...?
The relatively strong political and social references in the lyrics compared to other Queen albums can also be seen in Is This the World We Created…? dealing with the famine in the so-called Third World . Nine months after the release of the album The Works , this problem was also addressed by the u. a. Band aid benefit single Do They Know It's Christmas? initiated by Bob Geldof picked up. Is This the World We Created ...? is the first Queen title to be named "Mercury / May". The only instrument besides Mercury's vocals is the acoustic guitar played by May. The title was also played by them in 1985 in the final of the Live Aid concert at London's Wembley Stadium .
I go crazy
Brian May's I Go Crazy was only released as the B-side of the first single Radio Ga Ga . According to author May, the other Queen members rejected the title and prevented I Go Crazy from being included on the album The Works : “It was very rough and raw, but I really liked the sound. The other three hated it so much they were ashamed to play it. So it wound up as the B-side on 'Radio Ga Ga' […]. But you see, it was kept off the album by the majority. “On the new CD edition of the album, which was released in the USA in 1991, the song is featured as a bonus track .
Alternative versions of the songs
The 7 ″ singles and 12 ″ / maxi singles released in 1984 contain numerous remixes and alternative song versions.
| Songs | Alternative versions | Album versions | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| single | Extended | Instrumental | ||
| Radio Ga Ga | - | 6:53 | 6:01 | 5:49 |
| I want to break free | 4:21 | 7:16 ("Extended Mix") | - | 3:20 |
| Machines (or 'Back to Humans') | - | - | 5:08 | 5:10 |
| It's a hard life | - | 5:05 | - | 4:08 |
| Hammer to fall | 3:40 | 5:23 ("The Headbangers Mix") | - | 4:28 |
| Man on the Prowl | - | 6:04 | - | 3:28 |
| Keep Passing the Open Windows | - | 6:50 | - | 5:21 |
The two single versions of I Want to Break Free and Hammer to Fall can also be found on the compilation Greatest Hits II . The instrumental remix by Machines was released on the B-side of the North American 12 "single I Want to Break Free . Man on the Prowl and Keep Passing the Open Windows appeared in late 1984 on the 12 ″ single Thank God It's Christmas .
The compilation The 12 ″ Collection , published in 1992 as part of the Box of Tricks , contains both the remix of Machines and all 'Extended Versions' with the exception of Keep Passing the Open Windows
Reviews in the media
Sounds (Great Britain), 1984, by Sandy Robertson: “It's all there, I assure you: spurious social comment in 'Machines (or Back To Humans)', slight Fred ballad via 'Is This The World We Created ...?' and even a nip of the old Brian May metal with the (excellent actually) 'Hammer To Fall'. "
Record Mirror (Great Britain), 1984: “The comfortable yet demanding 'Radio Ga Ga' is brought down to earth by the hot and oily 'Tear It Up', with it's catscratch fever guitar. Another jewel in the crown. "
People (USA), 1984: “The hit single Radio Ga-Ga attempts simultaneously to send up and exploit electropop and does achieve a kind of droning, hypnotic appeal, though its success may be due less to the music than the video associated with the track. Far more impressive is the tightly produced I Want to Break Free, […] highlighted by an eerily trenchant synthesizer solo by Fred Mandel, deftly mimicking guitar tones and inflections. There's something here for just about everyone: a wild rocker in Tear It Up, a social-consciousness raiser in Is This the World We Created ?, an ode to the computer culture in Machines. The sweetness of lead singer Freddie Mercury's voice provides an attractive contrast to the band's biting style, and the LP contains enough rhythmic hooks to hang a whole disco full of coats on. "
Rolling Stone (USA), 1984, by Parke Puterbaugh: “What's left is a lean hard-rock sound, making The Works perhaps the first record to refute the maxim that the words Queen and listenable are, of necessity, mutually exclusive. [...] 'Is This the World We Created ...?' is an acoustic meditation on hunger and hate and generational responsibility, sung with conviction by Mercury. This unanticipated humanitarianism is the perfect grace note to the preceding thrash-fest. The Works is a royal feast of hard rock without that awful metallic aftertaste; as such, it might turn out to be the Led Zeppelin II of the Eighties. Not so depressing a prospect at that. "
Chart placements
album
In the charts , the album reached The Works following placements:
- # 1 - Netherlands ( gold ) / Portugal (gold).
- # 2 - Great Britain ( platinum ) / Italy / Norway / Austria (platinum).
- # 3 - Germany (gold) / Sweden / Switzerland (platinum).
- # 4 - Spain (gold).
- # 7 - Japan.
- # 23 - USA (gold).
Singles
Radio Ga Ga (January 23, 1984)
- # 1: Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden; # 2: Germany, Great Britain (silver), Norway, Austria, Poland; # 3: Australia, Switzerland; # 4: South Africa; # 6: Spain; # 11: Canada; # 16: USA; # 89: Japan.
I Want to Break Free (April 22, 1984)
- # 1: Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, South Africa; 2: Ireland, Switzerland; # 3: Great Britain (silver); # 4: Germany; # 5: Spain; # 9: Australia; # 26: Canada; # 45: USA.
It's a Hard Life (July 16, 1984)
- # 2: Ireland; # 6: Great Britain; # 26: Germany; # 72: USA; # 87: Australia.
Hammer to Fall (September 10, 1984)
- # 13: Great Britain; # 55: Australia.
See also
- List of number one hits in Belgium (1984)
- List of number one hits in the Netherlands (1984)
- List of number one hits in Austria (1984)
Web links
- Queenpedia: The Works - Illustrations of the album and single covers
- Video clip for the single Hammer to Fall on YouTube
- Bill Black: The Works Ethic. Queen grant an audience. Well, Roger Taylor does… In: Sounds , February 25, 1984, pp. 28-29. (See QueenCuttings ) - Interview with Roger Taylor (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ For example Roger Taylor's DVD Greatest Video Hits 2 , published in Queens in 2003 ; and Brian May quoted. n. Mark Blake: Cash for Questions. Answered in Brian's living room, Windlesham, Surrey on April 29, 98. In: Q , July 1998. (See brianmay.com )
- ↑ Quoted from Mikael Kirke, Diana Clapton: Brian May: Back to Where He Once Belonged . In: Faces , 1984. (See queen.musichall.cz )
- ^ Sandy Robertson: Fred or Alive. Queen - 'The Works'. In: Sounds , February 25, 1984, p. 26.
- ↑ Quoted from Jacky Gunn, Jim Jenkins: Queen. As It Began. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1992, p. 170. ISBN 0-283-06052-2
- ↑ People , May 14, 1984. (See Queen Archives )
- ↑ Parke Puterbaugh: Queen - The Works . In: Rolling Stone , No. 419, April 12, 1984.