News of the World (Album)

News of the World
Studio album by Queen
Publication (s)	October 28, 1977
Label (s)	EMI / Parlophone ; Elektra , Hollywood Records (USA)
Format (s)	LP , MC , CD
Genre (s)	Rock , hard rock
Title (number)	11
running time	39:30
occupation	Brian May: Electric guitars, backing vocals, lead vocals on All Dead, All Dead with Mercury and Sleeping on the Sidewalk , acoustic guitar and maracas on Who Needs You Freddie Mercury: lead and backing vocals, piano, cowbell on Who Needs You Roger Taylor: drums, backing vocals, bass and lead vocals on Fight from the Inside , bass on Sheer Heart Attack , rhythm guitars on Sheer Heart Attack , guitars with May on Fight from the Inside John Deacon: Bass, Acoustic Guitar on "Who Needs You"
production	Queen (assisted by Mike Stone)
Studio (s)	Basing Street and Wessex Studios ( London )
chronology A Day at the Races (1976) News of the World Jazz (1979)
Single release 07.10.1977 We Are the Champions / We Will Rock You

News of the World is the sixth album by the British rock band Queen , released on October 28, 1977 . With We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions, it contains two of the group's most famous pieces.

The album

Like the previous album A Day at the Races , News of the World was produced by Queen herself. The recordings took place in London between July and September 1977 .

This album breaks with the classic Queen sound; the pieces are comparatively rough and emphatically rock-oriented. The increased equal participation of the Queen members is also expressed: for the first time, drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon are each represented with two songs on a Queen album. However , this time Freddie Mercury's compositional part is significantly lower than before. With the exception of the Flash Gordon soundtrack, News of the World is the only Queen studio album on which Brian May is represented with more pieces than Mercury.

With We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You, the pre-release single for the album contains two of Queen's most famous tracks. The single reached the UK number two and number four in the US charts . News of the World is one of Queen's best-selling studio albums worldwide. It came in fourth on the UK charts and achieved gold status. In the United States, the album went four times platinum , in the charts it reached number three.

The striking record cover , on which an oversized robot crushes the band members with his hands, was designed by Frank Kelly Freas . It is based on a painting that Freas made in 1953 for the cover of Astounding Science Fiction magazine to illustrate the story The Gulf Between . Years later, Roger Taylor saw it and developed the idea for the cover design from it.

Track list

page 1

1. We Will Rock You (May) - 2:01
2. We Are the Champions (Mercury) - 3:00
3. Sheer Heart Attack (Taylor) - 3:24
4. All Dead, All Dead (May) - 3:10
5. Spread Your Wings (Deacon) - 4:36
6. Fight from the Inside (Taylor) - 3:02

Page 2

1. Get Down, Make Love (Mercury) - 3:51
2. Sleeping on the Sidewalk (May) - 3:05
3. Who Needs You (Deacon) - 3:07
4. It's Late (May) - 6:26
5. My Melancholy Blues (Mercury) - 3:33

reception

Record Mirror (Great Britain), 1977: “This is Queen stripped down to almost basics. The track 'Sheer Heart Attack' is a Queen attempt at new wave , a classy version of the Sex Pistols with some very heavy lyrics. It's not a bad album by any means, but it could have been better. "

Sounds (Great Britain), 1977: “Aw, Queen, why did you do this to us? Why doesn't this album say 'No Synthesisers'? Side one is foreboding, side two much better after a disillusioning beginning with 'Get Down Make Love' ... but how nice of Queen to finish so exquisitely with 'My Melancholy Blues'. Sweet fantasy. "

Daily Mirror (Great Britain), 1977: “In many ways this is the most intriguing Queen album since their finest, Sheer Heart Attack . Whether all the obvious tension within the band will spur them on to greater things, or simply pull them apart, remains to be seen. "

The Washington Post (USA), 1977: “Queen's sixth album, 'News of the World,' reveals another facet of the group's musical identity. This album represents a departure from the usual Queen flamboyance and dynamism of musical effects (...) Less flamboyance, less implicit drama, less operatic overtones characterize this album; More understatement (...), more experimentation in the range between hard and soft rock, more intelligence and moderation of conception. (...) An unavoidable impression after listening to 'News of the World' is the influence of the Beatles , especially their ' White Album ,' on the collective unconscious of Queen. (...) Because of Queen's liberal absorption of musical styles and themes over the last 10 years, it is difficult to pinpoint what individualizes their personal style. But if we can isolate their most distinguishing characteristic, it is a heavy metal bass line - heavy on guitar and drums - which both support and play against a multi-voiced melodic line. A case in point is the first cut of the album, 'We Will Rock You,' which has a marvelously primitive, ritualistic, tribal quality to it. The loud throbbing beat with its Dianysian overtones, the insistent claping, the ostinato bass which enters as the only melodic acompaniment late in the song, all build repetitively, setting up rhythmic circuits charged with energy. That energy is further underscored by the challenging, hostile, rebellious lyrics: (...) "

Alternative versions of the songs

BBC versions (Queen's 6th BBC session, recorded October 28, 1977, produced by Jeff Griffin, broadcast on the John Peel Show on November 14, 1977 ):

• Spread your wings
• It's Late (including quotes from Get Down, Make Love )
• My Melancholy Blues
• We will rock you
• We Will Rock You (quick version)

Single edit:

• It's Late (1978)

New recordings without Mercury and Deacon:

• We Will Rock You (with Five , 2000)
• We Are the Champions (with Robbie Williams , 2001, from the album Music from the Motion Picture A Knight's Tale )
• We Will Rock You (with John Farnham , 2003)

Remixes (from Hollywood Records):

• We Will Rock You (1991 Bonus Remix Ruined by Rick Rubin , featuring Flea and Chad Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers )
• We Will Rock You - six more remixes by Rubin (1991)
• We Are the Champions (remixed by Rick Rubin, 1991)

Cover versions including queen samples :

• Get Down, Make Love as interpreted by Trent Reznor's band Nine Inch Nails (Single Sin , 1990) contains samples from the original version of the piece (as well as from We Will Rock You ).
• Spread Your Wings by Blind Guardian as a bonus track on the album Somewhere Far Beyond (1992)

Queen played eight of the eleven songs on the album live: We Will Rock You (slow and fast version) - We Are the Champions - Sheer Heart Attack - Spread Your Wings - Get Down, Make Love - Sleeping on the Sidewalk (once) - It's Late - My Melancholy Blues .

Chart placements

album

The album News of the World reached the following positions in the charts :

• # 1 - France ( gold ) / Canada ( platinum ) / Netherlands (platinum) / Portugal.
• # 3 - Japan / USA (4 × platinum).
• # 4 - Great Britain (gold) / Norway.
• # 7 - Germany (platinum).
• # 9 - Austria / Sweden.
• # 16 - Italy.

Single releases

We Are the Champions / We Will Rock You (October 7, 1977)

# 1: France, New Zealand; # 2: Great Britain (gold), Netherlands; # 3: Ireland, Canada; # 4: USA; # 11: Australia; # 12: Austria; # 13: Germany; # 72: Japan.

Spread Your Wings (February 10, 1978)

# 20: Netherlands; # 29: Germany; # 34: Great Britain.

It's Late (April 25, 1978: published in the USA and Japan)

# 74: USA.

Sales figures and awards

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Germany (BVMI)	platinum	500,000
France (SNEP)	gold	100,000
Canada (MC)	3 × platinum	300,000
Netherlands (NVPI)	platinum	100,000
Poland (ZPAV)	platinum	100,000
Switzerland (IFPI)	platinum	50,000
United States (RIAA)	4 × platinum	4,000,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	gold	100,000
All in all	2 × gold 11 × platinum	5,250,000

Main article: Queen (band) / Music Sales Awards

Web links

• Circus , January 19, 1978 (Queen Archives) - Interview with Mercury and May (English)
• Song Analysis: Who Needs You (www.queensongs.info) - Song Analysis (English)

Sources and Notes

1. ↑ ^{a b c} quotation from Jacky Gunn, Jim Jenkins: Queen. As It Began. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1992, p. 109. ISBN 0-283-06052-2
2. ^ Queen: Less Flamboyance, More of the Beatles. In: The Washington Post , December 28, 1977 (see Queen Archives )
3. ↑ ^{a b} tsort.info: Album artist 14 - Queen .