Question: any heavier moments in Queen's discog post The Game?

Ok, so I am finally really delving into Queen's discography. The only thing I've ever owned is the Greatest Hits 1 and 2 double set.

I'm really, really digging the earlier 70s stuff, and I plan to go through each album up through The Game (and Flash Gordon, that's the only other one I was really familiar with before--love that soundtrack).

Now, from the GH vol. 2 disc, I know that the 80s and into the early 90s are spotty as hell. There are some of those hits that I like a lot, like "Radio Ga Ga" and "I want it All". There are some I LOATHE, like "It's a Kind of Magic" and "One Vision", and one of my most hated classic rock songs of all, "Under Pressure".

And I know they have some rockin' moments, like "Hammer to Fall" and "Princes of the Universe".

So, for those versed in Queen, can anyone list some either heavier cuts, tunes more similar to their 70s stuff, or just some of the more rockin' stuff from Hot Space and after?

IMHO Innuendo was their best album since the 70s and this song completely rocks.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

one of my most hated classic rock songs of all, "Under Pressure".

THANK YOU. That song is awful.

I always enjoyed this one from Innuendo:

I didn't like Under Pressure when I was 11 years old (when it was released), but I've grown to love it over the years.

Let's see, heavier songs on later Queen albums, I'll try to do this from memory:

The Works:
Tear It Up
Hammer To Fall

A Kind Of Magic
Gimme The Prize
Princes Of The Universe

The Miracle
I Want It All

Innuendo - Easily their best album since The Game.
Headlong
The Hitman
The Show Must Go On

I think though that a lot of their strongest tracks from the 80s and early 90s aren't the heavier ones. Queen was always a band with many different sounds, that's what made them so special.

S.D. wrote:

I didn't like Under Pressure when I was 11 years old (when it was released), but I've grown to love it over the years.
 

Same here. I love that song.

This is an interesting thread for me. 

The Game is about where I gave up on Queen. At one point I actually considered Queen to be my favorite band.   I have everything by the band up to and including that album but they lost me after that.  Of the songs listed so far the only ones I've heard before are Hammer To Fall and I Want It All.  Sounds like I need to check out Innuendo.

On a side note, I think the recently released Queen - Live at the Rainbow '74 is a great concert CD/DVD set.  It's from the Queen II/Sheer Heart Attack tours and reminds me why I loved this band so much back in those days.  It also reminds me why modern concert DVDs annoy me so much with their constant cutting back and forth to different camera angles every 1.5 seconds.  None of that here.  Lots of long takes from a single camera angle.  Of course the ADD crowd will be bored silly.

tohostudios wrote:

This is an interesting thread for me. 

The Game is about where I gave up on Queen. At one point I actually considered Queen to be my favorite band.   I have everything by the band up to and including that album but they lost me after that.  Of the songs listed so far the only ones I've heard before are Hammer To Fall and I Want It All.  Sounds like I need to check out Innuendo.

On a side note, I think the recently released Queen - Live at the Rainbow '74 is a great concert CD/DVD set.  It's from the Queen II/Sheer Heart Attack tours and reminds me why I loved this band so much back in those days.  It also reminds me why modern concert DVDs annoy me so much with their constant cutting back and forth to different camera angles every 1.5 seconds.  None of that here.  Lots of long takes from a single camera angle.  Of course the ADD crowd will be bored silly.

Yeah, they kind of lost direction after The Game. Was Flash after or before the game or maybe even the same time? I love the Flash Soundtrack but it is probably the kid in me that refuses to dislike it. I remember the Flash Theme had Football Fight on the B Side. Picked up Flash on DVD when it was reissued a few years ago with "bonus" material that was incredibly lame (a "trailer" for the SciFi series, which wasn't even a trailer it was just to logo on the screen. The other bonus was a Buster Crabbe short that was a cliff hanger and it didn't include part 2!). But the movie itself was as fun as I remember it. Bought the soundtrack on CD back in the 90's when Hollywood reissued it.

I think around the time of Hot Space is when everyone thought WTF?!? I lost interest entirely until I heard "I Want It All" so I bought The Miracle and was surprised it had some really good tracks. Also bought Innuendo when it was released on cassette (so I don't have that one anymore).

I am a huge Queen fan and own the discography (though I have yet to get that Rainbow set). That said, I don't think people are off-base when they say they lost direction after The Game. I mean, you watch the Classic Album DVD for "A Night at the Opera," and see how they spent DAYS trying to make Brian May's guitar sound like an old horn section on a 78 RPM record and then hear how lazy they got with synths in the 80s and it starts to seem like, once the money came in, they spent more time doing blow than crafting songs.

That said, I think that Hot Space is a good record if you completely ignore Under Pressure. It's an odd and sometimes lush album with some great moments, but UP is just... It's a studio jam that happens to include David Bowie... And not a very interesting one at that.

As for heavy moments... If you want a reasonably good all around rock record, I'm partial to The Works among the 80s albums as it gets back to this sense of a band with good songs who liked to push sonic boundaries. Hammer to Fall is also a slamming rock track.

I'll second the recommendation of Innuendo. It's the closest thing to a genuine follow-up to A Night at the Opera and their more classic material you'll find. In truth, it's an album I feel sincerely sad about because you get the sense that Queen could have really had a renaissance creatively had Freddie lived. The posthumous "Made in Heaven" album is also top notch, including re-recordings of Mercury solo material, some demoed material they finished up and odds and ends.

Are queen metal?

Just asking because I am not too familiar with them.

Gilbert wrote:

Are queen metal?

More so than quite a lot of bands regularly discussed on here.

With a band like Queen I think assigning a genre label to them is a disservice.  They were so stylistically diverse that just calling them one thing is basically an insult.

They are so unique their genre is QUEEN.

Need to check them out more.

Gilbert wrote:

Need to check them out more.

Not everything they did could be classed as metal but they could rip it up when the mood took them

That is heavy stuff. Thanks for posting it.

S.D. wrote:

With a band like Queen I think assigning a genre label to them is a disservice.  They were so stylistically diverse that just calling them one thing is basically an insult.

They are so unique their genre is QUEEN.  

I think this is a pretty fair assessment.  

Though his voice isn't nearly as stratospheric and powerful as Freddie Mercury's, Brian May has some pretty "metal" solo stuff.

Roger Taylor also had some really solid solo material, but his tended a little more towards the semi-electronic rock side of things.  Strange Frontier is a great album if you happen upon it.

Edit: Exhibit A of Brian May heaviness:

Anyone here own or familiar with these releases...


Deep Cuts Vol. 1 (1973-76)
1 Ogre Battle
2 Stone Cold Crazy
3 My Fairy King
4 I'm In Love With My Car
5 Keep Yourself Alive
6 Long Away
7 The Millionaire Waltz
8 '39
9 Tenement Funster
10 Flick Of The Wrist
11 Lily Of The Valley
12 Good Company
13 The March Of The Black Queen
14 In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited


Deep Cuts Vol. 2 (1977-82)
1 MUSTAPHA
2 SHEER HEART ATTACK
3 SPREAD YOUR WINGS
4 SLEEPING ON THE SIDEWALK
5 IT`S LATE
6 ROCK IT (PRIME JIVE)
7 DEAD ON TIME
8 SAIL AWAY SWEET SISTER
9 DRAGON ATTACK
10 ACTION THIS DAY
11 PUT OUT THE FIRE
12 STAYING POWER
13 JEALOUSY
14 BATTLE THEME


Deep Cuts Vol 3 (1984-95)

1. Made in Heaven
2. Machines (Or Back to Humans)
3. Don't Try So Hard
4. Tear It Up
5. I Was Born to Love You
6. A Winter's Tale
7. Ride the Wild Wind
8. Bijou
9. Was It All Worth It
10. One Year of Love
11. Khashoggi's Ship
12. Is This the World We Created...?
13. The Hitman
14. It's a Beautiful Day (Reprise)
15. Mother Love

For someone like me that's a casual fan of the band, these seem like a good collection of non-hits. Volume 3 could be a little dicey, but the first 2 look pretty good. I only recognize a handful of songs, so that's a plus in my book.

They were released in 2011 supposedly with the approval of the band. Hand-picked song listings and nice booklets. Just wondering if anyone has opinions on these.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

For someone like me that's a casual fan of the band, these seem like a good collection of non-hits.

That's pretty much what they are - the best of the non-hit songs.  It doesn't include The Prophet's Song, but that's quite possibly the only addition I'd make to them.  So if you're looking to explore Queen beyond the hits then I'd say that those three collections are the perfect way to do it (apart from buying the actual studio albums of course).

The weirdest part of those tracklistings to my eyes is the fact that 1 and 2 could really be said to be mostly harder rocking cuts, while 3 is a lot more... eccentric. Good stuff on all three though, no question.

Most of the 70s Queen albums function as "albums", I don't think I would want to hear them in different sequences.

Citanul wrote:

So if you're looking to explore Queen beyond the hits then I'd say that those three collections are the perfect way to do it (apart from buying the actual studio albums of course).

I'm not really interested in investing in their full discography, so for the right price, these discs may be the perfect fit for a fella such as myself. The first 2 collections anyway. The jury is still out on that 3rd one.

The third disc is mostly later stuff primarily pulled from The Miracle, Innuendo and Made In Heaven. I would just buy the Innuendo album instead.