'The Game' (1980)

'The Game' saw the emergence of a new Queen sound for a new decade, revealing a band expanding their horizons, for good or ill, depending on one's tastes. Not all fans were comfortable with that expansion. 'Jazz' had shown intimations of what was to come. On 'The Game,' the heavy rock which is still present on 'Jazz' is replaced by dance, disco, and synths. And rockabilly! The album marked Queen's entry into another world. Older fans may regret the final confirmation of the band's switch from rock to pop, but the pop sensibilities were there from the start, and the band were right to explore the scope for its development. 'The Game' confirmed Queen as one of the very best bands on the planet. There seemed no end to their talent. In my recollection as a fan, I felt smug and satisfied, with no points to be proven to anyone - Queen were the best and had just proven it. I remember a fellow Queen fan being challenged on the new sound. 'I thought Queen were a rock band,' someone objected. The response back was that Queen did this album just to prove that they could do other styles better than anyone, too. The album is coherent, cogent, and compelling, distilling the essence of the new Queen sound in a concise ten tracks, with the result that the album punched its considerable weight. For those more attuned to pop than rock,  this was peak Queen, at the top of their musical and commercial game. They would go on to further triumphs, with many great singles to come, not to mention Live Aid and Wembley. But as an act, as a kicking and relevant pop band, with a high US profile, this was peak Queen. That maybe encouraged them to take a risk too far, over-confidence leading to self-indulgence and confused direction. The success of 'The Game' encouraged further and deeper exploration of dance/disco territory, with the result that momentum was lost and never quite regained. The first blast of the new Queen was also the best, the excesses of 'Hot Space' causing a reaction and retreat into a 'traditional' Queen sound with 'The Works.' That's how creativity ends up being stifled by being confined within false identities and expectations. But that story isn't quite true. 

One reason for the new coherence and tightness in sound was the arrival of Reinhold Mack as producer, who brought discipline and focus to the band's ideas, retaining the old and blending it with the new. 'The Game' is characterised by a stripped-down sound (and image). The album also records the first use of synthesisers on a Queen album, albeit very light and almost incidental - who needs synthesizers when you have the tonal range of Brian May's guitar at your disposal? The leaner sounds captured on 'The Game' took the band to the peak of artistic and commercial success, with a string of massive hit singles and an album chart topper. The album was also a huge success in the USA. Queen were now a global superpower.

The Game (1980)

"Play the Game"

'Play the Game' is such an incredible song that I am always staggered at how often it gets overlooked. People rave about songs like 'I Want to Break Free,' but 'Play the Game' is infinitely superior. In fact, I think its sophistication possibly leads to it being overlooked. It's qualities are much less obvious than other Queen song. But qualities it has in abundance. It was also something of a departure for the band, being the first Queen song to feature a synthesizer. The controversy over that event possibly detracted from the song. As a song, 'Play the Game' is actually quintessential Queen. It is one of those signature songs that sum up the band's trademark style and key qualities. These quintessential Queen songs are characterised by having a distinctive melody line that suddenly takes a gravity defying leap, ascending in quick steps and/or soaring suddenly to a high note in such a way as to leave you breathless. Such songs are playful and theatrical in the way that they build until the moment comes when the melody line makes a huge vertiginous leap or swoop. In songs such as these, you either soar or plummet and hold on as best you can. And for all the thrill of the ride, the dynamics are incredibly subtle. It is a giddy experience. 'Play the Game' delivers a masterclass in the quintessential Queen song. It wasn't a big hit, peaking at UK #14. It was, perhaps, a little too subtle to make a bigger impact. But it is a great track for all that.

"Dragon Attack"

Although Queen's turn to disco/funk/soul is associated with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, Brian May had a bit of a stab at it. I just wish he'd have had more of a stab at it, because his approach - exemplified by this track - is chunkier, meatier, and harder and really could have made the entire experiment work big. I like to hear May's guitar on a Queen song. Hot Space could have been saved by more May guitar and less synths and horns. I always considered 'Dragon Attack' a hard rocking counterpart to 'Another One Bites the Dust.' It seems that the track evolved from a jam session, with May improvising around the basic loop of drums and bass. I could listen to this one on a loop for a very long time. I think it has a more enduring musical quality than 'Dust.'

"Another One Bites the Dust"

This is one track that even non-Queen fans could love - so long as they liked disco. It has a bass-line taken from Chic, but a hard edge coming from rock. It's appeal is direct and dirty. I have to admit that 'Dragon Attack' from The Game probably appealed to me more, being more intricate, layered, and complicated. But there is a virtue in directness here.

"Need Your loving tonight"

John Deacon really knew how to write a great pop tune. This song tends to get overlooked, not least because it is light and breezy on a side containing heavyweights (side 1 of The Game). It's classic, catchy, in-your-face pop. I always play it against Deacon's much better known 'I Want to Break Free.' The latter is considered a classic. I prefer this song, for its much greater vitality and spontaneity - guitar instead of a controlled synth sound.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love"

And so Elvis, via Queen-style rockabilly, inspires John Lennon to return to the studio to record for the final time. Or so the story goes. As a huge Elvis fan, I absolutely loved this one. So did the US, where it went to the top of the charts. I loved the video too. Pastiche doesn't get more real than this. By Queen's standards, the song is simple and straightforward, which is its virtue. It doesn't do to get complicated with rockabilly - the hard part is keeping it simple. That's not easy. On this kind of song, it is easy to sound fake. Queen contrived a perfect slice of rockabilly, down to Brian May's superb guitar solo. 'Ready Freddie?!'

"Rock It"

This was a big favourite of an old friend's from school. He had The Game before I did and was happy to describe the merits of each track. This was a rock track with synthesizers! That was a big deal for old Queen fans back in the day, which, incredibly, we already were at the tender age of fifteen in 1980. As it is, the synthesizers are pretty light on this, more of an added frill to a basic rock song. But we all got excited to hear the brave new world. 

"Don't Try Suicide"

An anti-suicide anthem, which Freddie Mercury would reprise with 'Keep Passing Open Windows' on 1984's 'The Works.' The song has a deceptively slinky, even seductive sound, in contradistinction to its subject matter. Sound-wise, it's a sultrier version of 'Body Language.' It's an odd one. It takes a pretty dismissive, even sarcastic, view of suicide as an act of self-importance, 'Nobody's worth it ... Nobody cares ... Nobody gives a damn.' As such, it reads better as the anthem of those forever declaring their intentions to quit Facebook.

What makes the song even more intriguing is the fact that it would have reached a wide non-Queen audience as the b-side of the massive US #1 hit 'Another One Bites the Dust.' Just imagine the millions who loved the bass-line and beat of "Another Bites the Dust" flipping the single over (or, better still, choosing it on the jukebox) and being confronted by this demented doo-wop pastiche, with lyrics that read like a seriously ill-advised attempt at humour in a mental health campaign. But that's Queen in a nutshell - raising expectations only to confound and confuse. If you want things simple, straightforward, and safe, then there are a million other pop bands for you out there. Queen were typically a self-conscious blend of the sublime and the ridiculous, with it often being impossible to separate the one from the other. The problems come when the ridiculous tends to far outweigh the sublime.

I think the song is meant to amuse more than advise. There are people who find some of the lines and the overall mood hilariously funny. The precise meaning of the 'nobody cares/gives a damn' line is open to interpretation. If true, it seems more to confirm the bleakness of suicidal thoughts rather than challenge them. Overall, it leaves us with the positive message, "you need help, look at yourself you need help, you need life." I'll simply quote someone else's view: "I'm someone who's attempted more than a few times in my life, and I never really came onto this song until after my most recent (and last--going on 9 months clean this month!) attempt. I love it, like... I stupidly love it. It's so "stiff-upper-lip" in its handling, which is generally how I like to handle talking about my attempts in a casual setting. When I hear it, I feel like I'm talking back to the person I used to be, talking to her in the only way that would make her actually listen--not pity, not softness, just literally saying: this is the dumbest thing you could do to yourself, stop." 

The weakest song on the album, and something of an oddity.

"Sail Away Sweet Sister"

Another sad Brian May ballad which, like 'All Dead, All Dead,' has a little medieval tinge. This has a bigger, more dramatic punch. It always sounded like a single release to me, having a more obviously commercial appeal and catchiness than the more austere 'Save Me.' The song has a great big hook, the kind that defined all the Queen classics, before playing out with beautifully sombre instrumentation. Classic.

"Coming Soon"

Written by drummer Roger Taylor, sung by Freddie Mercury, 'Coming Soon' is noteworthy for being the first song Queen recorded using synthesizers (June 1979). The keyboard in question was an Oberheim OBX. This is a great up-tempo song with a great beat. A very contemporary stab at New Wave meets rock'n'roll, it would have made a great single. The song originated in the sessions for 'Jazz,' indicating the extent to which Taylor was anticipating the 'Game' sounds already, as we can hear with 'Fun It' and 'More of that Jazz.' Taylor's contribution tends to get overlooked here, his reputation tends to be one of a straight ahead rock'n'roller. That was always false, as 'Drowse' on 'A Day at the Races' proved. Looking ahead, his 'Calling All Girls' on 1982's 'Hot Space' would also be overlooked, before he finally hit huge with 'Radio Ga Ga' and 'A Kind of Magic.' Boasting a great bassline from John Deacon and electric guitar from Brian May, the song is a maddeningly catchy slice of funk rock. According to Mack, who produced these sessions, Roger intended this side to be a B-side rather than an album track, whilst one of his other songs, "A Human Body," which was to become the B-side to "Play the Game," was to have been placed instead on "The Game." It was decided that since the album already had three melancholy tracks, the more up-tempo "Coming Soon" was deemed a better choice than "A Human Body." The band always took care over balance and coherence when it came to song selection, leading to many strong songs being left off albums (we'll see this very much in evidence on 1989's "The Miracle.") I think it was the right choice. For a song with a similar feel, if more downbeat, see "Our Lips are Sealed' by the Go-Go's, from a year later.

"Save Me"

I always thought this to be the best song on The Game (and there were many great contenders for that title). I see it in line of descent from 'White Queen.' The song has that great poignancy of the ballad section of 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' but with lyrics considerably more meaningful. I remember the single fondly, coming out as it did when I was having a decidedly miserable time at school. I felt like I was in need of being saved. The video, with its bleak imagery holding out the promise of liberation, struck a real chord. The song was released six months before the album came out, and received something of a big launch as I remember. It got good play on the radio and the video was played on TV. It only hit UK #11 for all that, which I felt to be most disappointing. Whilst The Game would take Queen in new directions musically, 'Save Me' in many ways was the culmination of the classic seventies Queen. I think it's a marvellous song, containing everything the band stood for in their seventies ballads like 'Spread Your Wings.'

A Human Body (1980 B-side to the "Play the Game" single)

Interesting Roger Taylor number, in the style of the songs that found a way onto his "Fun in Space" and "Strange Frontier" albums around the time. Taylor thought it would make a good album track. He was right, but the track was up against strong competition on 'The Game.' It's quite a solemn, earnest track, a tribute to the bold and the daring, all those who push the human spirit to the best of what human beings can be. The lyrics make specific reference to the expedition of captain Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole in 1912:

I remember Roger wrote three tracks for The Game, and the three caused polemics in the band: there was a song called "Coming Soon" which Roger, at first, thought that would be in the single, leaving its place in the album to another one of his, "A Human Body". But Brian and Freddie objected that if "A Human Body" was included the album would result too melodic, since they had already written three slow songs for it. Finally they convinced Roger, who felt specially proud of "A Human Body", and opted for "Coming Soon". This song is a good demonstration of the sound we got for this album and in general for the next ones until A Kind Of Magic.

- Reinhold Mack, 2001

"It's a Beautiful Day" (Original spontaneous idea, April 1980)

It's a beautiful song, or the beginnings of one, anyway. This is the origin of the song that would come to open the "Made In Heaven" album of 1995. The original take dates from April 1980, with just Freddie Mercury on vocals and piano. This is the take that the remaining members of Queen would finish off. The original track, featuring a short amount of studio dialogue at the start and end, and a false start from Freddie, is only available on 'The Game' 2011 double disc reissue. It is really a beautiful introduction, to be developed further in a complete song, as with 'A New Day is Born' to 'Breakthru.' It's hard to imagine it on 'The Game,' given the right unity and coherence of that album, with Queen's trademark creative frills and excesses curtailed.

"Sandbox"

This is an instrumental track, dominated by the piano, supported by heavy drum and bass, but without guitar. There are occasional vocals ad-libbed by Freddie. It comes over as a hard soul number. As a lover of Northern Soul, I would have loved the band to have worked further on this to deliver a finished track. I would also have loved the band to have pursued this sound on 'Hot Space.' The track was recorded in 1979 during sessions for 'The Game.' It is sometimes listed as an early version of 'Coming Soon' but that is hard to credit so different is the sound. With the addition of proper lyrics and vocals from Freddie, and the involvement of Brian May on guitar, this track could have been something special. As it is, it offers a tantalizing glimpse of directions and experimentations in dance/funk/disco that were not quite taken.

"Imagine"

This was done by Queen in tribute the night after John Lennon was murdered. You know you've arrived when Freddie Mercury covers one of your songs. Personally, if I never hear the song again - or have to suffer the lazy and the lame-brained who quote its inanities to save them the hard work of politics and philosophy - I'll be happy. Now if I could hear John Lennon sing 'My Fairy King' I would be truly impressed. I'll take George Michael singing 'Somebody to Love' every day of the week.