NEWS OF THE WORLD

Queen have returned to form a number of times in their career, with albums such as "The Works" and "Innuendo" reassuring the fans that they still had it. The reason these return to forms were needed though was because they dramatically lost their form on several occasions. Up until the release of "News of the world", every Queen album had pleased or delighted me. Here however, the magic evaporated quicker than a beer spill in the Sahara desert.

In retrospect, the early warning signs were clear for all to see in the rather uninspired sleeve illustration. It is the music though which shows all too clearly that the band had suffered a sudden collective bout of creative block.

The first two tracks, while undoubtedly immensely popular, are prosaic to the extent that they could be by virtually any pop band. "We will rock you" is a basic crowd pleasing chant, great for getting the crowd going, but in musical terms they don't come any more basic. "We are the champions" is clearly intended to be an anthem for football crowds and the like, and is certainly played regularly at cup finals etc. Once again though, the song is utterly generic and could equally have been part of the catalogue of Slade, Sweet, etc.

Things fail to improve with "Sheer heart attack", a song which was not even considered good enough for inclusion on the previous album which actually bore that title. The anonymous nature of the tracks continues through a succession of 3-4 minute underdeveloped songs, with only "Spread your wings" rising slightly above the mediocrity. Even here though, the song is little more than a verse/chorus number, entirely suitable for a single release.

Finally we reach "It's late", the only track on the album with a modicum of inspiration. Had this song appeared on a previous album, it would have been among the slightly weaker tracks, but here it stand on its own as the only song which is truly worthy of the Queen name.

In all, a thoroughly disappointing album which lacks virtually all of the qualities which distinguished previous Queen albums from their peers.

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