INNUENDO

Queen's last album during Freddie's life is often considered one of their best, and while it is highly enjoyable, they definitely have better than this. For prog rock lovers, the opening track "Innuendo" is very proggy, and my favorite of the album. Great melody, guitars and vocals, and the middle section is really great. Kind of a return to the Bohemian Rhapsody/Prophet's Song style of songwriting. For their first seven albums, Queen didn't use synthesizers, because they wanted to use guitars, piano, bass, drums and vocals to make the noises they wanted. Starting with "The Game", they started on the synths, and one of my problems with this album is that it's too synth heavy, and when the synths are used, they are usually used to fill out the sound of the songs, and are unnecessary here mostly.

As far as the songs go, they're mostly good. "Bijou" is a gorgeous piece penned by Freddie Mercury and guitarist Brian May, that just has a wonderful guitar melody, written as an inside out song, with guitars on the whole song, and a sung middle eight. "Don't Try So Hard" is another gem here with a nice melody and very strong vocals, especially when going up high. Other good tracks here include "The Show Must Go On", "All God's People", "The Hitman" and a few others. The worst track here is the horribly cheesy "Delilah", but if you skip it, the rest of the album's pretty solid. I'd give it around a "B-".