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Queen - The Game CD (album) cover

THE GAME

Queen

 

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2.86 | 491 ratings

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TCat
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
3 stars Queen is one of the bands that became a slave to the corporate machine as they approach commercialism. The interesting thing is how they lost their loyal fan base more and more as got closer to the pop sound. It's also interesting how the most memorable music came from the band when they were at their most inventive and their most dynamic. This album still has some greatness to it, but it would be the last one that would hang on to a part of that. This album is also missing a lot of the variety, experimentation and progressiveness that made the band great. I still enjoy this one, although less than the previous albums. Everything before this had amazing amounts of quality music with a lot of variety, talent, dynamics, inventiveness and so on. This album retains some high points, but it is very close to the fine line of pop and cookie cutter music that it just isn't as highly regarded by me as their previous albums. For example, "News of the World" was amazing for it's variety and the way each song was of the highest quality even in it's variety. "Jazz" was inventive and risky and showed the band taking on new frontiers for music along with retaining that great variety. "Sheer Heart Attack" was rough on the edges but still a masterpiece that I consider as great as "Night at the Opera". "The Game" however, is the end of the greatness that came before. Variety and experimentation starts to give way to commercialism and sameness.

Of course there are the great tracks "Dragon Attack", "Another One Bites the Dust", "Crazy Little Thing" (yes I'm a rockabilly fan and these guys do it right), and "Sail Away Sweet Sister". But there are also many that are annoying and too pop centered like the awful "Rock it" and "Don't Try Suicide" which attempt to achieve the status of rock/pop anthems, but fall flat on their faces. Then there is the pure pop drivel of "Play the Game", "Need Your Loving Tonight" and "Save Me" which utilize Freddy's amazing voice but suffer in the originality department.

This album was not their worst or representative of the band at it's rock bottom, that was coming soon though, and it would be impossible for Queen to bounce back on future albums. But at least they were great enough to be remembered for their best albums. This should be a lesson to the corporate engine to keep it's cogs out of artistry, but some people never learn. Anyway, this album gets 3 stars and after this, everything falls apart.

TCat | 3/5 |

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