NEWS OF THE WORLD

What, you can't? You've cut anything resembling genuine rock from your albums, surrendering your breadth of vision to a pastiche of half-baked musical ideas in an attempt to be all things to all listeners?

You're the champions? You were, once, only three years previously. Not now though. You're a sound-alike band capable only of the occasional palpitation, nothing like the sheer heart attack you inflicted on us in 1974. The staggering beauty you were capable of is now all dead, all dead. If only you would spread your wings once again - but no, you'd go on to foist even narrower visions on us in the future, remakes of old styles with a dash of patented QUEEN (TM) sound to make the public think you still 'had it'. Was there never a fight from the inside of the band? Did not even one of you consider leaving in the interests of musical integrity? Obviously not: your lineup remained stable until FREDDIE's untimely passing.

Inspiration gone, you've tried to draw from the blues well already sucked dry by the likes of LED ZEPPELIN, who did it much better than you. The latter half of this record is so tedious, I'd rather get down ... well. There's a poverty of ideas here that, if this had been your first album, could well have left you destitute, sleeping on the sidewalk.

Who needs this? Who needs you? Not me. Sadly, this is an album I can do without. It sounds as limp and uninspired now as it did in 1977. It's late in the album, and finally you provide me something worth listening to - at over six minutes, you finally choose a canvas large enough to allow a few of your ideas to emerge. Still, my melancholy blues over QUEEN's substandard output continues. The more you're tryin', the more you seem to let me down. I can't help it: such promise frittered away leaves me with a sadness I can't get over, and this review reflects my disappointment.

News of the world? Hardly. More like yesterday's fish and chip paper.

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