The tie between Tom Waits and Queen for Odyssey supremacy was short lived, as I roll yet another Queen album (my eighth).
Disc 202 is...A Day At The Races
Artist: Queen
Year of Release: 1976
What’s Up With The Cover?: I love this cover - the Queen Coat of Arms (not to be confused with the Queen's Coat of Arms). I've owned this album for years but never really taken a good look at the cover. I see it has a crab on it, as well as two pretty faeries, one of whom is suffering a wardrobe malfunction.
How I Came To Know It: Just another Queen album I've drilled through over the last decade or more, once I got more seriously into them. I've known the band since I was ten, but this album came out when I was six, so it was a discovery of adulthood for me.
How It Stacks Up: I have fourteen Queen albums. Looking back at some I've previously reviewed, I see I've often assigned a range of rankings to each. The truth is each Queen album is different, and I like them all at different times. For a while, I'd have said "A Day At The Races" was top 3, but I think on this listen it landed fifth or sixth.
Rating: 4 stars but the thinnest of lines from 5.
After seven previous Queen reviews, I'm not sure what more I have to say about the band in general. To sum up - four of the greatest musicians (and music writers) in rock history, all in the same band.
"A Day At The Races" is an apt title for this record, as it has a generally upbeat, carefree feel to it. Piano influences seem heavier on this record than on some Queen albums, with some real show tune type stuff from Freddie Mercury, like "You Take My Breath Away", "The Millionaire Waltz" and the now permanently famous "Somebody to Love".
I admire these songs but the first two aren't standouts for me. "Somebody To Love" makes up for those, however. It is a song that sounds equally at home on Broadway or at Live at Wembley, while never losing its emotional content. There is a reason this song has survived in pop consciousness for thirty-four years.
That said, I generally prefer the contributions from the other band members on this record. Each of them has toned down their rock edge, without losing their sound.
This record also features one of my all-time favourite Queen songs (likely second only to "It's Late" - that being "Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)", a song with an entire stanza sung in Japanese. The English part is also great, and tells a touching story of two people separated (by distance or death, I'm not sure which) but who's love endures regardless:
"Let us cling together as the years go by
Oh my love, my love
In the the quiet of the night
Let our candle always burn
Let us never lose the lessons we have learned."
This song evokes so many memories. In literature I'm always reminded of one of my favourite poems, Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" which goes:
"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
"Teo Torriatte" evokes the same emotions, but without all the depressing moaning. Also, May has better hair than Arnold ever did.
Speaking of Brian May, this week I learned something I didn't know about him; he has a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Apparently he was studying for his Masters years ago when the band broke big. He is a man of many talents, and this album demonstrates that range within his music, from the powerful indictment of new world colonization in "White Man" through the celestial grooves of "Long Away" to the five star love anthem of "Teo Torriatte."
And on that note (and because it's late) I'll wrap up. "A Day At The Races" has the amazing elements of any Queen album - the musicianship, the arrangements, Freddie's voice at the height of its power, and songs that become more and more interesting with each listen.
But beyond all these things, the record's greatest charm is how it takes all these elements and makes a surprisingly upbeat record. Listening to it makes me feel good, and it makes me think at the same time, and that is a good combination.
Best tracks:Long Away, You and I, Somebody to Love, White Man, Teo Torriatte
Disc 202 is...A Day At The Races
Artist: QueenYear of Release: 1976
What’s Up With The Cover?: I love this cover - the Queen Coat of Arms (not to be confused with the Queen's Coat of Arms). I've owned this album for years but never really taken a good look at the cover. I see it has a crab on it, as well as two pretty faeries, one of whom is suffering a wardrobe malfunction.
How I Came To Know It: Just another Queen album I've drilled through over the last decade or more, once I got more seriously into them. I've known the band since I was ten, but this album came out when I was six, so it was a discovery of adulthood for me.
How It Stacks Up: I have fourteen Queen albums. Looking back at some I've previously reviewed, I see I've often assigned a range of rankings to each. The truth is each Queen album is different, and I like them all at different times. For a while, I'd have said "A Day At The Races" was top 3, but I think on this listen it landed fifth or sixth.
Rating: 4 stars but the thinnest of lines from 5.
After seven previous Queen reviews, I'm not sure what more I have to say about the band in general. To sum up - four of the greatest musicians (and music writers) in rock history, all in the same band.
"A Day At The Races" is an apt title for this record, as it has a generally upbeat, carefree feel to it. Piano influences seem heavier on this record than on some Queen albums, with some real show tune type stuff from Freddie Mercury, like "You Take My Breath Away", "The Millionaire Waltz" and the now permanently famous "Somebody to Love".
I admire these songs but the first two aren't standouts for me. "Somebody To Love" makes up for those, however. It is a song that sounds equally at home on Broadway or at Live at Wembley, while never losing its emotional content. There is a reason this song has survived in pop consciousness for thirty-four years.
That said, I generally prefer the contributions from the other band members on this record. Each of them has toned down their rock edge, without losing their sound.
This record also features one of my all-time favourite Queen songs (likely second only to "It's Late" - that being "Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)", a song with an entire stanza sung in Japanese. The English part is also great, and tells a touching story of two people separated (by distance or death, I'm not sure which) but who's love endures regardless:
"Let us cling together as the years go by
Oh my love, my love
In the the quiet of the night
Let our candle always burn
Let us never lose the lessons we have learned."
This song evokes so many memories. In literature I'm always reminded of one of my favourite poems, Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" which goes:
"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
"Teo Torriatte" evokes the same emotions, but without all the depressing moaning. Also, May has better hair than Arnold ever did.
Speaking of Brian May, this week I learned something I didn't know about him; he has a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Apparently he was studying for his Masters years ago when the band broke big. He is a man of many talents, and this album demonstrates that range within his music, from the powerful indictment of new world colonization in "White Man" through the celestial grooves of "Long Away" to the five star love anthem of "Teo Torriatte."
And on that note (and because it's late) I'll wrap up. "A Day At The Races" has the amazing elements of any Queen album - the musicianship, the arrangements, Freddie's voice at the height of its power, and songs that become more and more interesting with each listen.
But beyond all these things, the record's greatest charm is how it takes all these elements and makes a surprisingly upbeat record. Listening to it makes me feel good, and it makes me think at the same time, and that is a good combination.
Best tracks:Long Away, You and I, Somebody to Love, White Man, Teo Torriatte
1 comment:
"You Take My Breath Away" is one of my favourite Queen songs - it's lovely on headphones...such great piano.
Nice snippet of "Dover Beach" - great poem.
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