QUEEN - When It All Went So HORRIBLY Wrong! -

'Hot Space' is a much maligned album, but in this video I ask if it really deserves its repuration? And what were the band thinking, making what amounts to a disco album?

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#Queen #hotspace #classicalbum

[IntyMichael]

Hot Space is a great Album with funky music. Band that never change their formula are boring!

[stefanoenricosalvadorebesu]

Well, it's very idficult for anybody, even Queen, to equal albums like Queen I, Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at The Opera.

[ambientideas]

All I can say is that cocaine is a helluva drug, which strayed many an artist down the delusions of grandeur road, especially in the disco and post-disco era.

[shepchester]

They tried something different, and it mostly didn't work. Here's the the thing though, it still has Freddie's vocals, which will always make it worth a listen.

[andrewcarr]

I'm 50/50 on this one, the tracks where Brian actually plays guitar are pretty decent my favourite being Las Palabras De Amour, unfortunately the disco based tracks are terrible and sounded dated even back then.

[dhartnup]

Having listened to this on and off for about 30 years, I have to say the only real turkey on it is Body Language. The solo on Backchat is wonderful and it's a great single, Cool Cat is pretty cool. Dancer has an enjoyable groove, there's some lovely ballads on this album, a killer rocker and an all-time classic in Under Pressure. I don't rate this any lower than The Game or The Works. Nice review as always.

[moose]

Great review! As a lifelong Queen fan I can still recall playing Hot Space for the first time and thinking WTF. Apart from Put out the Fire, Las Palabras de Amor and the bolted-on sublime Under Pressure (which feels completely from a different time) it´s still pretty horrible stuff. Not sure Queen ever recovered to be honest. Had a few decent albums after this but absolutely nothing to compare to their magisterial 70´s output.

[mikemiller]

Change of direction? Yes. Bad? No. I like it better than some of their later material.

[pieterb]

There can be no argument about personal taste, but I totally disagree on you referring to the disco times of Saturday Night Fever, because Queen does not sound at all, or tries to sound like that kind of disco music. Michael Jackson had publicly stated that Hot Space inspired him for the Thriller album. A year later, in 1983 David Bowie came with let's dance, teaming up with Nile Rogers. So I do not agree that Hot Space was in the 'wrong' time. Every Queen album is different. What if Queen had not experimented and not tried different sounds, but something in the development from Jazz to The Game ot The Works? Then you would get critics saying there's not enough change. I am glad they made it, although for me Hot Space is their weakest studio album But it is stil a good album, far better and far diverse than most of the other artistst came with in the eighties.

[fabathome]

Been a Queen fan since 1973 and saw them 7 times with Fred, including the Hot Space tour - Backchat and Staying Power kicks serious butt live. I love the album and there are only four dance tracks on it. Freddie was totally immersed in the Munich disco scene by this time and I sure he would have left the band if he wasn't able to get the music that motivated him onto the album. I still play it regularly and I love the production, there is a really great bass floor to the sound. I will agree on one thing - Body Language is shit.

[barryscott]

All us hippies in the 70s had 2 albums mostly; News Of The World and Sheer Heart Attack

[garanceadrosehn]

At the time I remember an interview with Brian where he said they had grown super-successful in the US and the UK, but with this album they wanted to conquer the music scene in other countries, particularly in South America. And he claimed that this album did go over well in South America, but lost them their fan base in the US and UK.
I had been a huge fan of Queen starting with hearing the song _"Killer Queen"_ and then the full album of _"Sheer Heart Attack"._ They had a amazing run of excellent albums from that point up to _"The Game"._ I bought _"Hot Space"_ on the date of release, got it home and absolutely hated it. I still can't stand it. Maybe it's an OK album for some people, but not for me. Note that while I loved some albums like _"Saturday Night Fever", _ I hated at least 70% of all disco songs which dominated radio play lists at the time. IMO there were a few great songs in disco, and a whole lot of repetitive unimaginative crap.
I think _"Under Pressure"_ is a great song, but I listen to that off a greatest hits collection instead of this album. I never considered that song as part of this album, given that it was released as a single in 1981 and I owned that single for around six months before this album was released.

[Foul_Quince]

I never thought it was that bad, but in fairness there's only one or two queen albums I've got anytime for. I don' think you can fault the album for being irrelevant - part of Queen's charm was their steadfast refusal to be relevant, but also Thriller came out 5 months after it and proved that dance music was far from dead.

[richard]

Thanks Barrie, for another witty and profound review. I enjoyed it very much, and dare I say Hot Space is one of my favourite Queen albums.

[jayaybe]

6:25 I think it was more Freddie's "Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your rears." that was the problem at the time.

[leopold]

I remember the 11 year old me hearing Hot Space for the first time and thinking, "Oh, this sounds a bit weird for Queen." I also remember the thirtysomething me firing up the album for the first time in an age and thinking, "Yeah, this really isn't all that great, is it?" By this point, I'd already discovered the formula for what makes a good album. It kind of goes like this:

- If the first three songs are hit singles, the album is mostly "meh"
- The later in the album the hit singles are, the better it is likely to be
- If the biggest (or only) hit is the last song on the album, the whole thing is trash

And that last one pretty much sums up Hot Space.

All that said, though, I'd still argue that this is only a bad album for Queen. When compared with albums in general, it's actually somewhere in the realms of okay. Granted, some of the songs are truly dreadful in any context, but there's more than enough on here to make it listenable. If you're sticking it on and expecting Queen then yes, disappointment is imminent, but as something to just throw on regardless of who it is, it's not that bad.

As bad Queen albums go, this isn't the worst. That honour goes to the Flash soundtrack. Some soundtrack albums can be phenomenal pieces of work and even Queen's own A Kind Of Magic is, for my money at least, a bit of a masterpiece. But Flash is a lazy, throwaway slab of vinyl that never fails to disappoint. The film itself is B movie cheese, managing to be fun and watchable in that "so bad it's good" vein, but the album retains none of that.

As for The Works, I view that album in the same vein as The Cure's Japanese Whispers. Both are akin to albums designed for those who didn't buy the singles (more so for The Cure's album), and both came on the back of an album that was hampered by the band being in a really bad place, with their preceding album Pornography not exactly receiving critical acclaim at the time. Both The Works and Japanese Whispers got the bands back on track, too, despite playing it relatively safe.

[KRAZEEIZATION]

Well, you can’t really say it went wrong. By 1982 Queen had been on the top of the world for a decade with some great albums and singles under their belts. The funk side started with “Fight From The Inside” from NOTW, “Fun It” from Jazz, but “Another One Bites The Dust” was such a big hit in 1980 it must have been a sign for the to go in that direction. Freddie was hanging out in gay clubs and nightclubs soaking up the camp disco cuts. “Body Language” was based on “Searchin” by Change. An Italio Disco Band that used Luther Vandross on their 1980 album “The Glow of Love”.
I still like Hot Space for its crazy misadventures and shamelessness. Freddie’s vocals are incredible on it and I always loved the controversial aspect of it. Queen were capable of being a multifaceted beast albeit not 💯 percent convincing on Hot Space. Hot Space is like a harmless half nutty relative you invite to a Christmas party hoping they’ll behave but you know deep down they’ll be acting the weirdo after a few glasses of punch! Hot Space box set? I’m all over it if the cover lights up like the game Simon!!

[songs]

A real low point... I do remember Freddie saying (at Milton Keynes?) 'Hey, it's only a bloody record...' so maybe nothing to get too uptight about. All bands have to have a low water mark to show just how good their best stuff is I guess.

[hardlines]

Last good Queen album was Sheer Heart Attack. Could make a good cd length collection out of all the others.

[stigotmarbjelland]

It`s not my favorite Queen-album, but Cool Cat is one of my favorite Queen-songs!!!