509. Queen / Hot Space. 1982. 3/5

Even though I wasn’t old enough or interested enough in the history and the rolling development of bands through the 1970’s and the early 1980’s, it is pretty easy to trace just how the burgeoning career of Queen moved throughout that period. Their popularity grew with each album, and singles such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” gained plenty of airplay. But it was the single from their album “The Game”, John Deacon’s “Another One Bites the Dust” that outsold them all, and is seen as the reason that the band went down the path that eventually led to “Hot Space”. The popularity of that single, especially in dance clubs and as a dance track, directed much of the writing for the band’s next album after “The Game” and “Flash Gordon”. In many ways, the album just heads in the same direction music around the world was going at that time. The emergence of both disco and new wave following the rise and fall of the punk movement dictated a popularity phase that you can only imagine band front man Freddie Mercury found very much to his liking, and John Deacon’s preference for music that was not as heavy as that preferred by the other members of the band, drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May, gave that momentum towards that sound.
In recent years, it has also been postulated that Freddie’s ‘personal manager’ Paul Prenter had been encouraging Freddie every step of the way to go down this path, which helped to convince the singer to move in that direction. Roger Taylor is hilariously quoted as saying “Prenter wanted our music to sound like you'd just walked in a gay bar...and I didn't".
The use and experimentation with new devices though helped to bring that sound to the album as well. There was a greater emphasis on synthesizers, as well using a drum machine for the first time. The style of music is a definite change in direction from the general rock and hard rock that had been their staple, now introducing and concentrating on the disco and dance new wave genre that was so prevalent in that age. I mean, for goodness sake, even Kiss dabbled in it with their “Dynasty” album. So they weren’t on their own in mixing up their sound for this album, but it was at the risk of alienating everything they had done up until this point of their careers.

OK, so let’s get this out of the way from the get go. This is a Queen album, so if you like Queen, then you have a reasonable idea as to what you are walking into. Now, think about Queen, but heading more towards a disco angle than a rock angle. Got it? Well now you have a better idea of what awaits you. It’s quite the eclectic mix of tracks,
“Staying Power” and “Dancer” start the album off with plenty of energy, but it takes some getting used to. “Staying Power” has synth bass played by Freddie rather than John’s bass (he actually plays guitar on the track) and with horns dominating the track with the drum machine. On “Dancer” the bassline is actually just Brian on synth, so it’s quite a change from that rock base the band had utilised on previous albums. “Back Chat” is one of John’s tracks and he plays bass rhythm and synth on it. It has a very R&B sound to it, utilising that groove to manoeuvre its way through the track, before Brian’s solo provides the best part of the song, almost as a retaliation to it. “Body Language” cuts even further back, helmed by a bass synth and Freddie’s vocals and little else. This was released as the second single from the album, and I literally have no idea how it managed to have the reasonable sales that it did... oh wait... there are some gay overtones in the lyrics aren’t there... and the video for it was quite... provocative... so I guess that’s your answer. All of these songs have a sound that to me reminds me of the dancing troupe “Hot Gossip” who appeared on the various Kenny Everett TV shows of the time. Hot Gossip could only have improved them, I feel. “Action this Day” closes out the first side of the album and is very tied to the era, with the drum machine and the saxophone, drawing in those new wave elements.
The second side starts off with Brian’s “Put Out the Fire”, the one song on the album that resembles the band’s earlier work. Great vocals, great beat, great guitar. Yep, still like this song. This is followed by “Life is Real (Song For Lennon)”, written by Freddie and sounds remarkably like a John Lennon song, even the vocal in places is sung to resemble him. A nice touch. “Calling All Girls” is a straight forward rock track that was the fourth single, while “Las Palabris De Amour (The Words of Love)” is a Queen rock ballad that was also released as a single and was regarded much more favourably than the first single. “Cool Cat” has all instruments almost completely performed by John. This is a lounge act song, I can imagine the stage and the piano as the singe on stage croons along. It is about as far away from Queen as I could imagine.
The album concludes with the Queen and David Bowie song “Under Pressure”, a song that doesn’t fit in with the style of this album at all. In fact, it was recorded well before the writing for this album really took place, and it is noticeable. Was it a cynical inclusion here in order to increase the sales of the album, with a song that had already proven popular and would draw people in – or was it always going to be a part of this collection? I don’t know the answer, but it feels more like the first answer than the second.

This review was always going to test me. Just about every band that you love has that one skeleton hiding in the closet, the closet you rarely frequent, and when you do it is with a deal of trepidation. And for me “Hot Space” was definitely that moment in the Queen discography. Because when I first heard the album, I wasn’t even sure it was a Queen album. I’m pretty sure my first reaction to it was that it had to be a joke, a bunch of demos collated together of tracks the band had dabbled with and then rejected for better material. But no, it was the real deal, and it really was released. And even when I went through and eventually bought all of the albums on CD so I had copies of my own, I did think twice or three times as to whether I would buy “Hot Space”, because I just couldn’t imagine when I was ever going to go to my shelves and take it off to put on and listen to it.
That being said, I’ve never enjoyed this album more than I have over the last four weeks. And that would no doubt come from the fact that I listened to it at least once or twice every day at work during that period, the whole album through. In the past when I have listened to it, whether it was at home or at a friends house, it would be on in the background, and I mostly would not have been in the mood for its quirky tones, and probably thinking I should be listening to just about any other Queen album instead. But for this month that has not been the case. I have had it going around on my playlist with up to six other albums, such that it becomes a part of the mix. And it certainly is plain when it comes on because its style is so very different from the other albums I have been listening to at during this time – check out the recent podcast episodes to see what those albums were, and you'll see what I mean.
So I can honestly say that I appreciate “Hot Space” a lot more now than I did up until a month ago. Which does prove why I do this podcast and that for some albums it has the desired effect. Does that mean it will come back off the shelf again any time soon? Well... perhaps for its 50th anniversary...