Album Reviews
Basically, The Miracle is a showcase for Freddie Mercury and his love of sweeping, quasi-operatic vocals. And indeed, Mercury especially on the title track has never sounded better. One of his strengths is his ability to take even the schlockiest material and make it his own, and that gift comes in handy on The Miracle.
Brian May is still in fighting trim, too when you can hear him. May's role on The Miracle is, for the most part, limited to a quick, typically brilliant solo here and there. As a result, the album lacks the sense of dynamics that marked most of Queen's early work. Only on a few tracks ("Khashoggi's Ship" and "Was It All Worth It") does May really let it rip, and when he does, it's like the old Queen peeping out for just a moment and then turning tail.
If you're a fan who's been hankering for years to hear Queen get back to the bombast of its heyday, replace your old copy of A Night at the Opera or News of the World instead. But don't give up hope. At least The Miracle offers little snippets of Queen's former majesty.
(Posted: Sep 7, 1989)
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- Party
- Khashoggi's Ship
- The Miracle
- I Want It All
- The Invisible Man
- Breakthru
- Rain Must Fall
- Scandal
- My Baby Does Me
- Was It All Worth It
- Hang On In There
- Chinese Torture
- The In Visible Man (12" version)
- Scandal (12" mix)
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Your Turn
Review 1 of 2
scapp70 writes:
see my review here -
http://www0.epinions.com/content_342198881924
Jan 26, 2008 10:30:56
Review 2 of 2
Amoniz writes:
During late 80's there were a lot of rumors about Queen splitting.(as they were all involved with their solo projects.)
The Miracle (My 1st Queen record ever!), proved that Queen was back, even much powerful than before!
As you can see in the cover sleeve, the 4 members pasted together as a mythus monster,
the songs are all credited to Queen & also the title says it all:Getting rid of the 80's Queen(Which I DON'T consider that bad!)
The album open with a quite dissapointing song,
"Party", But goes thruough a cool rock track,
actually one of Freddie's works, "Khashoggi's ship". "The miracle" reminds us of Freddie' earlier compositions like Somebody to love or... & I think this one's one of Queen's late
Masterpieces.Again great harmonies & great vocals done by Freddie.I think the Miracle in this song can be considered as many things,& one of them is:"Freddie waiting for a miracle to save his life!"
"I want it all"(my favourite Queen song.) proves Queen's power in making proggressive or hard rock songs. Nice guitar riffs from Brian & a brand new double-bass-drum of Roger's!
I think Freddie's voice in his late albums is
way better than early 80's or 70's.You know more distorted & more Metal!
This song deals with a western movie story just like Another one bites the dust.
"The invisible man", a nice Roger composition...well has nice guitar works, but I think there's nothing special in it! The album was going to be called "The invisible man" as Brian has mentioned, but for an unknown reason, they changed it.
This next one is a mix of two Freddie & Roger songs: "A new life is born" & "Breakthru".
And I think is a great song, though it would be better if they'd recorded the drum & bass part much Rock, but anyway it's a great song!
(We can actually notice the Breakthru in this & the next Queen albums!)
"Rain must fall", another Roger's, is a cool composition, but reminds me of Hot Space's cool
cat, which I hate it!!
I don't know about you, but "Scandal" is one of my favourites, because it's "Melodically"
a Heavy metal song, & also lyrically which's
about the UK press that used to bother Brian's
life, as he'd been divorced.
Freddie sure has a great Metal voice in here!
I think John Deacon plays an important role here , since his bass-line is extremely good!
You can find one of those "Red Specialic" solos in here too! Fantastic!
Another Freddie-Deacon composition, which's somhow relaxing, after its prior song! I thimk Queen's the only band that has made songs in ALL musical genres! Take this one for instance:
An Rn'B track!And that's why Queen NEVER gets old!
"Was it all worth it?", well I shall say Bohemian rhapsody of Miracle. (Queen has at least one of these multi-section songs in every album!) Another one of Freddie's brilliant compositions. Great string sessions, great guitar riffs, Absolute Rock (or maybe Sleaze metal!) Cadences & etc, make this song one of Queen's best in years!!
The lyrics are pretty similar to The Show Must Go On's, when they talk about their career memories, the tours...But it ends much hopefully than Show must go on, when Freddie says: "Yes, it was a worthwhile experience!"
"Hang on in there", I believe, should have been replaced with "Rain must fall"! Since it's a cool rock track.(Actually I want it all's single B-side.)
"Chinese Torture" it's a weird collaboration of Brian & Roger, though it's nice I think!
(Reminds me of "A day at the races" far-east atmosphere!)
As a result, The Miracle is a "Roger Taylor" moody album, I mean if you'd listened to Roger's solo records, you'll realise the similarity! And I shall add that it's one of(if not the best) Queen's best albums ever made! It made me love Queen, now you give it a try!
Oct 13, 2006 03:37:50
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