Album Reviews
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View "Back Chat" is a hot rock-funk tune, with guitar tracks as slick as an icy dance floor. An elastic beat puts some spring into a fine rocker, "Calling All Girls," while Freddie Mercury's Mick Jagger-like falsetto on "Cool Cat" takes the band as close to a street corner as it'll ever get. Shortly before Hot Space's release, Bowie removed his vocals from "Cool Cat" (Billy Squier was a last-minute substitute), but he remains front and center on "Under Pressure," a number on which Mercury manages to ape both Hall and Oates, while making Bowie sound positively soulful.
The rest of Hot Space is, at best, routinely competent and, at times, downright offensive. "Give me your body/Don't talk," sings Mercury in "Body Language," a piece of funk that isn't fun. For unsurpassed solipsism, however, he offers "Life Is Real (Song for Lennon)": "Torsos in my closet/Shadows from my past/Life is real." As Mercury slips into a breathless, Plastic Ono-sounding "real," one is grateful that soul is still something money can't buy.
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- Staying Power
- Dancer
- Back Chat
- Body Language
- Action This Day
- Put Out The Fire
- Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)
- Calling All Girls
- Los Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)
- Cool Cat
-
Under Pressure (track not available in Rhapsody)
- Body Language
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Your Turn
Review 1 of 3
scapp70 writes:
http://www0.epinions.com/content_197914365572
Jan 26, 2008 10:24:57
Review 2 of 3
lanceandnade writes:
Downright offensive? Queen? Are you kidding me? The only thing downright offensive about Hot Space is this critic's "review" of a great album.
Oct 27, 2007 22:31:19
Review 3 of 3
Amoniz writes:
Queen actually changed its style after "A day at the races". They were more Metal inspired before, as well as quite satanic Freddie's lyrics in songs like "March of the black queen", "Bohemian rhapsody", or even "White man".Remember Freddie's black fingerprints??
They were removed in 1977!!
Since then (1977), Queen tried many genres, which could be obviously noticed in their albums, until "The Miracle"...
"Hot Space" is one of those experiments, this time in Soul, Funk & Black!
When I first listened to it, I thought...
What?? Is this Michael Jackson's Thriller??!!
"Staying power", tells the whole plot!!
You might know about Freddie & Michael's couple of recordings , which later inspired Michael's thriller album,,,! Of course Hot Space was the prologue!
The 1st half may sound cool, with "Dancer", or "Back Chat" or even "Action This day", but they actually dissapointed me, especially "Body language", which truely sucks!
The 2nd half (B) starts with a couple of nice songs, such as Brian's "Put out the fire", which stands on the highest moments of the record, or Freddie's beautiful "Life is real" ballad.
But you'll eventually get dissapointed while hearing "Calling all girls", or "Las palabras de amor", & the Queen's worst song, I suppose:
"Cool cat" ! (Believe me, I'm a Queen fan, but yet I haven't listened to Cool cat completely!
Maybe that was why Bowie removed his voice!)
"Under preasure" of course is a great work, another one of Queen's multi-section songs; but doesn't have anything to do with the whole record!!
Fans like me have never liked this record, though a couple of cool songs,...
Anyway Queen made a brilliant album after this:
"The works", which I believe is one of their best.
Hot Space is probably a Freddie-John duet, which doesn't work really! (A kind of magic did, though!)
Oct 23, 2006 06:22:25
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