Customer Reviews
An Epic Last Stand
Not to belabor a point, but Freddie Mercury's death soon after this would make this a very poignant release. What blows me and other people away about this album is not just that it was Queen's last studio recording together (not counting the posthumous Made in Heaven), but how powerful the band sounds. To the end, he remained very much the life and soul of the band - present in every track, and delivering some of his most passionate vocals. When rock stars like Hendrix, Michael Hutchence, etc die, it's usually unexpected. Freddie knew his days were numbered, but kept going.
The album as a whole is refreshing. Innuendo saw the band rebounding from a so-so album (The Miracle) with a killer title track - Innuendo - which encapsulates the band's adventurous journeys, while invoking Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. Playful, experimental, dark, conventional - all the usual Queen elements are served up here in this epic and bittersweet album, which showcases tight musicianship and great production from track one to the end.
The album is also somewhat biographical. The Show Must Go On was truly a rock swansong if ever there was one. I'm Going Slightly Mad; These Are the Days of Our Lives; Don't Try So Hard are all great songs which seem to reflect Freddie's introspection. It's difficult listening to this when I think about the music videos - which reveal Freddie in a fragile state. But as much as the body was failing, the voice was very much inside and alive.
If anything's different about this from other Queen albums which veered from being pompous, romantic to rock - Innuendo comes across with a more melancholy and dark edge. Even throwaway tracks like Headlong and Hitman feel undercut by the reality that was happening beyond the album. A fitting farewell to a great singer and band.
Queen's equivalent to Abbey Road still a classic
The album would be the last Queen album released during Freddie Mercury's lifetime. Queen's sixteenth US release Innuendo was first released in February of 1991.
In between The Miracle and Innuendo, the band cancelled its contract with Capitol Records for the US and Canada and went with a new label created by Disney called Hollywood Records which initially had a distribution deal with Queen's first US label from 1973-83 Elektra (Hollywood's US and Canadian distribution would change to PolyGram then Universal now Universal/Vivendi). Also, the band wanted to bring back the classic Queen sounds with a modern touch.
At the time, the Innuendo album was being recorded, lead singer Freddie Mercury was very ill and could only record as much as he could and guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, bass player John Deacon and co-producer David Richards to create what was to become one of the greatest farewell albums EVER (as I found out in April of 1992 when I recorded the album onto tape then got on CD that Christmas).
The opening UK #1 and US rock radio Top 20 smash title cut to Innuendo is a great, innovative, multi-sectioned rocker to kick off Queen's farewell. The song brings back the feel of earlier epics without sounding like any of them. Yes guitarist Steve Howe appears on the track playing classical guitar in the middle. Roger said the track Innuendo was and I quote "Oscar Wilde meets Led Zeppelin", end quote. Great song. Also, its video was groundbreaking despite the band do not appear in it save for computer generated images designed like different artists (John (Picasso), Freddie (Da Vinci) and so forth). "I'm Going Slightly Mad" follows and is a great number. This song's video was a classic black and white clip of the band being silly complete with penguins and gorillas. The next track was the third British single but first single released from Innuendo here in the States called "Headlong". This rocker is an awesome song. When I first heard this track in January of 1991, I said Queen can still rock. The song reached #3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts and was Queen's biggest American radio hit since "I Want it All" two years earlier. Next is the pop-rocker "I Can't Live With You" which is an excellent song with alot of Brian guitar works. Next is "Don't Try So Hard" which is one of the band's best ballads, period, containing a stunning haunting falsetto-sounding vocal delivery from Freddie despite his delicate condition. "Ride the Wild Wind" follows and we rock out again in full speed with good lyrics and makes you want to drive 110 on the highway.
The second half of the album starts with "All God's People" which is the 90s Somebody to Love but not sounding like or re-recording Somebody to Love. The ballad "These Are the Days of Our Lives" follows and is a excellent ballad which sadly had the last video Queen made with Freddie before he died and his miming of the words "I still love you" was a fitting way to end his filmed performance career as his AIDS ailment was getting to him. We then go silly with "Delilah", a song about Freddie's cat and a nice up-number. Next is the Brian-laced rocker "The Hitman" which sounds like it would not have been out of place on any metal album. Great song! Next is "Bijou" which is a great showcase for an epic guitar solo by Brian with synthesizers and beautiful vocals from Freddie that appear in the middle singing about his cat. "The Show Must Go On" closes the album in the same way that The Golden Slumber Medley ended Abbey Road, majestically. The song expressed Freddie's need to continue making music and living life, even in the face of imminent death (he would die of AIDS a few months after the release of this album) and the music was stunning.
Innuendo when released gave Queen their first US Gold selling album (meaning it sold 500,000 copies in the US) since 1984's The Works and hit #31 at a time when hair metal schlock like Poison, larger-than-life crooners like Michael Bolton and divas like Mariah Carey infested the US music landscape.
Sadly, Innuendo also marked Queen's final album to be released when Freddie Mercury was alive as he would pass away in November of 1991 at the age of 45 of AIDS becoming rock and roll's first major AIDS casualty.
Innuendo is RECOMMENDED! .
A music legend bids farewell
Most people will agree that although Queens 1980s work produced some great songs, it was largely inferior to their 1970s output. Innuendo is a special album.
Fortunately Queen managed to wrap things up with Innuendo, an album with an almost magical quality about it. Almost everything that made me love mid 70s Queen is back again. The overblown theatrics, the heavy, flat out rockers, the slight ballads. Even the album cover wouldn't look out of place on a 70s Queen album.
Perhaps most poignantly though, this is an album made by a band who know that one of their members is dying. Some parts of the album are very obviously Freddie Mercury reminiscing on life. Don't Try So Hard, All God's People, Days Of Our Lives and The Show Must Go On are all songs that in all honestly I can't listen to lightly, as they are almost harrowingly beautiful. But Freddie was never without a sense of humour and I'm Going Slightly Mad is wonderfully goofy, something akin to Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon from A Night At The Opera. And no Queen album would be complete without the Brian May metal, here displayed by Hitman.
There is a small problem. Delilah is a cute little song, but I wouldn't want to listen to it more than once.
Overall an eclectic album with some great music on it. It will rock you (as Queen so famously promised) it will raise a smile (albeit a metaphorical one-probably) but above all it will, I hope, move you. It's not an album to play at any old time though. It's an involving album that has a lot of emotion behind it.
. You can see a complete list of all Queen discography, or go back to the Queen tabs
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