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A Day At The Races

Queen - A Day At The Races Audio CD

A fair review of the Queen "A Day At The Races" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Queen reviews here, or go back to the Queen tabs.

Band: Queen
Title: A Day At The Races
Rating:

Release Date: 1991-03-05
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Tie Your Mother Down 2: You Take My Breath Away 3: Long Away 4: Millionaire Waltz 5: You and I 6: Somebody to Love 7: White Man 8: Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy 9: Drowse 10: Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together) 11: Tie Your Mother Down [Remix][*] 12: Somebody to Love [Remix][*]

A Day at the Races - Queen
Queen stood alone in the 70s. Love them, just love them. Interesting, entertaining. A Day at the Races in no exception.

Lots of energy, great harmonies and Freddie Mercury's unmistakable vocals. Some of the songs are quirky but that's part of their appeal.

Highly recommend this album for anyone who loves 70s rock!.

Queen's Middle Period - a continuum.k
Each track has the compositional and technical consistency that only comes from artists working in a concentrated period of creativity, and as such has the weight and importance of other albums of their era such as The Beatles "White Album", Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and Pink Floyd's "The Wall". Although not conceptual in the least, had "A Night At The Opera" and "A Day At The Races" been written, recorded and released two-years earlier or later than 1975 and 1976 respectively, they would have no doubt been released as a double album. . These two albums also stand apart from all of Queen's earlier and later works and in many ways represent the "middle period" of the bands history. Certainly no Rock music collection is complete without both of these great works, and certainly no collection of Queen's discography is whole without these two albums centered together prominently. .

The Last Great Queen Album
Was there any greater arena rock group of the seventies?

"A Day At The Races" didn't quite measure up to the three predecessors that had put Queen on the map - Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, and the trump card A Night At The Opera, but it was still a good album from a band in its prime. Although we didn't know it at the time, this would be Queen's last great album. I replaced the vinyl with CD long ago but were I to settle for Amazon mp3 downloads, the first track I would demand would be Brian May's "Long Away", a wonderfully understated track that commands the prime position in this album's track sequencing.

Any Queen compilation will include Brian's raveup "Tie Your Mother Down" which was the most stunning show opener I've ever seen, as well as Freddie's gospel-affected single "Somebody To Love". After these three songs my personal favorite (but possibly not yours) would be Roger Taylor's "Drowse", a song that effectively reflects the feeling of its title. "Teo Torriate" would be a top tier Freddie ballad which toys with schmaltziness without ever succumbing to it. The remaining tracks vary in their resilience over the years; I could live without them.

If only Queen had recognized that maintaining loyalty to the fans they'd already harvested was the key, but unfortunately they took the same route as, say, Peter Frampton, thinking that the fickle fourteen year old girls would be their ticket to endurance in album sales. Artistically they were signed, sealed and delivered to the same dire dead end.

Before you purchase any later Queen albums, make sure you invest in the treasures that established their reputation first - Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, and A Night At The Opera. You will quickly understand why Queen became one of the top arena acts of the mid-seventies. These albums all are worthy of five stars, and it's very well possible that you will find them more appealing than the ramshackle assemblings of latter day 'greatest hits' that clutter the marketplace today.
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Queen Clone
It's too bad that they weren't, because leaving "Races" to follow the first five star classic Queen album makes it seem like a lesser vehicle. It was once reported that the late, great Freddie Mercury wanted "A Day At The Races" and A Night at the Opera to have been a double album. From the reverse color scheme to copping a Marx Brothers movie title, "A Day at The Races" came off sounding like a desperate attempt to copy the madly successful "A Night At The Opera. "

That is selling "Races" short. While there was no stunner ala "Bohemian Rhapsody" to be found here, there was the Top 20 single "Somebody To Love," which utilized the now trademark multi-tracked vocal style to a near Gospel effect. The album opener, "Tie Your Mother Down," played it kinky while still mimicking "Death on Two Legs" as a big concert rocker. As always, there are nods to camp and vaudeville ("Millionaire Waltz" and the Ooh La La of "Good Old Fashioned Lover boy"). However, there's an unusually high number of filler songs (the dreadful "White Man" and the maudlin "Teo Torriatte" being the most flagrant violations). I've also always wondered how much "A Day At The Races" might have improved had the band opted not to self-produce but brought Roy Thomas Baker back to the studio.

"A Day At The Races" is more easily viewed as the bridge between "A Night At The Opera" and the second five-star Queen album, News of the World. "Opera" pushed the band into superstar stratosphere, "News" (with "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions" as its marching order) saw Queen proclaiming themselves rulers of the domain. Being lodged in that position leaves "A Day At The Races" looking like a mid-level Queen album, when in fact it's every bit as good as Queen II, Jazz or The Works.

Queen Continues to Innovate
Even as Queen moved into the 1980s, while their popularity did slightly decline in the United States, it continued to be very high in Europe. Looking back at the 1970s, sometimes many forget how big the band Queen was. Their performance at Live Aid is widely considered one of the greatest of all-time and their subsequent "Magic" tour is considered one of the all-time greatest concert tours. If it weren't for Freddie Mercury's death in 1992, we might still be talking about Queen being as big a band as the Beatles. When Queen released their 1973 self-titled debut album, it showed all of the signs of greatness to come. This album would show how the band embraced a "theatrical" feel to their music as well as embrace a sound that would evolve into what would become Heavy Metal. The next three albums, "Queen II", "Sheer Heart Attack" , and "A Night at the Opera" continued down the road of the theatrical sound. It was that third album, "Sheer Heart Attack" that would not just become a commercial breakthrough album for Queen, but also become an album that would showcase Mercury's abilities as a Hall of Fame vocalist. "A Night at the Opera" would begin to expand the band's musical horizons (most notably, the legendary track "Bohemian Rhapsody" as well as some ragtime tunes. The fifth album "A Day at the Races", while not as strong as the third and fourth albums will continue to show the band expanding its musical horizon.

Queen is an example of the sum of the parts actually being greater than the whole. However, if you take each of the four members of Queen, they easily stand on their own as a top musician in their profession. Freddie Mercury is easily known to be the emotional and flamboyant lead vocalist of Queen who indeed has a legendary voice. Brian May is the legendary lead guitarist and probably the second most popular member of the band. Roger Taylor and John Deacon go extremely underrated. Listen to Taylor's thundering drumming in the studio or live and one can easily understand why he was asked to participate in an All Star Drum Jam (The S. O. S. All-Stars) at the Live Earth concert. As for John Deacon, he might be one of music's all-time underrated bass players. Many of his bass lines have proven to be the foundation for Queen's musical sound. In addition to being top musicians, all four members play integral roles in the songwriting.

Like its predecessor, Queen takes a title from a Marx Brothers movie. Here is a track by track synopsis of the original ten tracks:

"Tie Your Mother Down": This is a legendary Queen track. The highlight of this is some incredible guitar work by Brian May. While this song sounds better live, the studio recording is still outstanding. Roger Taylor's crashing drums blend in perfectly. I like the theatrical-like beginning as it sets the tone for the album.

"You Take My Breath Away": The song opens with a cappella-like vocals all done by Mercury. This is a slower song done on the piano. Not my favorite song, but it does show some thinking out of the box by the band.

"Long Away": May never disappoints when he is on vocals and once again this track highlights he could have easily been a full-time lead vocalist. This song doesn't have a theatrical feel, but more of a classic Rock feel to it.

"The Millionaire Waltz": This song opens with a "Vaudeville/Ragtime" feel similar to some of the tracks heard on "A Night at the Opera". Nice job by Queen combining the theatrical-like harmonies with the Ragtime feel. The song has a segue into a Hard Rock part and then back to the ragtime part. Eventually both parts (ragtime and Rock) will nearly blend by the end. Overall this is an innovative track.

"You and I": This was John Deacon's contribution. The piano playing almost has an Elton John feel to it. Theatrical-like harmonies are also prevalent throughout this track. Terrific guitar bridge by May takes place midway through the track.

"Somebody to Love": This is the other well-known track on this album. This is classical Rock-Opera sounding Queen. The song is highlighted by outstanding Mercury vocals, terrific background harmonies by May and Taylor, and a hall of fame guitar bridge by May 2+ minutes into the track.

"White Man": Sometimes I don't give Queen enough credit for their lyrics - and this track shows Queen at their best. On this track Queen talks about the suffering of the Native Americans at the hands of the Europeans. Queen integrates their theatrical sound on this track that adds more realism to the track.

"Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy": This is another "Vaudeville/Ragtime" track. Deacon's bass work is underrated on this track as it helps contribute to the tempo.

"Drowse": Like May, Roger Taylor could also be a full-time lead vocalist. Taylor has a knack for hitting the higher octaves than Mercury. He also brings a heavy metal-like voice to his vocals. This song is another winner by Taylor.

"Teo Torriate (Let's Us Cling Together)": Possibly one of the most underrated Queen tracks out there. This starts out with as a slow, somber piano ballad. It then has a segue into a sound that easily could be a theatrical finale. Perhaps the most innovative part of the song are two verses sung in Japanese. This is a perfect way to end the album.
This album did require a few listens by me in order to get into it. While I did put this a notch below "A Night at the Opera", I still thought this was a very good and innovative album. This is an album that core Queen fans will easily like, but after a few listens, the casual fan will appreciate this. Highly recommended.

You can see a complete list of all Queen discography, or go back to the Queen tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.