Audio CD review:
Queen - The Miracle

Queen - The Miracle

Band: Queen Title: The Miracle Rating: Release Date: 22 October, 1991 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Party 2: Khashoggi's Ship 3: The Miracle 4: I Want It All 5: The Invisible Man 6: Breakthru 7: Rain Must Fall 8: Scandal 9: My Baby Does Me 10: Was It All Worth It 11: Hang On In There 12: Chinese Torture 13: The Invisible Man (12in Version) 14: Scandal (12in Mix)

Customer Reviews Queen's best album since The Game The Miracle saw Queen going back slowly to the sound that made them famous in the 1970s. Queen's fourteenth album (not counting compilations) The Miracle was released in May of 1989 in the US. Guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, bass player John Deacon and lead singer Freddie Mercury took some time off after The Magic Tour of 1986 to work on other projects but went in the studio in 1988 to record Queen's strongest album since 1980's The Game. Also, the band switched co-producers to David Richards for a change. Lastly, the band would co-write all of the songs TOGETHER as a UNIT. Would this change be good or bad, read on. We begin The Miracle album with "Party" and "Khashoggi's Ship", two good partying songs. Party is a short but good opening track which gets the mood of the album off on the right foot. We follow with the rocker Khashoggi's Ship which is a killer rocker. Each time I hear the fast section at the end, I want to speed down the highway doing 90, it rocks! The Miracle's title cut is next and is a beautiful number. This number is a great uplifting song when things look down (its video was priceless as it depicted four young kids playing the Queen members and executing the movements of the four Queen-men well). Next is the rocker "I Want It All" which is classic stadium rock Queen at its best. Sad that Queen never got the chance to play this live despite the fact, the band made a performance clip for the track. This track gave Queen their first American rock radio hit since Under Pressure in 1981 hitting #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock charts and the song just rocks. The version on the Hollywood Records version of the album is a different mix to the one on the EMI and Capitol versions of the album. Next up is the great, up number "The Invisible Man" which is one of my favorites on the album for its great Deacon bass line and had a great video to go with it. The second half of the album starts with "Breakthru" and is my absolute favourite on the album and one of Queen's best singles. It sounds like it is another Bohemian Rhapsody before we go, BANG, into a rocker which rocks (its video was classic as it depicted the band playing on a moving freight train. Next is the poppish but great "Rain Must Fall". The lyrics of the song show that for all the good in life, 'into every life a little rain must fall' sometime. "Scandal" is next and is one of the best rockers Queen ever did and why this song gets ignore I will not ever know. The poppish "My Baby Does Me" follows and is a great calm song before the album's final ending storm which is "Was It All Worth It". The track is the greatest ending to a Queen album ever. This is a hard rock anthem with great lyrics reflecting on Queen's history, whether the risks paid off and if they lived their lives in the best way possible. The original CD version had three bonus tracks, the rocker "Hang On in There" (which is I Want it All's flip side), Brian's guitar solo called "Chinese Torture" and a 12" mix of The Invisible Man. The Miracle originally peaked at #24 in the US and did modest and deserved Gold status but Queen's relationship with Capitol/EMI in the US and Canada was so bad that it didn't get certified. In 1991, Hollywood Records for the US and Canada re-issued The Miracle with the aforementioned bonus tracks, a different mix of I Want it All and a 12" mix of Scandal. The Miracle was to me Queen's best album since The Game and was the stepping stone towards Queen's equivalent to The Beatles' Abbey Road. Recommended! . The Queen is Alive! There's genuinely an impressive amount of good music on just this one album. This is a great album, especially considering it's not a greatest hits comp. It doesn't have "We Will Rock YOu," but you can hear that plenty just by randomly tuning into classic rock radio stations, don't need to own it. This disc is packed with less-famous gems: Khashoggi's Ship, Miracle, I WAnt it All [very stirring part in the middle], Invisible Man, Breakthru, Was It All Worth It. Freddy's vocals were awesome, it sucks he died early of AIDS. Note: a number of the foregoing songs might not grab you on the first listen, but they definitely grow on you. So give this album a chance with some active listening when you're not busy fussing with other stuff. It's worth it. . We had a good night jamming away. It was their first album to dispense with individual songwriting credits. This album by Queen was released in 1989. All four group members are credited on all the songs, whether they actually had a hand in the writing or not. Queen's popularity in the US was way down at this point. The only single from the album to make the American pop charts was "I Want It All", which peaked at a meager #50 on the Hot 100. However, Queen remained tremendously popular in the rest of the world. Five songs from this album were hits in the UK. "I Want It All" reached #3, "Breakthru" reached #7, "The Invisible Man" peaked at #12, "Scandal" reached #25 and "The Miracle" topped out at #21. Overall, this is a very good album, although the lack of recognizable US hits may make it less popular with American listeners. . You can see a complete list of all Queen discography, or go back to the Queen tabs