NEWS OF THE WORLD

"News Of The World" is the sixth studio album of Queen that was released in 1977. It was the second album to be produced solely by the band. The first was their previous studio album "A Day At The Races". As the last two studio albums, "A Night At The Opera" and "A Day At The Races", the title of the album followed the references to Marx Brothers. This time, its name wasn't taken from another film of the Marx Brothers, but was based on a radio program, made by them in 1934, that mocked with the news of the world. Queen decided to go a slightly different route from their albums of the mid of the 70's. As punk rock was growing in popularity, Queen went for a back to a basics rock album.

"News Of The World" has eleven tracks. The first track "We Will Rock You" written by Brian May was the song chosen to be released as the B side from their single "We Are The Champions". We are in presence of a great rock song that soon became one of the best known and most popular songs of Queen. The second track "We Are The Champions" written by Freddie Mercury was the song chosen to be the first single of the album and like "We Will Rock You" soon became one of their most famous and popular songs. It also remains among rock's most recognizable anthems, even in our days. It's interesting to note that "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions" were issued together and became a worldwide top ten single. These two songs represent, without any doubt, the two highlights on the album. The third track "Sheer Heart Attack" written by Roger Taylor is a very heavy punk rock song, probably the heaviest song that Queen ever wrote. It's interesting to note this song should have been the title track from their previous studio album, but it seems they didn't finish it in time. Sincerely, I don't like very much of this song and it represents, for me, the lowest musical point on the album. The fourth track "All Dead, All Dead" written by Brian May is a lovely sad ballad with a beautiful vocal melody and a nice and beautiful piano work. The song is magnificently sung by Brian May, and is, for me, one of his best vocal works in the band's career. After "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions", this song is, for me, one of the best musical moments on this album. The fifth track "Spread Your Wings" written by John Deacon was the song chosen to be released as the A side of the single "Spread Your Wings/Sheer Heart Attack". This is, in reality, a beautiful rock ballad with good guitar harmonies. With this song, John Deacon did a good and interesting work, making of this song, in my opinion, one of his better musical contributions to the band's musical career. The sixth track "Fight From The Inside" written by Roger Taylor is probably with his other composition "Sheer Heart Attack", the two weakest songs on the album. Despite have a good bass work by John Deacon, it's an uninspired song, very repetitive and predictable, and that never reaches the real musical climax. From a band like Queen we expected much more. The seventh track "Get Down, Make Love" written by Freddie Mercury is a very strange song. It's a kind of an avant-garde track with some electronic experimentation, weird guitar effects and strange vocal sounds. It isn't, in reality, a bad track but it's nothing brilliant, either. The eighth track "Sleeping On The Sidewalk" written by Brian May is clearly a bluesy song, mainly played on the acoustic guitar. Despite being a good song and proving that we are in presence of a very versatile band, we aren't definitely in presence of one of the best musical moments on the album. It's the weakest Brian May's song on the album. The ninth track "Who Needs You" written by John Deacon is a very sweet song with some Latino/Spanish musical influences. It's another nice and beautiful song with some good acoustic guitar work and interesting vocals, but, in reality, it doesn't bring anything new and interesting to the album. The tenth track "It's Late" written by Brian May is, in my opinion, after "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions" and with "All Dead, All Dead", one of the four best musical moments on the album. This is a real classic rock Queen's song with excellent melody and great individual musical performance by all band's members. The eleventh track "My Melancholy Blues" written by Freddie Mercury is, as its name says, a melancholic blues song. It's a slow and a peaceful song, with some nice piano work and some beautiful vocal performance. This is in reality a calm and nice way to close the album.

Conclusion: "News Of The World" is, in my humble opinion, an unbalanced album because it has some great songs, some good songs and some weak songs too. It hasn't also practically anything to do with progressive rock. I sincerely think there are two main reasons for that. In the first place there are more contributions in the songriting from Roger Taylor and John Deacon on the album that was usual, and we all know that they aren't the best composers of the group. In the second place, we are in presence, in my opinion, of a Freddie Mercury less inspired in the composition duties, than was usual. For me, "We Are The Champions" is the only great song signed by him, on the album. Fortunately, with Brian May is the opposite. He only signed a weak song "Sleeping On The Sidewalk". "News Of The World" is different from their albums released before. It's far from been one of their best works, but it still is a good album from Queen.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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