PAIN IS SO CLOSE TO PLEASURE / DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD

Queen's 'Pain Is So Close to Pleasure / Don't Lose Your Head' is fourth single taken off 'A Kind Of Magic' album (if I'm not much mistaken). It was an attempt to reach certain heights of UK chart in 1986, but it failed, because it certainly did not repeated the success of 'A Kind Of Magic', 'One Vision', 'Friends Will Be Friends' and 'Who Wants To Live Forever' from the same album. And there's a good reason why - the song is simply weak - actually it's on of the weakest of complete Queen's catalogue, and every fan knows they had their bad moments. In my review of 'A Kind Of Magic' album I said 'avoid it at all costs'. It's pathetic little pop number, nut funny enough to be considered silly, and very shallow at that, not only for the high quality standard of QUEEN songs, but also for any decent pop-rock artist of the 80's with some traces of quality.

On the other hand, the pick for the B side is much better. These things happen sometimes - especially if you're fan of some less conventional, arty music, such is progressive rock, because A side represents a pop number (a financial injection for the band), and B side is more of the quality side, or at least curiosity. Of course, this is not a general rule, but it's applicable often enough, epically to artist with such a wide scope of musical leanings. A side here is not weak because it's pop, it's weak because it's weak, as I just stated. B- side contains one of the songs from 'Highlander', and that's 'Don't Lose Your Head', which is perhaps the weakest of all included in the motion picture, but still a light year above the first one. It's a tune with synth sequence used for a drive, not too melodic, but a good example of Freddie's vocal competency in the age when the band was swamped with synth sounds. And it's actually quite decent in the context of other 'Highlander' songs from the album, majority of them being very heavy, representing somewhat of a slick 80's glam metal production. This one suits fine there, less so on this single. It helps preventing the sinking of the whole unit to the lowest rating.