Queen: The Complete Works (16 page)

Previous plans to release live albums had been abandoned: both the November 1974 shows at The Rainbow in London were filmed and recorded, and while a thirty-minute edited version was shown as an opener for Led Zeppelin’s
The Song Remains The Same
in 1976, the band decided not to proceed with it further. The June 1977 shows at Earl’s Court Arena were both recorded with the intention of releasing them as the band’s first live album, but, for whatever reason, these plans were scuttled too.

The band had already decided that 1979 would be an off-year from the studio, consisting almost entirely of live shows. While they had recorded a few sessions in June and July, those were only preliminary and a studio album was not planned, nor was there enough material yet to release one. However, they had journeyed over much of the world (excluding North America) during the year, and it would have been foolish to not release something. Live albums (as well as compilations) are generally issued as an attempt to buy a band some time while they finish their next
studio release, and this was no exception.

Live Killers
, as it was eventually titled in June 1979, was culled from their three-month odyssey across Europe, though they never documented which songs derived from which shows. Recently, it’s been speculated that most of the recorded material came from the Frankfurt (2 February) and Lyon (17 February) performances, and that the segments from those shows were selected and spliced to create the perfect end-product. As a result, though there may not be many overdubs (Brian vehemently claims that there are absolutely none), most of the errors – and, let’s face it, there isn’t a single band that can perform perfectly night after night – were patched up with superior segments to the point that any one song may have originated from more than one show.

Strictly speaking, the
Jazz
tour between October 1978 and May 1979 was not Queen’s best; not only was Freddie’s voice becoming unpredictable as a result of his excesses, but also the band had adopted a more structured set list containing very few surprises. Unfortunately, those rare surprises (‘Somebody To Love’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ and ‘It’s Late’) didn’t make the final cut. Though
Live Killers
features the first officially released version of the newly structured medley (‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to ......’, ‘Killer Queen’, ‘Bicycle Race’, ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, ‘Get Down, Make Love’ and ‘You’re My Best Friend’), by 1979 it had been so drastically reduced that only ‘Killer Queen’ and ‘You’re My Best Friend’ were retained from the original set. It’s a shame that Queen didn’t include anything from 1977 or early 1978, which featured medley performances of ‘The Millionaire Waltz’, ‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ and ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’. Some fans even found fault in the mixing (which was implemented at Mountain Studios by David Richards): the band sounds muddled, some of the instruments are poorly mixed, and the audience levels are inconsistent.

However, considering that it is Queen’s first live album, there is much on
Live Killers
to applaud. The opening salvo of ‘We Will Rock You’ (the recorded debut of the fast version) and ‘Let Me Entertain You’ is unparalleled, while the emotive performances of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ and ‘Spread Your Wings’ are exemplary. Additionally, Roger provides a fine vocal delivery on his own ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, and the band’s natural rhythmic feel – and Freddie’s impressive showmanship – shines through on ‘Now I’m Here’ and ‘Brighton Rock’. A pleasant surprise, too, is the raucous ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, which is executed at an even faster pace than on the album version.

“I’ve never been completely satisfied,” Brian lamented during an interview in 1981 in
Mar del Plata
. “I’ll be a nonconformist forever. I think
Live Killers
was a kind of evidence of what we were doing live late in the 1970s. In some ways, I’m unsatisfied. We had to work hard in every concert and there were serious sound problems. There were concerts when we had sounded great, but when we listened to the tapes, they sounded awful. We recorded ten or fifteen shows, but we could only use three or four of them to work on. Anyway, live albums never sound good because there are noises and shouts that affect it. As it stands,
Live Killers
isn’t my favourite album.” Brian wasn’t the only one who was dissatisfied with the record: Roger expressed displeasure about the album, saying it wasn’t representative of a Queen live show (later quipping that the only instrument retained from the actual live shows was the bass drum), while Freddie and Brian were disappointed by both the mix and the inclusion of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, convinced that the song lost its power without the accompanying visuals and that adding the pre-taped operatic portion could be considered cheating.

The album was released just as Queen were entering Mountain Studios to record some new tracks for their next studio album. A single, ‘Love Of My Life’ backed with ‘Now I’m Here’, was released soon after the album but failed to garner any attention and stalled at a disappointing No. 63. (America received the fast live version of ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Let Me Entertain You’ in August, and this didn’t even break the Top 100.) The reviews were surprisingly positive; apart from yet another slandering by
Rolling Stone
: “Anyone who already owns a substantial Queen collection will find
Live Killers
a redundant exercise anyway. Half of the double LP’s twenty-two tracks come from
Night At The Opera
and
News Of The World
, and four more were on last year’s
Jazz
. There are also two versions of their Aryan command, ‘We Will Rock You’ ... If
Live Killers
serves any purpose at all, it’s to show that, stripped of their dazzling studio sound and Freddie Mercury’s shimmering vocal harmonies, Queen is just another ersatz Led Zeppelin, combining cheap classical parody with heavy-metal bollocks.”
Sounds
reluctantly stated, “I don’t find the obligatory post-’77 groan rising to my lips at the mention of their name, and this package is a perfectly adequate retrospective on most of their
best songs,” while
Record Mirror
gushed, “Bring out the champagne and the roses, this is a triumph. This album enhances Queen’s songs and isn’t a mere fill-in until the next studio project [though of course it was]. Listen and you’ll not be disappointed.”

THE GAME

EMI EMA 795, June 1980 [1]

Elektra 5E-513, June 1980 [1]

EMI CDP 7 46213 2, December 1986

Hollywood HR 61063 2, June 1991

Parlophone CDPCSD 134, 1994

Hollywood HR 9286-01110-9 7, October 2003

‘Play The Game’ (3’32), ‘Dragon Attack’ (4’18), ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ (3’37), ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’ (2’49), ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ (2’44), ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ (4’32), ‘Don’t Try Suicide’ (3’52), ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ (3’32), ‘Coming Soon’ (2’50), ‘Save Me’ (3’48)

Bonus track on 1991 Hollywood Records reissue
: ‘Dragon Attack’ (
remix by RAK and Jack Benson
) (4’20)

Bonus tracks on 2011 Universal Records deluxe reissue
: ‘Save Me’ (
live version, Montreal Forum, November 1981
) (4’16), ‘A Human Body’ (
non-album B-side, May 1980
) (3’42), ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ (
take 1 with guide vocal, February 1980
) (2’32), ‘It’s A Beautiful Day’ (
original spontaneous idea, April 1980
) (1’29), ‘Dragon Attack’ (
live version, Milton Keynes Bowl, June 1982
) (5’14)

Bonus videos, 2011 iTunes-only editions
: ‘Dragon Attack’ (
live version, Morumbi Stadium, March 1981
), ‘Save Me’ (
live version, Seibu Lions Stadium, November 1982
), ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ (
Saturday Night Live version, September 1982
)

Musicians
: John Deacon (
bass guitar, rhythm guitar and piano on ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, acoustic rhythm guitar on ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’
), Brian May (
guitars, vocals, synthesizer and lead vocals on ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’, piano and synthesizer on ‘Save Me’
), Freddie Mercury (
vocals, piano, synthesizer on ‘Play The Game’ and ‘Coming Soon’, acoustic rhythm guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’
), Roger Taylor (
drums, percussion, vocals, co-lead vocals, synthesizer and guitar on ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ and ‘Coming Soon’
), Mack (
synthesizer
)

Recorded
: Musicland Studios, Munich, February– May 1980 (
‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’, ‘Coming Soon’ and ‘Save Me’ recorded at Musicland Studios, Munich, June–July 1979
)

Producers
: Queen and Mack

The time between November 1978, when
Jazz
was released, and June 1980, when
The Game
finally emerged, was wisely spent. Queen had decided to take a break from the studios and focus instead on their live work. While the North American leg of the
Jazz
tour in 1978 was marred by Freddie’s excesses, the European and Japanese shows in 1979 are regarded as Queen’s shining moments on the tour. They surpassed even themselves with the aptly titled Crazy Tour in late 1979, climaxing with a thrilling appearance at the Paul McCartney-organized Concerts for the People of Kampuchea. If there had been even a hint that Queen were starting to lose their staying power, it quickly vanished.

However, there was still the necessity for the all-important hit record. The band had entered Musicland Studios in June 1979, their first session at the studios in Munich, to record some preliminary ideas for songs. Unlike previous sessions, they had no complete songs prepared, a deliberate choice designed to exercise their spontaneous creativity; the result was three surprisingly good songs (‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Save Me’ and ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’), one mediocre track (‘Coming Soon’) and several additional song sketches. As yet, there was no pressure to come up with any product for general release.

Part of this change in attitude occurred when Queen were introduced to Musicland’s resident producer, Reinhold Mack (known only by his surname to his friends). He had recorded with ELO in previous years and brought some of his best techniques from those sessions, one of which focused on using minimal microphones to achieve a larger drum sound. Though Brian later admitted the band virtually produced themselves, Mack’s expertise was useful to the band, particularly in allowing them the freedom to splice together various portions to create a complete, cohesive-sounding take. Previously, the band would painstakingly record the backing track in one attempt, and if this broke down they would be forced to start over from the beginning. Mack’s new method saved the band substantial time, as well as their sanity.

“That was when we started trying to get outside what was normal for us,” Brian explained to
On The Record
in 1982. “Plus, we had a new engineer in Mack and a new environment in Munich. Everything
was different. We turned our whole studio technique around in a sense, because Mack had come from a different background from us. We thought there was only one way of doing things, like doing a backing track; we would just do it until we got it right. If there were some bits where it speeded up or slowed down, then we would do it again until it was right. We had done some of our old backing tracks so many times, they were too stiff. Mack’s first contribution was to say, ‘Well, you don’t have to do that. I can drop the whole thing in. If it breaks down after half a minute, then we can edit in and carry on if you just play along with the tempo.’ We laughed and said, ‘Don’t be silly! You can’t do that!’ But in fact, you can. What you gain is the freshness, because often a lot of the backing tracks are first time through. It really helped a lot.”

“I was working in Los Angeles with Gary Moore at the time,” Mack told
iZotope.com
in 2007. “One day I had lunch with Giorgio Moroder. He mentioned rumors that I was supposed to go to Munich to work with Queen. Which was news to me. After calling the studios in Munich I was in a dilemma. Nobody knew anything about the sessions. So I figured [I would] take the trip. Worst case – a week and a ticket lost – no pain, no gain. Luckily it worked out pretty good ... The band came off a tour of Japan and had some time to spend before going back to England. So it just fell into the ‘right time, right place’ category. The project did not start out as an album. It was a bunch of one- and two-week sessions. The first track we attempted was ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’. Freddie picked up an acoustic guitar and said, ‘Quick, let’s do this before Brian comes’. About six hours later the track was done. The guitar solo was an overdub later on. Brian still hates me for making him use a Telecaster for the part. It was released as a pre-album single and went to number one. That obviously helped a great deal to inspire confidence and the working relationship tremendously.”

Though the initial sessions in June 1979 were merely an attempt to explore and understand their separate working methods, Queen’s partnership with Mack would prove fruitful. He encouraged the band to record in a simplified fashion, manifest in ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and ‘Coming Soon’. However, Brian continued to write songs that were still very much like the Queen of old and insisted that ‘Save Me’ and ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ return to the more powerful ballads of their early days. After a brief break and a return to the stage rounding out the year, the band took some time to flesh out additional ideas and create fully-fledged songs.

Brian said of the recording sessions, “That was breaking ground for us because, for the first time, we went into a recording studio without a deadline, purely with the intention of putting some tracks down as they came out. ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ was one of them; another was ‘Save Me’. There was a wide variety of things, and we’re left in the position of having something in the can that we don’t have to release straight away, and which at some future date we can perhaps fashion into an album. The basic reason for doing it was to put ourselves in a totally different situation. It’s a way of getting out of that rut of doing an album, touring Britain, touring America, etc. We thought we’d try and change and see what came out. You have to make your own excitement after a while.”