| Heavenite 29.09.2012 00:47 |
I have always felt that the songs You Don't Fool Me, My Baby Does Me and Rain Must Fall come from a similar place and have a bit of slow dance/funk feel to them. Now I know that Dave Richards put You Don't Fool Me together retrospectively and I don't know who wrote the other two tracks, but I just find that there's a similarity in the feel to these songs. To me they seem like a far more restrained version of the funk tracks found on Hot Space. I must admit that these sorts of songs are not my favourites. Much prefer the rockers like Party and Khashoggi's Ship found on Miracle and the excellent harmony tracks like Let Me Live and My Life Has Been Saved off Made in Heaven. But does anyone else find any similarity in the feel of these tracks at all? And if so, whether they might have been the vestages of the Hot Space dance/funk era that went so horribly wrong for Queen coming back to rear its head again, allbeit in a far more restrained fashion? |
| Sebastian 29.09.2012 02:10 |
Rain Must Fall is Deacon (music) and Mercury (lyrics). My Baby Does Me is chiefly Mercury (both lyrics and music) with some contribution from Deacon. The YDFM chord progression is lifted from Freddie's solo track Living on My Own (in a different key, though). BTW, John was not as responsible for Hot Space as a lot of people believe. Granted, Back Chat is his and Cool Cat is half his, but: Staying Power - Not his. Dancer - Not his, and he doesn't even play in it. Body Language - Not his. Action This Day - Not his, and he's probably not even there. |
| Heavenite 29.09.2012 02:49 |
Hi Sebastian Thanks for that info on the songs off Miracle and Made in Heaven. I never knew for a fact that they were compositions of Deacon and Mercury, so it sounds like my hunch wasn't too bad at all. I also just went and checked the writing credits on Hot Space, and from that I noted that the other half of Cool Cat was Freddie, as was both Staying Power and Body Language. Now that certainly doesn't explain Dancer or Action This Day, but it certainly seems that a reasonably high percentage of the dance tracks on Hot Space are attributable to Deacon and/or Mercury. And I should clarify that while I am not that crazy about the more recent slow dance/funk tracks off Miracle and Made in Heaven, I actually got to really like the first three tracks off Hot Space and they have been my favourite tracks off that album for many years now. |
| Sebastian 29.09.2012 08:38 |
Heavenite wrote:it certainly seems that a reasonably high percentage of the dance tracks on Hot Space are attributable to Deacon and/or Mercury.Yes but by that same logic, a reasonably high percentage of the dance tracks on Hot Space are attributable to May and/or Mercury, or to Taylor and/or Mercury. |
| Heavenite 29.09.2012 08:51 |
Hmmm, good point Sebastian! I guess the counter arguments would be John Deacon did 1 and a half tracks, which was slighly more than Bri and Roger who did one each. Another point is that according to the current Wiki review, Back Chat is supposed to be the funkiest track on the album, and that was the song that John wrote on his own. And thirdly of course, we know from what's been said that it was Freddie and John that were pushing the thing, whereas Brian and Roger are reported to have been largely opposed, even though it seems they did in the end come to the party with their own funk tracks, allbeit kicking and screaming. But that was the end for Brian and Roger, whereas Freddie and John were still contributing those sort of tracks at the other end of the decade. Mind you, on The Cross's first album Shove It, Roger also seems to have succumbed to the prevailing dance scene. |
| Holly2003 29.09.2012 10:03 |
Rain Must Fall reminds me of Misfire. |
| cmsdrums 29.09.2012 11:18 |
The percussion loop on the intro of Rain Must Fall is very, very similar to Deacon's No Turning Back with The Immortals - so similar in fact it's almost like an alternate take of it |
| Wiley 29.09.2012 13:03 |
Also remember the one that started bringing the funk, e-drums and (probably?) synths into Queen was Roger Taylor. Namely, Fight from the Inside and Fun It. I don't recall much of I wanna testify but I believe it had some similar vibe to it, didn't it? He also had a ton of synths on his 1981 solo album. Not drum machines (that I know of), though. |
| Russian Headlong 29.09.2012 13:50 |
Agree although Roger was seemingly influenced by some new wave stuff in the 80's he and brian seem to be the rockers. prenter clearly pushed fred towards dance/pop and john has always preferred that pop sound. i prefer queen the heavy rock band and hate hot space and the poppy sounds on the tracks you mentioned above. I would love to have seen them headline donington in the old monsters of rock with def leppard, Thin lizzy and van halen what a show that would have been. |
| Fireplace 30.09.2012 16:51 |
From watching Days Of Our Lives and The Great Pretender, it is perfectly clear that the band was very close to breaking up in the early eighties, as there was a Freddie-camp and a Brian/Roger-camp. John was always interested in the Motown/Funk/Dance stuff, so he more or less naturally sided with Freddie, who was very supportive of his songwriting. In hindsight it is the influence of all four that made Queen such an eclectic band, and I shudder to think what would have happened if Freddie had gotten the permanent upper hand. I don't dislike Mr. Bad Guy, but one is more than enough. Í for one am glad that Blondie and Curly managed to get back a rocking foot in the door. |
| Sebastian 30.09.2012 17:55 |
Heavenite wrote:we know from what's been said that it was Freddie and John that were pushing the thingNo - the recent GP documentary clearly has Fred saying that he forced THE OTHER THREE. There are also comments from John saying that he disliked the album (e.g. Popcorn 1986, where he claimed it was the worst moment of their careers) so no, John was NOT 'pushing the thing.' Heavenite wrote:whereas Brian and Roger are reported to have been largely opposedAnother big lie... nobody forced them to write Dancer and Action (LPDA and CAG, while not 'dance', were also very light and very un-Queen, including the lack of guitar solos). |
| tomchristie22 30.09.2012 19:52 |
I wouldn't go as far as to call LPDA 'un-Queen'. It sounds a lot like a Queen track which could have come of The Game or something. And it does have a guitar solo, so I'm not sure what you mean there. |
| Heavenite 02.10.2012 08:00 |
Sebastian wrote: Heavenite wrote: "we know from what's been said that it was Freddie and John that were pushing the thing" No - the recent GP documentary clearly has Fred saying that he forced THE OTHER THREE. There are also comments from John saying that he disliked the album (e.g. Popcorn 1986, where he claimed it was the worst moment of their careers) so no, John was NOT 'pushing the thing.' Heavenite wrote:"whereas Brian and Roger are reported to have been largely opposed" Another big lie... nobody forced them to write Dancer and Action (LPDA and CAG, while not 'dance', were also very light and very un-Queen, including the lack of guitar solos). Hi again Sebastian Fair point on John and Freddie. Based on the evidence you present, Freddie was the one pushing the album. But the question I would still ask is whether what John Deacon said in 1986 was relevant to how he felt at the time they were making the album. Did he really need to be pushed like the other two or was he much more amenable to that type of music than Roger and Brian? The other two certainly did succumb to the pressure Freddie was applying but I agree they certainly weren't forced to write those dance songs, as you say. It was ultimately their choic, as it also must have been John's choice at the time (of course). Re LPAD and CAG, they are definitely much more stark tracks than you normally got on a Queen album, but I agree with tomchristie that they would not have been too much out of place on The Game, given that album was also a much starker effort than what came before it and what came after Hot Space. |
| cmsdrums 02.10.2012 11:27 |
The John interview from '86 might be admitting it was the worst point of their career, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he disliked the album. Freddie loved it but it was still their worst moment from a career point of view, so the two aren't mutually exclusive. |
| Sebastian 03.10.2012 17:03 |
The recent Great Pretender documentary features Fred clearly stating he had to force THE OTHER THREE, which pretty much clears it up: Roger, Brian *and John* were 'forced' to jump into the bandwagon. John was, reportedly, the biggest R&B/funk fan in the band which, if anything, gives his dislike for the album even more sense: who's gonna complain the most about Fred's biopic? The die-hards and/or experts who can and will realise if/when there's an inaccuracy. Same here: a musician who knows at least a bit about funk is more likely to get outraged by a feeble attempt to 'cover' the genre than one who doesn't. Freddie was usually very good at telling which kinds of things had hit potential, so it must have been hard for him to have been so wrong twice (HS and MBG). |
| Sebastian 03.10.2012 17:05 |
cmsdrums wrote: The John interview from '86 might be admitting it was the worst point of their career, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he disliked the album. Freddie loved it but it was still their worst moment from a career point of view, so the two aren't mutually exclusive.Quite an interesting point and I hadn't considered that option. I do remember, though, him confirming at least twice elsewhere that he didn't like it. The fact is that the only two band members who've publicly slammed that album are John and Roger. Brian's admitted it's not his favourite but he still defends it (which makes sense, this is not B/W), even going to the ridiculous extreme of claiming that without it there'd have been no Thriller. |
| Heavenite 04.10.2012 09:46 |
Maybe for John it was an act of contrition. Roger was the sort to make no bones about it. He was saying there were tracks on the album he didn't like when it came out. But for John, well maybe it was his mea culpa. |
| Heavenite 04.10.2012 09:46 |
Sorry, double post. |
| Heavenite 04.10.2012 09:46 |
Another interesting point to note about the songwriting credits is the shares of dance/funk songs that each member wrote or shared in the writing of. Under Pressure had already been released as a single, so it wasn't part of the Hot Space writing sessions. But of the other tracks: Freddie wrote 2 and a half tracks (Staying Power, Life is Real and half of Cool Cat), so Freddie's dance/funk percentage is 60%. John wrote 1 and a half tracks (Back Chat and the other half of Cool Cat, so his dance/funk percentage is 100%. Roger wrote two tracks (Action This Day and Calling All Girls) so his funk percentage is 50%. And lastly, Brian wrote three tracks (Dancer, Put Out The Fire and LPDA), so his dance/funk percentage is the lowest at 33.3%. Maybe those stats say something about each members musical preferences at that time. Interesting also to compare those stats to the fact that Freddie and John were still writing the closest songs to the dance/funk genre on The Miracle at the end of the 80's, yet neither Roger nor Brian were going there at all by that time. |
| Sebastian 05.10.2012 03:06 |
UP *WAS* part of the HS writing sessions, as they began in June 1981. Cool Cat, LPDA, CAG and POTF were reportedly written around the same time as UP. |
| Heavenite 05.10.2012 03:46 |
Hi Sebastian. Thanks for that bit of additional info. So that changes the figures a tad and increases the proportion of non dance tracks. But not by much, as I assume each Queen member gets one fifth of a songwriting credit along with Bowie. Unless Bowie gets half the credit, but I guess it would be more likely to be an equal share for each person involved. Not sure though on that. But not a huge difference I would think. And from what I understand, UP came out the five of them jamming. So it might have been more of a spontaneous thing and therefore come out of a different process. But it still counts in terms of songwriting credits I guess. |
| tero! 48531 05.10.2012 10:17 |
Heavenite wrote: But not a huge difference I would think. And from what I understand, UP came out the five of them jamming. So it might have been more of a spontaneous thing and therefore come out of a different process. But it still counts in terms of songwriting credits I guess.The lyrics would have been improvised with Bowie, but most of the backing track was already there on the previously recorded Feel Like. Ad-libbing is a more appropriate term than jamming, and you can still hear it in the final version of Under Pressure. |
| Heavenite 05.10.2012 10:30 |
Thanks Tero! You guys certainly know much more about the detail than me. In any case, I think the intuition I had seems to have some evidence to support it. My hunch with those Miracle tracks does seem to suggest that Freddie and John were still dance music sympathisers many years later, despite what happened to Hot Space critically and commercially. Nothing wrong with that I guess. In fact it may well have added to the creative mix, and may have also broadened the range of Queen fans out there. I mean AOBTD certainly did that. |
| Sebastian 07.10.2012 04:36 |
To be fair, Invisible Man is far more dance than RMF or MBDM... so then again, no - it wasn't a John+Freddie exclusive, not at all. |
| Heavenite 07.10.2012 05:18 |
Fair point Sebastian. I'd completely forgotten that one. When I think about that song, it definitely has a dance beat to it. Not sure I can distinguish it from the others at all. I take it someone else wrote that one then? Because as you know it just says Queen on those later albums. I'm guessing Roger Taylor. Surely not Brian?!! :-O |
| Sebastian 09.10.2012 00:49 |
Why not? Is there a physical law that dictates the universe will implode if Brian composes anything other than heavy metal? BTW, the song is not Brian's, it's Roger's, but it doesn't mean that Brian can't or couldn't come up with one of those had he wanted to. |
| Heavenite 09.10.2012 07:04 |
Hi Sebastian It was said in jest, because Brian seemed to be the furthest away musically from writing dance/funk music. Fortunately there is no physical law dictating the universe would implode if Brian composes anything other than heavy metal as he wrote Dancer on Hot Space and we wouldn;t have even have made it that far as he wrote other softer tunes that weren't heavy metal like '39 off Night at the Opera beforehand...lol. I guess in hindsignt, Roger did do the Shove It album, so he had made move moves after Hot Space towards the dance/funk genre before Miracle came along. |
| Holly2003 09.10.2012 07:45 |
I know for a fact that Brian is physically incapable of writing a proper dance track. He tried it once and his hair went white. Try again, and his nuts will fall off. 100% true. |
| Sebastian 09.10.2012 16:50 |
Not just before The Miracle, but before Shove It as well ... there's some dance/funk influence on his solo albums too. |
| Missreclusive 09.10.2012 18:24 |
LOL Holly, ya think? |
| Wiley 10.10.2012 10:15 |
With the risk of oversimplifying, I think Roger was the one getting new 'sounds' to the band in the late 70's, early 80's. It was his Telecaster Brian used to play CLTCL, he "brought the funk" with tracks like Fight from the inside and Fun it, his 1977 solo single had some funk guitar vibe, he introduced e-drums on Jazz. Not sure about the synths in The Game but I wouldn't be surprised! |
| Sebastian 11.10.2012 20:11 |
He did introduce them to synths, and it was his synth that they all used on The Game and Flash. |
| tomchristie22 12.10.2012 03:47 |
Well there you go. He really can't complain about their delving into different sounds then, even though he does. |
| GreatKingSam 12.10.2012 05:37 |
But there's a difference between introducing new sounds and writing "rubbish" songs! Just because he introduced a synth and synth drums, doesn't mean they couldn't have still produced "better" songs (i.e. The Game). If the leaning of the album was towards a more funk/black category, then it would seem silly if those in the band who weren't into it would write wholly different songs, as they just wouldn't fit the album. Hence Brian's contributions are still generally the most rocking, and Roger's compositions still have his highly rhythmic touch, as this is what they do, but they still hold the more synthetic touch as per the rest of the album. Still maintain that if Hot Space had a more stripped-back feel like The Game, it would have been a class album. |
| Heavenite 15.10.2012 07:57 |
Hi GreatKing Sam Hot Space definitely has its moments, which of a very high quality to my taste. Problem for me was there weren't enough of them. And for me the non dance/funk songs are the more uninspired ones. For me Put Out The Fire, Life is Real aren't bad, but Calling All Girls and Las Palabras De Amour leave me relatively cold as Queen songs, although even they have their moments. And I much prefer the version of Calling All Girls on the bonus EP of the latest Hot Space rerelease. |
| Wiley 15.10.2012 12:40 |
To me, Hot Space suffers more from bad choices regarding instrumentation than uninspired writing, production or even the 'funk' element. The funkier tracks are better in some ways. Think about it for a second. Replace some of the crappier synths with 'human' bass and guitar, probably speed up the tempo in some tracks and you've got yourself a winner. |
| Sebastian 16.10.2012 00:27 |
I partly agree. Imagine ANATO with awful synths and drum machines instead of the human element ... not too far from what HS is. OTOH, I still think songwriting was weak. LPDA and POTF are IMO the strongest tracks on the album... but Brian wrote at least fifty better songs throughout his career. Literally! |