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Jazz - Queen's Most Underrated Album?
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Re: Jazz - Queen's Most Underrated Album?
Post by Kes » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:54 pm
People complain about the 2011 masters being compressed, and that they've been on their oscilloscopes and noticed the sound team have cut out frequencies inaudible to the human ear.
What's the problem? Are they part f*cking canine?
Post by Sir Didymus » Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:22 pm
Young Music Fan wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:16 pm More Of That Jazz is so boring, I just don't understand it. Let Me Entertain You sounds rubbish on the album as does Dreamers Ball. There's several weaker songs which normally there is only one or two per album but I think you could easily say five songs and probably more. I think if the sound was better I'd rank it higher but I do believe the songwriting isn't as good as on previous albums.
More Of That Jazz is in my top ten Queen songs. Absolutely sodding love it.
Yes, it could do without that little flourish at the end but edit that out and you've got a corker.
Post by Kes » Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:18 pm
I think it was fd who said that his favourite Queen riff wasn't even Brian's. I think he was referring to More Of That Jazz. So, as I said earlier, everybody has their faves, and those might be ones you absolutely hate.
Post by Ray » Wed Nov 25, 2020 10:25 pm
Dead On Time is such a great overlooked Metal song of them, it's a shame they never played that one live.
Don't Stop Me Now is the song that got me into Queen. Caught my attention immediately, it was just so different yet amazing.
Overall Jazz isn't one of my favourite Queen albums though, there are some rather okay songs, even fillers maybe.
Post by midnight sky » Wed Nov 25, 2020 10:32 pm
I think it's in the top 3 underrated albums, two more come first for me.
Good Apothecary Man
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Post by Good Apothecary Man » Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:53 am
Their longest album of the pre-CD era. Thirteen tracks — at least one too many. An obvious opportunity missed for a non-album b-side.
Growing up in the late-1970s, I always thought of Seven Seas of Rhye as the must-have collectible because it had See What a Fool I've Been on the b-side. I always felt that the band were very unimaginative when it came to b-sides, especially for the second and any subsequent singles from an album. It wasn't until A Human Body in 1980 that we got the next non-album b-side. I am assuming, of course, that they had a say in the decision-making.
Fat Bottomed Girls / Bicycle Race. Fair enough — the songs were both central to the Jazz promotional imagery, and there's the lyrical cross-referencing as well. But why not leave In Only Seven Days or Fun It or Dreamer's Ball off the album and put it on the b-side of the second single?
For that matter, why not put the unused live songs from the Live Killers recordings on the back of Love of My Life, Crazy and Save Me etc etc.
Post by Kes » Wed Dec 02, 2020 12:52 pm
It would have been one of two things. Using the B side as another taster of the relevent album, or just economy of effort (laziness, in plain English).
Post by Sir Didymus » Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:31 pm
Did many artists in the 70s release a myriad of B-sides? Obviously, we know The Beatles did in the 60s, but they also tended to not put their A-sides on the albums, either. I've always just sort of assumed regular non-album B-sides was more of a 1980s/1990s thing.
Certainly the artists I can think of didn't have many... most singles were just backed with either an old song or another track from the same album. It feels like it took punk and especially new wave artists pushing the notion of b-sides before they started to become the norm, and by the mid 80s you've got artists like Pet Shop Boys, who arguably ended up producing more classic B-sides than they did A-sides in the end. But even then, so many 80s singles simply had an instrumental mix on the B-side. Some artists really went for it, particularly in the 90s... I think there's about 120 different B-sides by the Manic Street Preachers, for example, and that's not counting live versions or remixes - just actual non-album tracks. But I don't think there's many 70s artists who did.
Slade are probably one of the few exceptions, actually... quite a lot of B-sides from them, and some absolute corkers amongst them.
robdeighton
Post by robdeighton » Thu Dec 03, 2020 9:59 pm
Queen have always been lazy with their b-sides.
look at the 'Made In Heaven' era, you basically got 'Greatest Hits 1' (save 'The Game' era tracks) spread across 4 singles... just because they were digitally remastered (yawn).
The only saving grace was that they were in 2-part sets and you got a few new things like 'Rock In Rio Blues', It's A Beautiful Day (full version), and the BBC sessions from a "forthcoming" album - which took nearly 21 years to come out properly (I know Hollywood released 'Live At The BBC' - but it was a no-show in the UK).
Even 'The Works' period was lazy too - EVERY album track from that album appeared on a side of a single - talk about mugging fans off.
I love a good b-side as it gives you an incentive to buy a single for something you don't have.
Post by Kes » Thu Dec 03, 2020 10:27 pm
The UK got the Queen At The Beeb album in 1989, about six years before the US got it (retitled At The BBC), and the MIH singles. Same versions, same tracks, different sleeve.
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