Queen
Hot Space

The space is warm and the moment is cathartic.

This is the time for digressions because “Hot Space” (1982) represents the most marked rift in Queen's career, a division that still divides opinions and that back then pushed the album, let's be clear, to the flop bottom. This review will be quite lengthy as it will try to understand all sides of the story.

Up to this point, Queen had ventured into both typical and atypical tracks, rock (English), rock ‘n’ roll (American), folk, country, and more. “The Game”, the previous album, represented, as has been said, a stitching together of old and new, a solid point in the past and a leap towards the present. The band was born as a rock group but demonstrated, in terms of genres, to be at times histrionic, yet never completely overturning this rule over time. “Hot Space” was a slap in the face to all those fans who felt betrayed because, where “The Game” had represented a safe harbor (rock ‘n’ roll) and a plunge into the sea (disco music), this is almost entirely focused on the prevailing disco music. What happened? How do we stand today in front of this compromised album? Let's take a look at the track by track and draw our conclusions. In the meantime, let’s see what our Queen have been up to.

1) "Staying Power". Mercury. Born with the title "Fucking Power", it doesn't actually change in substance because the theme is as hot as the entire album. It narrates the sexual act in a rather crude and direct manner yet symbolic of the kind "look what I have, I have loads of it, it’s a charged dynamo, I wonder when you will give it to me!". Where have the "witty" Queen gone when it came to describing sex? Oh well! The rhythm is very pleasant and the arrangements with the synthesized and non-synthesized trumpets are top-notch. John Deacon is in sparkling form. This is his album. The finale gives us an orgasmic simulation that perhaps not everyone understood "Power, power, power, poweeeer uoooh…" A great vocal form of Mercury. One of the iconic tracks of the album and one of the best.

2) “Dancer”. May. The level falls like a train from a roller coaster. Such a predictable and fully 80s synchronized track could not be obtained, and not even Freddie’s vocal leaps redeem it. Again, sex is at the center and the four portraits on the cover in warm colors are aware of it. Decidedly banal and boring.

3) "Back Chat". Deacon. An interesting piece that stands halfway between an original idea and standard 80s ideas. Thematically, it analyzes all the bad rumors about Freddie Mercury and company, and Freddie even shoots a video in a disco/mechanical where there is no one and strange symbols like the hot key that find no response. It seems like a track, like the first two, conceived to be danced to and Brian May's guitar, so far almost absent in the album, finds some growls. Appreciable.

4) "Body Language". A great placement as a single in the USA but poor in the UK. One of the high peaks of the entire album. A dance-swing experiment in which a superb Freddie Mercury reaches dizzying heights, proving to be a talent like few others. John Deacon again! An amazing arpeggiator with great creative charisma. This song too is very lusty, let’s be honest: "great thighs, you have the greatest ass I’ve ever seen". Worthy of the best disco music of the 80s.

5) "Action this day". Taylor. Here’s the binary rhythm on which all 80s music is based but much sped up by Roger Taylor. Very lively and delightful to listen to. A tasty cocktail of central synthesizer (in the embryonic track it was even longer and more interesting) and trumpets. It’s a song that puts you in a good mood with its somewhat cunning and playful rhythm. Well done Roger!

6) "Put out the Fire". Brian May has always claimed to hate this album but we know why: he didn't have much space. However, this is a track where he, the author, can awaken his guitar a little. A piece that slips quite rockish but does not manage to reproduce the emotions of truly “rocky” times. There’s a chasm despite deserving a pass even for the text that ironically invites stopping the fire. Once again the hot element but in a social key. Sufficient.

7) "Life is Real (Song for Lennon)". A piece by Freddie dedicated to John Lennon who had been gone for 2 years. Very full of emotions and very sad even though it’s not a slow ballad but very carrying. References to “Kubla Khan” by Coleridge as “the pleasure palace” and to mystery novels. It’s a track that invites reflection that life is a serious matter and it’s of very evident cosmic pessimism. And to think that the original idea started on a plane with Freddie noting down on a piece of paper “cum stains on my pillow", then correcting the first word to “cunt” and finally to “guilt”. Your turn to translate. Note the intensity with which he sings “Lennon is a genius, living in every pore.” Who knows where the two will be today and this song truly sends shivers down your spine. And what a suggestion. A fairy tale.

8) "Calling all girls". Another binary rhythm but a piece that represents the scum of the album. Ugly, horrible, not creative, lyrics of absolute dumbness. The video was banned. Only the arrangement is saved, just imagine. Taylor wrote a real joke but the fault lies with the entire group. And what are those "fart" style effects in the middle of the track? No, we’re not there at all.

9) "Las Palabras de Amor". Born after the mega South American tour where Queen reaped incredible successes filling stadiums with 200,000 spectators, this is a track where the true Brian May, the author, emerges. Beautiful, very beautiful with a chorus in Spanish. By now we have understood that synthesizers have become relatives to Queen but that keyboard arpeggio by Brian is one of the most celestial things I have ever heard. Good blood doesn’t lie…

10) “Cool Cat”. What a track! Very summery reggae. Sung all in falsetto (more or less) and written by the two inventors (culprits?) of disco music in Queen’s warehouse (Mercury/Deacon). It is a track to listen to in a car on a journey with summer landscapes in view. The text speaks of a cheeky type, who knows who, not a cat! Initially, David Bowie contributed by singing grave parts to accentuate the “heat” of the track but then the idea was discarded. What a pity! The most summer track by Queen.

11) "Under Pressure". After Queen came from a stunning success with “The Game”, tour and “Flash Gordon” and David Bowie with “Scary Monsters”, the number one spot on the charts and the love that the world still feels for this song is just the minimum. Two great voices, one tenor and the other baritone, that typical snapping of fingers, these two roots of glam, this track is so “baroque” in architecture yet so catchy, that such magnanimous and immense end make “Under Pressure” a top 10 Queen song. In a world of such strong pressure, let’s give love another chance… Unforgettable…

If “Hot Space” was well received in the USA, if it is so liked by those Italians who are getting to know Queen's discography better and remain disappointed perhaps by the early albums and not by this one, and if this was a flop in the UK, the reason is simple and historical. In the USA, disco music had been arousing strong interest for years, Italy likes melody and rhythm more than rock noise, for historical English fans it was, however, an incredible disappointment. Not only had the English lived on bread and rock but they were not used, in the case of Queen, to a total break with the past. David Bowie, yes, he could afford to switch from album to album and completely overturn everything that had been built before. His fans were used to it and expected it. Not Queen! Their evolution up to “The Game” had been always gradual but now it seemed excessively radical. Put yourself in the shoes of the historical fans! Seeing Brian May relegated to the corner just when his “special” guitar made the Queen sound unique must not have been nice. There were also discontents within the group and, for the first time in their history, they decided to take a year off. That strong decision to change style and talk about almost only "sex slapped in the face" through an entire album was also a sign of fatigue, inevitable after 10 uninterrupted years.

The one to suffer the most was May but Mercury was quite satisfied and aware that "the Boh Rhaps era is over and today I wrote Body Language with the same feeling of that track years ago. I could no longer write Bohemian Rhapsody as I am today."

“Hot Space” is a beautiful album where Queen, to avoid falling into the banality of redoing rock or rock ‘n roll again, stumble upon commercial dance yet 3 or 4 pearls of music, which they work on like great craftsmen, are once again guaranteed.