Queen
Hot Space

"The "tour de force!" that occupied the Queen from '77 to '81 had disastrous effects on the '82 album, "Hot Space".

This is what immediately comes to mind for many when they hear about this album.
For me, rather than calling it an unsuccessful album, I prefer to describe it as a necessary transitional album for the Queen to achieve complete musical maturity. To appreciate this much-maligned and underrated record, one just needs a more aware and prejudice-free listen.
The songs of the album have sensual pleasure as their central theme, and this can be particularly noted in the first four songs.

Staying Power, Dancer, and Body Language are indeed not completely successful songs; they seem more like raw sketches of sexual cravings.
Back Chat is a disco/driving tune where Freddie violently lashes out against the media that is critically overwhelming him.
Action This Day by Roger Taylor is the lowest point of the album.
At this point, it might seem that the album is a failure.

The face (and even more) is saved by the subsequent songs: due to early criticism I've read from everywhere about this record, it took me a while to listen to Put Out The Fire, realizing it's a rock gem, too underrated, in which Brian (who until then in the album was playing the bell instead of the Red Special) explicitly opposes the Falkland war. It took me some time to realize that Life Is Real (written on a plane as a tribute from Freddie to his idol, John Lennon) is anything but a banal song (mediocre in the verse, beautiful in the bridge after the second verse). Even the "abrupt and decisive" Calling All Girls does very well. Track number nine is Las Palabras De Amor where Brian May plays the redundant keyboards; the only shortcoming of this song is the somewhat rushed arrangements. Cool Cat is another gem: a strange song where Freddie "chokes" and positions his voice stably on very high notes that only a soprano can reach. The rest is taken care of by Under Pressure (prior to '82), which reunites (surprisingly) the two magnificent and "misunderstood" voices of Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. I agree it's not a masterpiece, but it's still an album to be re-evaluated.