Queen
News Of The World

THE REVIEW

If with "A Night At The Opera" Queen had reached the pinnacle of their "baroque pompousness" understood as a triumph of choirs and complex guitar overdubs in the service of theatricality often over the top, now epic and tragic, now carefree and irreverent, if with "A Day At The Races" they had tried to repeat themselves albeit in more sober tones, with "News Of The World" the music changes... significantly.

It's 1977, rock is almost dead and gone, historic bands that emerged a decade earlier have now reached their end, new trends are at the door or are already raging (punk, metal), new free zones of music are being created and everyone is rushing to grab a piece. "News" represents yet another, chameleonic (and for many, irritating) strike from the Queen, to demonstrate that, even in times of great upheaval, the four know how to keep their balance on the moving train. Nothing to do with the "sonic gigantism" of past years, the arrangements become essential, dry, skeletal; voice and guitar add a vigorous musculature now devoid of the frills and trappings of "Opera".

The reference runs to "Sleeping On The Sidewalk", a blues marked by guitar, bass, drums and stops (May using only one guitar?!?), or to "It's Late" (my favorite, a matter of taste...) where the vocal cords connect to the heart, the six strings scratch, the bass pumps and the drums excite in all its roar in the purest rock'n roll spirit. The songs are born from a single generative cell, rhythmic or melodic, like the elemental but terrifyingly effective (and thus brilliant) beginning of "We Will Rock You"; an octave jump of the bass for "Get Down Make Love" (I like to consider it a tribute to "Whole Lotta..." by Zeppelin, the analogies are there, including the central climax that echoes that of Plant and company). If Taylor plays at winking at punk with "Sheer Heart Attack" and delves into a acid funky with "Fight From The Inside", Deacon raises our blood sugar with his honest romanticism (let's forgive him...) of "Spread Your Wings" where Freddie does not spare his vocal cords (thank you, truly...) and the Hawaiian "Who Needs You" which sounds a bit like: "We are Queen and we do whatever we want".

The peaks in terms of composition belong to Mr. Mercury who knows how to play with his craft, knows how to put the chords in the right place, knows how to sing with irreverent swagger a "We Are The Champions" that no one else could have afforded without falling into the ridiculous. The closing entrusted to "My Melancholy Blues" is delightful and refined. The only flaw, in my opinion, is "All Dead, All Dead", nothing more than an exercise in style seasoned with the usual harmonizations by May, but never mind...

As usual, free from the responsibility of having to say something new, to please the critics, to get a label stuck on them, jokingly taking themselves seriously, the Queen have a blast, play with genres tasting a bit of this and a bit of that as a child would in a pastry shop... then the serious ones and the "defenders of true musical taste" might also lash out... but as the "mustache" said: -WHY ALL THE FUSS? ... THEY'RE JUST SONGS!-