Roger Taylor
Happiness?

Drummers, or the proverbial last wheel of the rock wagon: usually, it's already a lot if they can do their job well behind bass drums and snares. Imagine them writing songs, and if they were good singers, well, they wouldn't be there... right? Up to a point, because there are some exceptions, and no, we are not talking about Ringo Starr but rather Roger Taylor, a multifaceted artist who found the role of drummer in one of the most famous bands in the world always a bit limiting.

In fact, he was the first of the regal quartet to embark on an independent career, a career much more prolific than those of his bandmates. The Queen drummer's third solo album came out ten years after the previous one, during which Taylor released three more albums with his side band, The Cross. It was said to be an intense solo activity, although with inconsistent quality results, also due to Taylor reserving the best pieces for Queen. After Mercury's death, the band was forcibly inactive, and consequently, the drummer-singer-songwriter, having also closed the Cross chapter, channeled his creative energies into a new album under his own name.

Let's start by saying that "Happiness?" is an excellent album, well-played and generally well-written rock d'auteur, sufficiently reminiscent of Queen but also knowing how to distance itself, proving that Taylor is an artist with a personality, besides being an excellent vocalist. The tracks alternate between distinctly Queen-like pieces like “Touch The Sky” or “Foreign Sand” and others frankly unthinkable for Freddie Mercury's band, like the opening track, “Nazis 1994”, where Taylor directly attacks neo-Nazi movements: here, in fact, political and social themes make this album much more "singer-songwriter" than those of the original group. Another piece, “Dear Mr. Murdoch”, is indeed dedicated (and not in a friendly manner) to the telecommunications magnate, with a caustic and bitterly ironic text. Nevertheless, more intimate themes are not lacking, as in the touching “Old Friends”, dedicated to Mercury, or in the album's true gem, “Happiness”. A final word on the sounds, undoubtedly very close to the Queen style, with Taylor's powerful and majestic drumming, and a guitar with a much more discreet presence than May's.

Ultimately this is the work of artistic maturity for the eclectic drummer, far superior to its predecessors: a solid album that can appeal to Queen fans and beyond, even if different from other solo works, thus both from the somewhat kitschy disco baroquisms of Mercury and from Brian May's sentimental guitar playing.