Album Details / Review : The Game

The Game

Produced by Queen and Mack.
Engineered by Mack.
Cover Concept by Queen.

Special thanks to Paul Prenter, Gerry Stickells, Jim Beach, the staff of Musicland our own crew Peter Hince, Chris Taylor, Brian Zellis and the people of Munich

Recommended Songs : Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Sail Away Sweet Sister, Save Me

The Game, as an album was more 'designed' than just being a selection of songs written for inclusion on an album. They paid particular attention to trying to keep the album from going in too many directions at once. According to Brian, the album had a theme and an attempt was made at creating a coherent album. To do this, there was no limit made on the time spent in the studio and some songs just flowed out in this way. Another change to previous albums was polyphonic synths, which Roger wanted to use on the album. The Game was the first Queen album to use synthesizers (an Oberheim OBX). Also Queen had a new engineer, Mack, in new studios in Munich. Mack gave Queen new techniques to edit and reorder sections of songs, in ways that Queen never used before.

The Game, is like Jazz in that its not a classic in terms of hits but is a good album from start to finish. Theres always tracks which you either don't like or feel don't fit and for me, 'Rock It (prime jive)' is one which I could never get into. The strongest tracks on the album are the first 3 and the last 3. The 3 at the start of the album include, 'Play The Game' a song which I enjoyed well before I had an interest in Queens music, 'Dragon Attack', by Brian and 'Another One Bites The Dust' by John, both have highly addictive riffs through-out. The 3 at the end which I like, include, 'Sail Away Sweet Sister', 'Coming Soon', and the ballad 'Save Me'. 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' (written by Freddie Mercury while lounging in a hotel bath) is also anice shuffle-styne number.

I find 'The Game' is an album which I seem to leave for a while and come back to, unlike Jazz which I find I will listen to bacause of the variation in styles. 'The Game' was the first Queen album to reach the #1 position in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The album may be too much of a change for fans who loved the heavy rock and glam feel to the earlier Queen albums, but on the other hand 4 songs from this album ended up on Greatest Hits I, so it shows that there is quality in the album.

Did you know ... Queen actually performed the song 'Save Me' in 1979 , well before the albums release in 1980.