991. Queen / Jazz. 1978. 5/5

The pressure of writing an album, recording an album and then touring an album, only to start the whole process over again, all in the span of 12 or so months, must be a difficult thing. The fact that Queen did this most of the way through the 1970’s and early 1980’s, producing a new album every year from Queen through to Hot Space, is a remarkable achievement, and the fact that the quality is generally of the highest order is even more remarkable. This most certainly is the case here on Jazz, which ranks with their very best.

The opening track “Mustapha” bounds along in an excited chanting of lines in various languages that at least all sound like they rhyme together and fit together in sentences, but to be honest I have pretty much zero idea what is being said or what the song is about. Despite this, it’s hard not to like Freddie’s enthusiasm and pronunciation of whatever it is he’s saying. I wonder if the band knew what the song was about? This is followed by the well-rounded and often sung “Fat Bottomed Girls”, which has a great rhythm line underneath the song, a great chorus track and guitar riff to go along with the grin hidden behind a hand of teenage boys everywhere as they sang it.
“Jealousy” rises and falls on Freddie’s vocals, manipulating the mood of the track simply in the nuances of his vocals. The relative gentleness of the track allows it to transition into “Bicycle Race” without losing integrity. “Bicycle Race” morphed nicely with “Fat Bottomed Girls” by mentioning it within the song, but it also has lyrics that reference the era that the song was written, and as such became a fun song to learn and then sprout the lyrics back at the people around you as you sang. These two short-but-sweet songs were always a popular part of Queen’s armoury, and found plenty of airplay due to their short playtime. “If You Can’t Beat Them” is an easy listening sing along track in a typical John Deacon style. It’s catchy and easy to move along with.
“Let Me Entertain You” has always been one of my favourite Queen tracks, though it is one I found from their live recording before I had ever heard Jazz. It is one of the heaviest tracks written by Freddie, though much of that comes from Brian’s guitar riff and his solo burst. Still, Freddie sings this hard and loud, preaching to the audience as he did so well. This still sounds great today. This is followed up by “Dead on Time”, another of Queen’s most aggressively hard songs led by Brian’s guitar again as well as Roger’s great drumming. These two songs back to back showcase the best of that heavier side of Queen, revealing that part of their personality for the world to hear.
The album dials back to that much gentler aspect of the band’s brilliance, with “In Only Seven Days” where Freddie shows how amazing his vocal capacity is, having shown his faster and energetic vocal range in the previous two songs to slipping into this easy paced song with gentle higher vocals. Amazing. This is followed by “Dreamer’s Ball” which sounds like it could have come from the A Night at the Opera album. “Fun It” is a quintessential Roger Taylor track with all of his tricks of the trade thrown it. He again plays most of the instruments and shares lead vocals throughout with Freddie. “Leaving Home Ain’t Easy” is Brian’s quiet ballad, almost Beatles-ish in its composition. Having heard the harder side, these four songs showcase the lighter side of the band, without losing any integrity in the tracks. Terrific stuff.
“Don’t Stop Me Now” is in my opinion one of the five best Queen tracks of all time. Positive lyrics, driving drums and lead bass riff, the piano being the major instrument throughout with Brian’s guitar just coming it to make highlight spots, and of course Freddie’s vocals topping everything off. If you could write one song and play it for eternity, it would quite probably be this one for me. It is a brilliant piece of song writing and musicianship.
“More of That Jazz” is written and almost completely performed by Roger, and it is very much his style of track. It is eclectic, staccato with lots of guitar and vocal lines and harmonies mixed into places that don’t seem to be in any form, but somehow come together to make a great song. Not only do we hear his own amazing vocal range, when you first hear the song you think something has happened to the recording, because suddenly snatches of other songs on the record start coming into the mix. It’s unusual, but became common place amongst Roger’s own solo stuff. Opinions no doubt range on it, but personally I like it.

There is something for everyone on Jazz and it all comes together in a perfect way. The musicianship is second to none with each members at the top of their game. The vocals of all three major contributors is superb, with Freddie quite awesomely showing he can sing just about any type of song. And the variety of the songs doesn’t intrude on each other, somehow they all tend to mesh together perfectly despite the wide range of influences that come into them. One of Queen’s best.

Rating:  "I’m a rocket ship on my way to Mars on a collision course, I am a satellite, I’m out of control”  5/5