Hello, I'm Mr Mallard, and this is yet another side-project I've decided to take up. I was bored just a few nights ago, and I remembered that a Freddie Mercury special called The Great Prentender was going to, or had already, aired. I dug up the original song on Youtube, and I went on a bit of a binge. I was in the mood to be sad; Freddie was first diagnosed with AIDs in the same year The Great Pretender was released (1987). Anywho, I decided to listen to every studio album back to back because, hey, why not? I've had a few setbacks, but I've got everything ready and I'm ready to begin.
I review each song by listening to it twice: once for the instruments and once for the vocals. For the most part, I write about the lyrics I hear, even if I end up with a few mondegreens (though if I simply cannot hear any of the lyrics, I will use a lyrics website).
Each installment will cover about 3-4 songs, depending on how many are in each album. Once I'm done with the songs like that, I'll listen to the album again in one go, back to back, and I'll write my final opinion. Live albums may be covered later on, but that depends on a few different matters.
The first album I'll be covering is Queen's self-titled first album, released in 1973. It took a fair bit of effort for it to be released: the band was picked up by Trident Studios, but they could only record in the studio's downtime after the paying artists had left; this gave them from 3 to 7 AM. There were tensions between the band and their producer, as the producer wanted them to re-record their demo tracks while they were happy with the originals. The first song to be re-recorded (which is incidentally the first song of the album) went through about 7 or 8 failed takes until a mixer named Mike Stone gave it a go, smashing it in 1 take and gaining the band's respect and friendship. He went on to engineer and eventually co-produce Queen's next 5 albums. The album was done by November 1972, but Trident tried to publish it through a few record companies, each time failing. Eventually, on 13 July 1973, Trident released it themselves to positive critical acclaim. In recent years, it's gotten somewhat patchy reviews, but it's still considered a great album.
I'll start on the first 3 songs next post. Get your old vinyls ready (or at the very least, Youtube) and listen along with me as we listen through 'Keep Yourself Alive', 'Doing All Right' and 'Great King Rat'!
