The Game by Queen
The Game is the eighth studio album by British rock band Queen released on 30 June 1980. It was the only Queen album to reach No. 1 in the US and became Queen's best selling studio album in the US with four million copies sold to date, tying News of the World's US sales tally. The album received very favourable reviews. Notable songs on the album include the bass-driven "Another One Bites the Dust" and the rockabilly "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", both of which reached No. 1 in the US. The Game was the first Queen album to use a synthesiser (an Oberheim OB-X). The album features a more pop/rock sound than its predecessor, Jazz. The album's style would be augmented on Queen's next release Hot Space, and future Queen albums. At approximately 35 minutes 39 seconds, The Game is the 2nd shortest of Queen's studio albums, with their subsequent soundtrack for the film Flash Gordon being shorter by 39 seconds. It is estimated to have sold 12 million copies worldwide, including over 4.5 million in the United States. Re-issued on May 2003 on DVD-Audio with Dolby 5.1 surround sound and DTS 5.1. The 5.1 mix of "Coming Soon" features an alternate backing track, because the final master tapes were not found when mixing the album to 5.1. The photo on the cover of the EMI CD is different from that originally used on the LP and cassette even though the Hollywood CD still has the original photo. The original photo (with Taylor having folded arms and May not having a hand resting upon his exposed hip) is shown in the article. This alternate photo was also used on cover of the DTS DVD-Audio edition of the album released in 2003. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "Sail Away Sweet Sister", "Coming Soon", and "Save Me" were recorded from June to July 1979. The remaining songs were recorded between February and May 1980.
Released in 1980, <i>The Game</i> finds Queen loosening up a little a bit. The group’s previous album, the playful <i>Jazz</i>, was fun—but given the option of either dashing something off, or agonising over it to the point of paralysis, the members of Queen always chose the latter. So when they managed to record “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” in four hours—an unprecedentedly short amount of time in Queenworld—and the song ended up becoming the group’s biggest American single to date, the bandmates had an epiphany: They could be quick and easy in the studio, and <i>still</i> be Queen. In a continuing effort to record internationally—a pursuit undertaken to avoid English tax collectors—Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon headed to Munich, where they hung out after recording sessions at a club called the Sugar Shack, often auditioning new tracks on the club sound system after hours. Generally, the more space a track had, the better it sounded, whether it was the weird, funky hard rock of Brian May’s “Dragon Attack” or the disco of John Deacon’s “Another One Bites the Dust”, which the band put out as a single in part because Michael Jackson suggested it (and if there’s one person you were going to listen to about pop music in 1980, it was Michael Jackson). The King of Pop was right: “Another One Bites the Dust” topped the US charts—and did so at a time when rock fans were participating in the public destruction of disco albums, making the song’s success all the more noteworthy. But it wasn’t the only departure to be found on <i>The Game</i>: After a decade of publicly swearing against synthesisers, the band members embraced the high-tech instrument on “Rock It (Prime Jive)”. The times were changing—and so were Queen.
