02-17-1991 – Innuendo – Dallas Morning News

Queen’s `Innuendo’ album shows why the band lost favor

Although never a critical favorite, Queen was monstrously successful through the ’70s and early ’80s. When the last gasps of the band’s popular support were spent (by 1984), Queen became one of those dismissed but emblematic groups that people cite when recalling just how silly and excessive rock ‘n’ roll can get.

Which, of course, makes Queen the ideal candidate for revival by young musicians in search of ’70s icons to appropriate with that peculiarly ’90s combination of irony and reverence. Everyone from Vanilla Ice (who freely “borrowed’ from the band’s Under Pressure duet with David Bowie) to Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor (who has made Get Down, Make Love a part of his repertoire) has a new-found appreciation of the band’s work.

So Queen’s third album since its albums stopped going gold (The Works being the last) is attracting the type of attention the band hasn’t experienced in quite a while. Unfortunately, Innuendo does little more than serve as a reminder of why interest waned. The theatrical pomposity of Freddie Mercury’s over tracked vocals, the metallic noodlings of Brian May’s guitar, the operatically sprawling arrangements, the lyrical twaddle, all the signifying extravagances of the Queen sound remain inta ct and omnipresent through songs like the title track (which comes complete with a “Wandering Minstrel Spanish Guitar’ break courtesy of former Yes-man Steve Howe).

At the center is the breathy cooing of Mr. Mercury. If he isn’t singing a love song to his cat (highlighted by Mr. May’s meowing, cat-scratch guitar), he is burbling on that I’m Going Slightly Mad. The band can work up some undiluted momentum (as on The Hitman), but the relentlessly anthemic grandiosity of Queen’s approach generates all the passion and intensity of a Flash Gordon sequel.