08-06-1982 – Detroit Free Press
KING’S RANSOM VARIETY BRINGS THE BIG MONEY TO QUEEN
Queen and Billy Squier will perform at 8 tonight at Joe Louis Arena. Call 567-9824 anytime.
Queen can never be accused of playing formula rock.
Its flamboyant stage shows have been called indulgent, and detractors have knocked the band’s image of a wild life – style filled with parties and profit. But any tried-and-true chemistry used for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” or “We Will Rock You,” is hidden well within an eclectic repertoire of heavy metal , pop and rhythm and blues.
The variety rests with the songwriters. Bassist John Deacon penned both the poppy “You’re My Best Friend” and the psuedo-rap number, “Another One Bites the Dust.” Guitarist Brian May’s song credits for the British quartet include ballads like “39” and a lot of heavy rock ‘n’ roll.
Drummer Roger Taylor, author of Queen’s latest single, “Calling All Girls,” is the most consistent writer, but he’s hardly redundant. The single — a smooth, hypnotic pop song — still fits into the straight rock course he’s forged with harder numbers like “The Loser in the End” and “I’m in Love With My Car.”
“SOMETIMES I wish that would’ve been a single in its time,” Taylor said of the latter song. “Of course, I made just as much money on it. It was the backside of ” Bohemian Rhapsody, ” so I probably made more money that way.”
He might make even more with “Calling All Girls,” his first song released as a single. Taylor isn’t expecting a showing like the operatic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but he and the band hope their new song fares better than “Body Language,” the first single from the latest album, “Hot Space.” That song made only a minor dent in the charts and dropped off the Billboard Hot 100 after a short 14-week stay.
Taylor’s single isn’t exactly burning the charts (it entered at No. 83), but it did pop to No. 73 with a thumbs-up for future success in its second week.
“I never really tried to write a single. We don’t sit down to write singles,” Taylor said. “You never know what’s going to be a hit. The new album . . . people thought it was all rhythm and blues. This should surprise them.”
It may also bring back a few longtime fans turned off by Queen’s forays into R&B and seeking a return to the hard rock that characterized the earliest albums. Lest we forget, 10 years ago Queen was a heavy-metal quartet churning away at songs like “Keep Yourself Alive,” “Father and Son” and “Brighton Rock.”
ALL THAT TIME, Queen showed a knack for vocal harmonies and lighter pop, and that style finally spawned a hit with “Killer Queen.” It was the beginning of a platinum spree — cataloged on last winter’s “Greatest Hits” — as Queen moved from pop to psuedo-operatic numbers like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Somebody to Love” to ragtime with “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and finally to No. 1 on black and general interest music charts with “Another One Bites the Dust.”
R&B numbers like “Body Language,” “Staying Power” and “Under Pressure” are prominent on “Hot Space,” but the album also houses the usual variety and a strong rocker in “Put Out the Fire.” It’s another can’t-please-everyone proposition — in fact, it’s Queen’s slowest selling album since “Queen II” — but Taylor didn’t seem fazed.
“We have to do what keeps our interest up,” he said. “We never tried to pander to what we feel people want. A lot of people want to hear rehashes of what they liked in the past, but that would be death for us. That’s really unfair , because we have changed a lot.
“We seem to have adapted to the style onstage; people would get completely annoyed if we played only new stuff. We still rock out onstage, really.”
Though he says the funk/R&B material Deacon and singer Freddie Mercury are writing is making him more money, Taylor is ambivalent about that kind of style.
“IT’S NOT really my sort of thing,” he said. ” “Another One Bites the Dust’ was the biggest we’ve had, but it was so un- me, something I really wouldn’t have thought about doing. It was a big hit, so it was great, thank you — I made money.”
Chances are , he’ll only get richer in coming years. “The Game,” the 1980 studio album, was a commercial zenith. “Greatest Hits” remains a strong seller and in time, with the support of the tour, “Hot Space” probably will sell its million copies. That’s plenty of encouragement for Taylor.
“There’s no grand overall master plan; we just have no intention of stopping,” he said. “We know we intend to keep working together for as long as we’re still interested. It’s nice to go forward if you can.”
