In 1992, Queen's Hot Space was the last studio album I needed to complete a full collection from the band, and when I got it, I was mortified. My ears simply couldn't process what they were hearing. What was this Discoteca sound that was assaulting my ears? Why did it keep reminding me of the Blue Oyster Bar from Police Academy?
Turns out, I wasn't alone in that thought. Fans of Queen point the finger in all sorts of directions. Paul Prenter, Freddie Mercury's personal manager at the time, gets the majority of the blame. He is cited as consistently manipulating Mercury, pushing him to create an album that would be heard in gay bars.
However, John Deacon's hand's are far from clean in this matter. The bassist is infamously known as the band member who pushed for synthesizers to be used on the group's records. This was something the band was so adamantly against that pre-1980 albums proudly stated, "No synthesizers" on the liner notes.
Throw on top of this all the members filling their free time with drugs, alcohol, and non-stop partying, which led to an excessive recording period of the album, and you can see how we got to Hot Space from prior albums. It's panned by fans and critics alike as one of the worst Queen albums of all time. I think Flash Gordon, their misguided soundtrack from 1980, is the only one regarded as worse.
Me personally, I was coming into this one after hearing every other album they had released to date, barring the yet to be released Made In Heaven (1995). I begged my dad on a trip to my grandfather's house to buy it for me, and in a rare moment from him, he actually did. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that mentally this album was poised to be important to me. Not only was it the final one I needed, but I got my dad to buy it for me on a random day just by asking. Then it sucked! Badly!
I remember putting my headphones in, and firing up my portable disc player. As Staying Power started up, I immediately thought, "What the crap is this?" I don't think I even made it through the song in its entirety before skipping to the next one, Dancer. Things didn't get better, and from there I skipped and skipped through each track within seconds. It wasn't until the last track, Under Pressure, a song I had heard before on live albums and greatest hits, that I finally listened to one song from start to finish.
I was mortified. I was disappointed. Dang it, I was angry! This was Hot Space? This was the last Queen album that I begged my dad to buy, and was so excited to receive? I couldn't believe it. Had this been the first Queen album I ever heard, it would have been the last.
This album sat forever on the shelf as the one Queen album I avoided like the plague. Mind you, I was very fond of Flash Gordon, so that was saying something. To me, Hot Space was nothing more than a space holder between The Game (1980) and The Works (1984). A check mark on my completion list, but always a blemish on the career of what I considered my favorite band of all time. I can certainly understand where the critical reception came from back in 1982. I was right there a decade later feeling the same shock.
As the years went by, and I grew older, I made it a point one week
(or two) to listen to every Queen album back to back in chronological
order from start to finish during my drives to and from work. With this,
I forced myself to give Hot Space a playthrough just to be able to say I
did what I set out to do. Believe it or not, it grew on me, and I actually found an appreciation
for it. Even now, as I listen to it again for this post, I'm bobbing my
head to Body Language. It helps that I know where the album came from,
and can appreciate it as something different from the band. If nothing
else, it definitely has a unique sound. If you can get past the overall
shock of it, the tracks are still solid, and I can honestly say that I
like Hot Space these days. To me, it's just as good as any other album
from Queen.
So, there you go. Even this story has a happy ending.
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