December 10, 1976 - A Day At The Races

Just two days since my last release and a year after "A Night At The Opera", Queen released their fifth album "A Day At The Races" on December 10, 1976. This would be Queen's first album produced by the band alone as Roy Thomas Baker is no longer around. With the amount of overdubbing these guys do, I'm not surprised that they know their way around the studio well enough to produce themselves. Their last album was a huge success and this one is a companion to it as both have similar album covers and are both titles of Marx brothers films. Let's dive right in!

The album kicks off with "Tie Your Mother Down" which opens with a gong followed by a slow, epic guitar opening by Brian May. This slowly builds up and then segues into the main riff which is led by some faster May guitar. Freddie Mercury starts singing the first verse and his splendid voice sounds great as it always does. May and Roger Taylor sing the name of the song in the chorus while Mercury continues his own thing. It's a pretty catchy song and once you know the lyrics you can't help but sing along, a mark of a good Queen song. After another solid verse and chorus May takes off for a guitar solo that isn't especially flashy, but it fits the mood very well and sounds pretty good. After the solo they do one last chorus where Mercury turns it up a bit on vocals before they jam out to the end. Taylor plays a nice little drum fill before a pretty good rock and roll flourish finally brings this cool opener to a close. Up next is the much softer "You Take My Breath Away" which opens with just Mercury oohing at first, but we quickly hear A LOT of vocal overdubs as Queen make it sound like there is over a dozen people singing exactly in tune! It gives a pretty cool effect and they go back and forth between just Mercury and all the overdubbed voices. Freddie plays pretty much the only instrument for most of the song as he plays some beautiful slow piano. He sings along beautifully as well as he has one of the best voices you'll ever hear. He does a fantastic job carrying this slow, epic song and we also hear a cool overdubbed guitar solo by May. The song seems to come to an end, only for them to do a strange-sounding overdubbed fade-in. This is a unique song for sure and although it's clearly not a headbanger, I liked it and thought they did a great job. Track 3 is "Long Away" with May singing lead vocals on this song. As I always say, May sounds like Mercury-lite: he's a decent singer for sure but Mercury could've done the same thing and it would've sounded even better! May leads the music as well with a cool soft guitar riff and I really like John Deacon's bass on this song. It's a solid light rock riff and Mercury sings backing vocals to give it that real Queen feel. It's a decent little song but not one of their best. Mercury is back on lead vocals for "The Millionaire Waltz" and he's also playing some great piano to open this one. His singing is spectacular and May and Taylor's backing vocals sound pretty great as well. Mercury is one of a kind with his wonderful singing and piano playing that carries yet another cool song. May plays some nice slow guitar as well and they speed it up as he switches to some pretty epic electric guitar. It's a well done change of pace, but it's a short part as they move into the waltz guitar solo, something I never thought I would say! Mercury keeps pace with his waltzing piano as May plays a pretty cool solo overtop. After this cool solo it gets very slow again for a bit before epicly ramping back up! There's a lot more overdubs in this section as it sounds like there are several Queen's singing and playing trippy things. You wouldn't think a waltz would fit well with rock music, but Queen have proved that it can work! The side ends with "You And I", a Deacon-written song led by a nice piano riff by Mercury. Deacon's bass is pretty cool as well and Taylor plays some nice drums in the opening as well. Mercury sings softly along to this kind of tame riff which May spices up a bit with his guitar. It's not their best effort again, but it's a pretty cool rock song and May plays a decent guitar solo. This love song wasn't nearly as good as "You're My Best Friend", Deacon's song from last album, but it was a decent way to end this first side.

Side two begins with "Somebody To Love" which would end up being a very successful single. May and Taylor do a lot of backing vocals in this song as they compliment Mercury's lead vocals and go back and forth with him. Freddie plays some great piano as well that carries the verses as we hear lots of great singing from all three guys. Mercury hits all kinds of great extended notes and May delivers a pretty cool guitar solo between the second and third verses. After another verse it gets very quiet as May and Taylor slowly build up a "find me somebody to love" part that gets louder and higher culminating in Mercury hitting a very, very high note! They slowly jam out the chorus with Mercury adding lots of excellent ramblings to the end of this pretty cool song. The next song is "White Man" which opens with some slow, but epic sounding guitar by May. Mercury sings lightly along at first before Taylor's drums cue a heavier main riff. May's guitar sounds pretty great and Taylor's drums are solid as well in this cool hard rock riff as Mercury sings about the arrival of European settlers to North America, from the point of view of the natives. I like this pretty heavy riff and they continue to jam it out instead of a true solo as we hear May and Taylor both playing some cool stuff. They play one final verse and chorus and they end it as it began, slowing it down for an epic closing. Track 8 is "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" and Mercury opens with a cool piano riff and some more wonderful singing. May and Taylor feature heavily once again in this song that has lots of great piano playing by Mercury. May adds bits of nice guitar, including a nice little solo and this is another pretty solid tune, the shortest one on the album at under three minutes. Up next is "Drowse", written and sung by Taylor, who plays rhythm guitar in addition to his drumming. May leads the way with some nice electric guitar as Taylor plays acoustic in this slow rock jam. Taylor's voice doesn't sound that great I think and it's much different than his previous very high-pitched offerings. He sounds a bit more like himself on the second half of the song but this song is very laid-back and relaxed and doesn't really grab your attention. It's alright, but nothing special. The album ends with "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)" which May wrote as a tribute to Queen's Japanese fans. Mercury plays piano and May plays harmonium as they sync up for a cool opening riff. Mercury's singing sounds so epic and Deacon adds some cool bass to this interesting riff. It moves into the piano-led chorus that sounds almost like a hymn and they then repeat the whole chorus in Japanese! It sounds almost the same, which is pretty cool as it fits the same melody. The second verse has some epic harmonium from May that sounds pretty dark, then it's back for another Japanese chorus. We hear the English one again and it sounds as if a whole crowd is singing along there's so many overdubs! This song would be great for live shows, but it's a little slow and sappy for me. When the song seems over, we hear the same epic building guitar riff that started the album and was before "Tie Your Mother Down". This gives the effect of a constant loop as this would lead right back into the beginning of the album, pretty crazy!

That is the end of "A Day At The Races" and I thought it was a good album, but not a great one. There are some great highs and great lows but there were a few songs on this album that just seemed alright. I thought it was a big step down from the album it's supposedly paired with, which was overflowing with awesome stuff. I don't think at any point on this album I was really wowed, which is a little disappointing. But how does it compare to their other albums? I previously had "Queen" as their least good album (none of them are bad by any means) but I enjoyed their progressive beginnings more than this latest album. Following up their best album with their worst one yet is a huge step down for Queen, but they clearly still have what it takes. I hope they ramp the awesomeness back up for their next album!