News of the World is the sixth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 28 October 1977 by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States. News of the World was the band's second album to be recorded at Sarm and Wessex Sound Studios in London, and engineered by Mike Stone, and was co-produced by the band and Stone.
In 1977, punk rock acts, most notably the Sex Pistols, sparked massive backlash against progressive rock artists such as Queen, to which the band responded by simplifying their symphonic rock sound and gearing towards a more spontaneous hard rock sound. The album subsequently reached number 4 on the UK Albums Chart and number 3 on the US Top Albums chart while achieving high certifications around the world. It has sold over 4 million copies in United States.
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After completing the "A Day at the Races Tour" in June 1977, the quartet entered the studio to begin work on their sixth studio offering in July 1977, enlisting Mike Stone as assistant producer at Sarm East and Wessex studios in London. The initial activity began on 4 July when Taylor and assistant 'Crystal' Taylor arrived in a lorry at Sarm to set up his drum kit, which continued over the next two days. That Wednesday, on 6 July, the rest of the band arrived at Sarm. They did backing track takes for "It's Late".
After recording all the backing tracks, work moved to Wessex Sound, again preceded by two days dedicated to drum kit set up. The lorry arrived on 1 August, and drum kit construction would continue well into 2 August. Andy Turner, a tea boy at Wessex, recalls thinking "You're being charged £200 an hour for this!"
After taking a day off for the Summer Bank Holiday, the band went to Leighton Mans Studios and Primrose Hill Studios on 30 August, although the output of these sessions is unknown. They also spent a day at Olympic Studios on 31 August. The last documented overdubbing session was on 1 September. Mixing continued until 4 September at Wessex, during which there was a delay on 3 September due to technical issues. That day, Roger appeared on the last episode of the show "Saturday Scene". The mixes were delivered back to Sarm Studios on 5 September for mastering, which would be completed on 16 September.
thumb|upright=1.2|right|alt=Members of rock band the Sex Pistols onstage in a concert. From left to right, singer Johnny Rotten and electric guitarist Steve Jones.|Queen's shift to a harder sound occurred amidst the rise of [[punk rock acts such as the Sex Pistols. Both bands interacted with one another during the album's recording.]]
They scaled down their complex arrangements and focused on a "rootsier" sound (as Brian May put it). However, the staple of the Queen sound – multi-tracked harmonies and guitar orchestrations – still exist on this album, albeit more subtly than previously. Having received some criticism that their first completely self-produced album, A Day at the Races, was a "boring" album,
Brian May stated in an interview that "We'd already made a decision that...[after] A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, we wanted to go back to basics for News of the World. But it was very timely because the world was looking at punk and things being very stripped down. So in a sense we were conscious, but it was part of our evolution anyway."
In contrast to A Day at the Races, which had taken five months to record, only two months were booked to record at Sarm East and Wessex Sound Studios. Johnny Rotten also expressed a desire to meet with Mercury. According to Bill Price, who engineered Never Mind the Bollocks, Rotten crawled on all fours across Queen's studio to Mercury, who was playing piano, and said "Hello Freddie" before leaving.
Songs
Overview
News of the World shows Queen's songwriting less dominated by Mercury and May than previously, with Roger Taylor and John Deacon composing two songs each. It has been classified as hard rock and has been regarded as a transitional album due to its shift towards a more minimalist production. Chuck Eddy said the album was widely regarded as a "back-to-basics" offering, minimising the group's more ornate and "multi-part-epic tendencies", with some even dubbing it Queen's response to punk rock. He added, however, that the record "sounds even more often like a response to funk", citing "Fight from the Inside" and "Get Down, Make Love", as well as the "proto-rap sparseness" of "We Will Rock You".
Side one
"We Will Rock You"
"We Will Rock You" () was released as the B-side of "We Are the Champions", and became one of Queen's biggest songs worldwide as a staple of arena and stadium sets. It was a conscious decision by Brian May to make the song simple and anthemic ('stomp, stomp, clap, pause' per 4/4 measure), so that their live audience could be more directly involved in the show. In the videos for 'We Will Rock You' and 'Spread Your Wings', which shows the band performing in the snow in Roger Taylor's garden, May used a copy of his guitar. He supposedly did not want to submit his Red Special to the weather.
On 7 October 2017, Queen released a Raw Sessions version of the track to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of News of the World. It shows a radically different approach to the guitar solo and includes May's count-in immediately prior to the recording.
"We Are the Champions"
thumb|right|The music video for "We Are the Champions" was shot at the [[Gillian Lynne Theatre|New London Theatre.]]
According to Freddie Mercury, "We Are the Champions" had already been written in 1975 but was not recorded until 1977. Released as a single with "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions" reached number two in the UK and number four in the US. "We Are the Champions" was the first promotional video for which fan club members were invited to participate in the filming. The video was filmed at the New London Theatre on 6 October 1977. Everyone received a free single of "We Are the Champions", a day before the single was released. To thank the audience for their attendance and role in making the video, Queen performed a short free concert after the shoot. It is one of the band's most popular songs.
On 7 October 2017, Queen released a Raw Sessions version of the track to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of News of the World. It was made from previously unheard vocal and instrumental takes from the original multi-track tapes. It also presents for the first time the original recorded length of the track, which is two choruses more than the 1977 edited single. According to Eddy, the song is the "most punk-sounding" Queen song, highlighting its "proto-no-wave guitar solo and proto-Devo lyrics blaming teenage angst on D.N.A. (i.e., nature not nurture)", and the "toppling-over-itself tempo" later reprised by Prince's "own punkest song" "Sister" (1980). with Mercury on backing vocals. In an episode of In the Studio with Redbeard, May confirmed rumours that the song is partly inspired by the death of his boyhood pet cat.
On 27 October 2017, in celebration of the album's 40th Anniversary, Queen released a specially created "hybrid version" of the track with previously unheard lead vocals by Mercury. It was accompanied with an animated lyric video of a cat exploring a place that is later revealed to be the inside of the robot of the album cover lying motionless in a field.
"Spread Your Wings"
"Spread Your Wings" was written by bassist John Deacon. The piano is played by Mercury, although Deacon mimes it in the music video. The video was filmed in the back garden of Taylor's then house, when the weather was freezing, and the band performed in the snow. Mercury can be seen wearing star-shaped sunglasses in the video. May is seen playing a copy of his Red Special, owing to the cold weather conditions.
"Fight from the Inside"
"Fight from the Inside" was written and sung by Taylor. In addition to the drums, he also plays rhythm guitar and bass guitar; for the latter he borrowed Deacon's instrument. It is also one of the few songs in the band's discography recorded almost entirely by one member.
Guitarist Slash has cited the guitar riff to this song as one of his favourite riffs of all time.
Side two
"Get Down, Make Love"
thumb|"Get Down, Make Love" makes use of an [[Eventide H910 Harmonizer|Eventide Harmonizer for its "psychedelic" sound effects.]]
"Get Down, Make Love", written by Mercury, is among the most sexually oriented songs in the Queen catalogue. Eddy calls it one of the album's funkier tracks, with a "proto-industrial-music perviness" which eventually morph into "sex-moaning psychedelic spaces" that constitute a form of 'dub-metal' comparable to similar parts of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". but May has cast doubt on the authenticity of this, though has confirmed the first take of the backing track was used.
"Who Needs You"
"Who Needs You" was a song written by Deacon, who, along with May, plays Spanish guitar. Mercury's lead vocal is entirely panned on the right audio channel while the lead guitar is on the left channel. May also plays maracas and Mercury plays a cowbell. It has been described as a "tentative reggae homage", albeit with "Spanish rather than Jamaican guitars". Freas said he was a classical music fan and did not know Queen, and only listened to the band after doing the cover "because I thought I might just hate them, and it would ruin my ideas", but eventually liked their music.
Release
Singles
- "We Are the Champions" was released as the first single from the album on 7 October 1977 in the UK, where it reached number 2. In the US it reached number 4.
- "Spread Your Wings" followed as the second single. Released in the UK on 10 February 1978, it reached number 34.
- "It's Late" is the last single from the album; it was released in 1978, and only in the US, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. It only reached number 74 in the US, failing to chart everywhere else.
Tour
The News of the World Tour was a concert tour by Queen to promote the album. Queen played 26 shows in North America and 21 in Europe, beginning on 11 November 1977 in Portland, United States and concluding the tour on 13 May 1978 in London.
Re-issues
In May 2011, a remastered and expanded reissue of the album was released. This was part of a new record deal between Queen and Universal Music, which meant Queen's association with EMI Records would come to an end after almost 40 years. According to Universal Music, all Queen albums would be remastered and reissued in 2011. This reissue included a deluxe edition which contains five additional tracks. The second batch of albums (the band's middle five albums) was released in June 2011.
On 4 September 2017, Queen released a multi-format deluxe boxset marking the 40th anniversary of the album's original issue by the Virgin EMI label. The set contains previously unreleased outtakes and rarities from the band's archives, in the form of a newly created "alternative" version of the entire album, dubbed Raw Sessions. The boxset also includes a pure analogue vinyl LP, cut from the original analogue master mix tapes, and a brand new one-hour DVD documentary created from backstage material filmed during the North American leg of Queen's 1977 News of the World Tour.
In promotion of the anniversary release, on 6 October Queen released the previously unheard Raw Sessions of "We Are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You".
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News of the World initially received mixed reviews, mostly reflecting on the album's shift towards a more minimalist sound, and away from the band's previous predominantly progressive rock sound. The Washington Post commended the band's experimentation within a range of hard rock to soft rock, while Rolling Stone magazine's Bart Testa noted, "Most of the songs on News of the World either challenge Queen's artistic enemies or endeavor to establish a vision of the new order." He further dismissed the album as "the salient fictions of which today's Top Ten albums are made."
The Daily Mirror hailed it as the "most intriguing Queen album since their finest, Sheer Heart Attack," commenting that "whether all the obvious tension within the band will spur them on, or simply pull them apart, remains to be seen." Although Sounds dismissed side one as "foreboding", they reacted positively to side two, particularly praising "My Melancholy Blues". BBC Music's Daryl Easlea said that the album is an exceptional showcase of "Queen's unerring ability to sound absolutely like no-other group – even when parodying other musical styles". Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune gave the album a generally positive rating, and observed that Queen had "ventured deeper into stadium rock",
The 40th anniversary release prompted several more reviews, with David Chiu of The Quietus calling it "a work that had swagger and attitude", while Christopher Thelen of the Daily Vault praised it for being "the best mixture of musical styles they had ever achieved" and Queen's "creative peak". In 2012, the TV show Family Guy dedicated an episode plot line to the album cover, in which the character Stewie Griffin is frightened of the cover. Show creator Seth MacFarlane stated that it was based on his own fear of the cover when he was a child.
Marvel paid tribute to News of the World on a variant cover of X-Men Gold #11. The cover, by artist Mike del Mundo, depicts a Sentinel holding Old Man Logan and Kitty Pryde as Colossus plummets to the ground; the subtitle "This Is Their World" is above the image. For London Comic Con 2017, Marvel and Queen released a limited-edition vinyl pressing of the album with the X-Men cover on one side and the original on the other.
The giant robot from the album cover, also known as "Frank", was used as a special effect during the songs "We Will Rock You" and "Killer Queen" for the 2017–18 Queen + Adam Lambert Tour, which was in celebration of the album's 40th anniversary.
Track listing
All lead vocals by Freddie Mercury unless noted.
Original release
40th anniversary edition
The multi-format deluxe box set, released in 2017, contains previously unreleased outtakes and rarities from the band's archives, as well as a newly created "alternative" version of the entire album, dubbed Raw Sessions. The box set includes a pure analogue vinyl LP, cut from the original analogue master mix tapes, and a brand new one-hour DVD documentary created from backstage material filmed during the North American leg of Queen's 1977 News of the World tour.
Personnel
Information is based on the album's liner notes<br/>Track numbering refers to CD and digital releases of the album.
;Queen
- Freddie Mercury – vocals, piano; hand claps and foot stamping , cowbell
- Brian May – electric guitar , backing vocals; lead vocals , acoustic guitar , piano ,
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Year-end charts
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Certifications
References
External links
- Queen official website: Discography: News of the World: includes lyrics of all non-bonus tracks except "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions", "Sheer Heart Attack", "It's Late".
- Lyrics of "We Will Rock You", "Sheer Heart Attack", "It's Late" at Queen official website (from Queen Rocks)
- Lyrics of "We Are the Champions" from Live Magic version (first verse, chorus) at Queen official website
- Official YouTube videos: Video Competition winner, Live at The Bowl