Queen - A Day at the Races (1976)

Tracklist:
1. Tie Your Mother Down
2. You Take My Breath Away
3. Long Away
4. The Millionaire Waltz
5. You and I
6. Somebody to Love
7. White Man
8. Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy
9. Drowse
10. Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)


I like the races – 9/10

The fifth album of rock legends Queen, A Day at the Races, is a bit of a departure from their old-school style. Where every album from Queen II to A Night at the Opera was a bit more bombastic and featured clear progressive influences, ADATR is a bit more straightforward and features more gentle songs. It’s also the first of the second wave of types of Queen-albums in terms of musical style. This doesn’t exclude similarities with previous efforts, but it’s certainly different.

This release does not highlight the idea of a change immediately with the hard rocking “Tie Your Mother Down” as the first track. A great hard rock riff with clear high-pitched vocals by Mercury is undoubtedly Queen in the vein of “Death on Two Legs” or “Ogre Battle”. To this day the song is a preferred classic and always was a good stage song. A song like “White Man” also pretends we’re still in 1975 with its classic hard rock and Queen trademark effects. The change is more in the other tracks such as “You Take My Breath Away” or “The Millionaire Waltz”. Both are much more displaying a pop atmosphere, being silent ballads, and rely more on the lead vocals and piano than on the guitars and choirs. “Long Away” is a May-styled acoustic rock track in the vein of “’39” and “Some Day One Day”, but blends in quite nicely with the new-style songs. “The Millionaire Waltz” is a catchy waltz-styled pop track with an unnecessary yet enjoyable rock part in the middle. The highlight is undoubtedly May’s great solo. Another new-styled track is the Deacon-penned “You and I”, which is a swinging song.

Possibly an attempt at topping “Bohemian Rhapsody” is “Somebody to Love”, with hints at some gospel-influences with its use of the Queen choir. It’s very piano-based and quite epic, understandably one of their bigger hits. While Queen introduced sloppy funny songs with Sheer Heart Attack’s “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” they managed to put one on A Night at the Opera that actually was enjoyable, and they did it again here with “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy”. The song has a light touch to it and a swift, slightly funny, atmosphere throughout, yet manages to be musically challenging, which is the innovative aspect of this track. Again the choirs are heavy on this track, but choirs will always be a part of Queen, since they have three vocalists and all want to and deserve to sing. They always take good advantage of it. Roger Taylor wrote a track as well with “Drowse” but somehow is slightly beside the mark with this one. It’s an unnoted track that just passes by without being really noticed. The theme is semi-catchy and all, but shows much similarity with unintended lullabies, yet is beautiful, in a way. The thing is, this is the first time we hear Taylor sing a ballad, and I like it, but I prefer him on the rock songs like “I’m in Love with my Car”. The conclusion to A Day at the Races is splendid in the epic shape of “Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together)”, with a chorus sung in Japanese. It’s one of the best album closers by Queen and is epic throughout, with solely piano and vocals in the verses, accompanied by some rare bass lines and then the epic chorus begins, first in English, later in Japanese.

The biggest change is less progressive influences. Though the experimenting is far from over, there is no “The Prophet’s Song” or “The March of the Black Queen” here, nor anything like it. This does not lessen the album quality; they replaced one good aspect with another and thus give us something different to chew on, which is a very good decision for any band to do. A Day at the Races turned out to be one of my favorite Queen albums, and even beats the somewhat unstable Opera-album. If people would ask, I would definitely recommend A Day at the Races.

Strongest tracks: “Long Away”, “You and I”, “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” and “Teo Torriate”.