On The Road Again: Queen "The Miracle"

sábado, 3 de marzo de 2018

Queen "The Miracle"

The Miracle is the thirteenth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 22 May 1989 by Parlophone Records in the United Kingdom and by Capitol Records in the United States. The album was recorded as the band recovered from Brian May's marital problems and Freddie Mercury's AIDS diagnosis in 1987 (which was known to the band, though not publicised at the time). Recording started in January 1988 and lasted for an entire year. The album was originally going to be called The Invisible Men, but three weeks before the release, according to Roger Taylor, they decided to change the name to The Miracle. It was also the last album to feature a band photo with all four original members on the front cover.

The album reached #1 in the UK, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, and #24 on the US Billboard 200 chart. The Miracle is estimated to have sold 5 million copies, indicating that despite lower sales in the United States, the band had excellent numbers in the world, even without touring. Allmusic would name The Miracle as Queen's best album of the 1980s, along with The Game. It would prove to be the band's penultimate album to be recorded with Freddie Mercury, as he died in November 1991, less than a year after the next album, Innuendo, was released.

The striking cover art utilised the Quantel Paintbox, then state of the art image-manipulation technology, to combine photographs of the familiar faces of the four band members into one morphed gestalt image, in line with their decision to dispense with individual credits and simply present their music as the product of Queen; the back cover went a step further with a seamless regiment of the bands' eyes. Derek Riggs, best known for illustrating Iron Maiden covers, claims that Queen "stole" the idea for this album cover from his cover for the single The Clairvoyant. The reports that Freddie Mercury was a "headbanger", and a huge fan of "That metal stuff", may give this claim some credibility. Although the cover was well received at the time, it has appeared on several contemporary lists and websites dedicated to cataloging the 'worst album covers of all time'.

Five singles were released from the album, all in 1989:

"I Want It All" was the lead single from the album, released in the UK on 2 May; it hit #3 in the British charts but made it to #1 in numerous other European countries. The song became an anti-apartheid anthem among youth in South Africa and also has been used to protest other causes. This well-known anthem has been heard as a rallying song for African youth. The song became Queen's first American rock radio hit since "Under Pressure" by peaking at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Singles chart, but only reached #50 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.

"Breakthru", the second single, was released in the UK on 19 June; its video was filmed on a private steam train known as "The Miracle Express". The song peaked at #7 in the UK. The song was also released as a single in the US. Also appearing in the video was Debbie Leng, who was at the time Roger Taylor's girlfriend.

"The Invisible Man", released in the UK on 7 August, hit #12 in the UK and was a hit throughout Europe; the video featured scores of computer-duplicated band members moving in unison. This song was later covered by the late Scatman John.

"Scandal" was the album's fourth single, and peaked at #25 in the UK. It is a protest song about the way the tabloids dealt with May's relationship with Anita Dobson.

"The Miracle", the fifth and final single from the album, released on 27 November in the UK, reached #21 on the British charts. Its video mimicked that of "The Invisible Man" in that it featured duplicate band members; however, these were actually young Queen lookalikes (including a then-unknown Ross McCall) who performed a Queen-style stage show. The real band appeared only at the end jamming with their younger counterparts.

Track listing

All tracks credited to Queen.

Side one