Queen: The Game [HOLLYWOOD]

Why you'll love it

Miles Showell half-speed mastered this reissue at Abbey Road Studios, and it's pressed on 180g vinyl. The Game was Queen's one US No. 1 album and remains their best-selling studio record in America, with four million copies sold.

This edition

• Half-speed mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road
• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in Canada
• Remastered
• Stereo mix

About the album

For years Queen albums carried a proud little note saying no synthesizers were used. Then they went to Munich, met producer Mack and an Oberheim OB-X, and the note quietly disappeared. "Play The Game" opens with a swoosh of synth, and the whole record leans leaner, punchier and more pop than anything they'd done.

Freddie Mercury's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is a rockabilly tribute that became their first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, and John Deacon's "Another One Bites The Dust" rides a funk bassline all the way to their second. Brian May brings the power ballad "Save Me" and the riff-heavy "Dragon Attack," Roger Taylor sings his own "Rock It (Prime Jive)," and "Sail Away Sweet Sister" gives May a rare lead vocal, while Deacon's "Need Your Loving Tonight" is bright, chiming pop.

Queen recorded it at Musicland in Munich with Mack co-producing and engineering. Forty-odd years on, that bassline still turns up at every hockey arena in the country, and the Zamboni drivers have never once complained.

Also at Kops: more Queen on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Hollywood Records (cat# D002946201), a reissue of the 1980 album.