Hot Space

Queen's tenth studio album came about a year and a half after Flash Gordon. After their South American tour the band went into Mountain Studios in Montreux, which they had recently bought, and recorded there and at Musicland in Munich between September 1981 and March 1982. Queen and Mack produced it, and Mack engineered with David Richards, who would work with the band up to their last album. With "Another One Bites the Dust" a No. 1 in America behind them, they took the disco and funk path much further, bringing in horns, synth bass and drum machines. Freddie Mercury's "Staying Power" has a horn arrangement by Arif Mardin. John Deacon wanted "Back Chat" sleek and minimal, and the compromise was a guitar solo from Brian May. Mercury's "Body Language" runs on synth bass, and on Roger Taylor's "Action This Day" Mack plays a synthesized sax solo, while May's "Dancer" and "Put Out the Fire" carry some of the most aggressive guitar on any Queen album. Mercury's "Life Is Real (Song for Lennon)" is a tribute to John Lennon, and May's "Las Palabras de Amor (The Words of Love)" brings in Spanish for the band's South American audience. The closing "Under Pressure" began in Montreux in July 1981, when David Bowie met the band at David Richards's suggestion and a jam ran late into the night around Deacon's bass line. Released as a single that October, it went to No. 1 in Britain. The sleeve, Mercury's idea, splits the four members into quarters in the manner of an Andy Warhol screen print. EMI released the album in Britain in early May 1982. It reached No. 4 in Britain and No. 22 in America, and went gold in both; "Body Language" reached No. 11 in America and "Las Palabras de Amor" No. 17 in Britain. Fans who preferred the heavier Queen were less taken with it, but it reached No. 6 in Japan, where the band played six shows in five cities in October and November 1982, ending at the Seibu Lions Stadium on 3 November. The current Japanese CD is the SHM-CD UICY-15074.