The Game

The Game, Queen's eighth album, was made entirely at Musicland Studios in Munich. Most of it was cut between February and May 1980, but four songs, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "Save Me", "Coming Soon" and "Sail Away Sweet Sister", were largely finished in June and July 1979, making it the first Queen album recorded in two separate sessions. They co-produced it with Reinhold Mack, an engineer at the studio, their first work together. Dropping a stance held through the 1970s, Queen used a synthesizer for the first time and said so in the credits. The opener, "Play the Game", begins with a synthesizer played by Freddie Mercury. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", a rockabilly song Mercury conceived in the bath at his Munich hotel, has him on acoustic guitar; Mack recalled the track taking about six hours, with Brian May playing the solo on a Telecaster. John Deacon's "Another One Bites the Dust" is built on a bass line in the vein of Chic and became his first No. 1. The video for May's "Save Me" was the first Queen promo to use animation. Also here are May's heavy "Dragon Attack", Deacon's "Need Your Loving Tonight", with him on acoustic guitar, "Rock It (Prime Jive)", passing from Mercury's introduction to Roger Taylor's lead vocal, and "Sail Away Sweet Sister", sung by May bar one verse. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" came out in Britain on 5 October 1979 and reached No. 2, then gave Queen their first American No. 1; "Save Me" reached No. 11 in January 1980, and "Play the Game" (30 May) reached No. 14. EMI released the album in Britain on 30 June 1980. It spent two weeks at No. 1 there and five atop the Billboard chart, becoming Queen's first American No. 1 album and their first to top both countries. "Another One Bites the Dust", out in Britain on 22 August, reached No. 7 there and spent three weeks at No. 1 in America. The RIAA certified the album platinum in October 1980 and four times platinum in 2002; it became the band's biggest seller in the United States. In Japan it came out in July 1980 and reached No. 5.