February
4th marks the 30th anniversary of Queen's final studio album completed
before the passing of Freddie Mercury, released on this day in 1991.
While the band would cobble together one more album to feature their
late front man from unfinished sessions recorded prior to his death,
Innuendo was the final album to be totally completed with Freddie's full
participation.
Back in 1991, I was about as far away from my
Queen fandom days as I could get. It was a time of Acid House and
Techno, and Queen, for me, was a relic of my high school days and I
hadn't listened to them for years. As such, the news of Mercury's death
in November of 1991 came completely out of the blue. I hadn't payed
any attention to the band's career in some time, so I had no idea about
the rumors of his ill health or the cause of it. Suddenly I was seeing
Brian, Roger and John on the news attending funeral services and it
didn't seem quite real. It felt like a part of my youth had suddenly
been ripped away. Though I wasn't listening to their music, I was
struck with a sharp recognition of the loss that had occurred.
It
would be years later when I'd start to reconnect with Queen's music.
As the 21st century dawned, my musical tastes matured and expanded and I
began the process of reassessing the music I'd loved in my past and why
I loved it. It wasn't long before I rediscovered Queen and developed a
fresh appreciation for their achievements and talents. However, that
newfound admiration didn't initially extend to the music that was
produced after my initial fandom had faded. I stuck close to their
1970s albums and my interest dropped off after The Game.
It's
only in the last few years, maybe the last 5 or so, that I've begun to
warm to some of their albums of the 1980s up to their swansong of Made
In Heaven. Albums like Hot Space, which I initially looked upon as a
joke, now find keen favor in my listening habits and even just the other
day, as I put on Innuendo in anticipation of its anniversary, I found
myself taken aback as I heard aspects of it that had never struck me
before.
Listening to this album now, I'm first struck the the
strength of Freddie's singing. There was only one point where I
detected only a minor weakness in it and only for a split second. The
fact that Freddie chose to belt out so many heavy rockers rather than
take it easy with less demanding soft ballads speaks to his dedication.
The man knew for some years that he was on borrowed time. He could
have chosen to spend that time doing any number of things, but he chose
to focus on the work. All he wanted to do was leave as much behind as
possible. He insisted that the rest of the band help him plow through
these years, giving him as many songs to sing as they could. It was an
Olympian effort as there were days he could barely get out of bed. Yet
he'd get to the studio whenever he could and just belt it out like
nothing was wrong.
You can hear that determination in these
song, but not the strain. He sounds confident and powerful and capable
and you'd never know he was spiraling down into his own mortal coil.
Seeing the videos from this album is a shocking revelation of that
disparity. On screen, you can see the frailty and the fading of his
visage. The most heartbreaking of all is the video for These Are the
Days of Our Lives. I can't watch it without getting choked up. You can
see he's saying goodbye and you can see how much love he had for his
audience. Despite his obviously compromised physical presence, his
dignity and joy are resonant and you know the only thing he's regretting
is that it's too soon to go.
There's a lot of good music on
this album in the end. It rocks surprisingly harder than a lot of their
albums from this era. How he managed to muster up the energy to do
that is a bit of the magic that made him who he was. It's a good way to
go out, I think.
