QUEEN - JAZZ @ 45

 

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the seventh studio LP from Queen, Jazz, which was released on November 10th, 1978. While it was a commercial success at the time, it followed a pattern of ups and downs for the group throughout the decade, being viciously ridiculed by critics at the time of its release, though radically reassessed in later years in the wake of Freddie Mercury's passing.

Though Queen's rise to superstardom was initially a continuous trajectory upward, after the breakout success of Bohemian Rhapsody and A Night at the Opera in 1975, the band began to suffer through an oscillation of expectations. They continued so sell millions of records, but the persistent expectation to exceed past successes meant they were constantly unfairly dismissed if a record didn't, in some tangible way, seem to surpass what had come before. It's an impossible position to be in as a band. After Rhapsody, A Day at the Races, was met with mixed reviews and suspicion, until News of the World came along the following year and blasted away all the doubts that critics had been pelting the band with, but then Jazz came along and the press seized at the opportunity to feast on the band's flesh anew. Of course, The Game followed next and knocked everyone sideways before the band fell afoul AGAIN with Hot Space. And on it went...

When it came time to record Jazz, the band were staring down the barrel of massive tax bills in the UK, which meant that recording at home simply wasn't economically feasible. They had to scramble to avoid being crushed by the taxman and initially opted to record in France as an alternative. It was while they were attending the nearby Montreux Jazz Festival, likely the inspiration for the album's title, that fate would have them run into David Bowie, who was recording Lodger at Mountain Studios. Bowie recommended the band relocate to that studio and they were impressed enough with the facility that they moved operations there in July, the day after the jazz festival's completion. In fact, they liked it enough that the band would eventually buy the studio and make it their permanent base of operations going forward. On July 19, Brian May's birthday, the band attended the 18th stage of the 1978 Tour de France, which inspired Freddie Mercury to write the lead single, "Bicycle Race". They spent a total of about three weeks in Mountain Studios, only taking a few days off for Roger's birthday on the 26th, when they allegedly trashed a Montreux hotel. Mercury was reportedly seen swinging on a cut-glass chandelier in the hotel during the party! After wrapping up in Montreux, they returned to France to finish off overdubs before sending the mixes to New York for mastering.

For the packaging of the album, Roger suggested the minimalist disc graphic he'd spotted as graffiti on the Berlin Wall. The internal gate-fold photo showed a wide angle shot of the band's gear displayed in Mountain Studio. With Bicycle Race and Fat Bottom Girls picked as the premier double A single for the album, the band concocted a promotional event held at Wembley Stadium in the UK. They staged a nude female bicycle race that would provide images for the poster, included with early pressings of the LP, and the single's sleeve, although they had to paint on bikini bottoms to avoid protests for the single cover. There are also reports that Halford's, who supplied the bicycles on loan, hit Queen with a bill to replace all the seats due to "improper" use. Though the band saw it all as a bit of "cheeky" fun, they came under fire for their objectifying of women. Critic Dave Marsh wrote in his review in Rolling Stone, "Fat Bottomed Girls" treated women "not as sex objects but as objects, period (the way the band regards people in general)", and finished by famously tagging Queen "the first truly fascist rock band".

Most other contemporary reviews of the album were similarly disparaging. Mitchell Cohen of CREEM called Jazz "absurdly dull" and filled with "dumb ideas and imitative posturing". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau said the album was not wholly bad, even finding "Bicycle Race" humorous, although he said Queen sounded like the band 10cc "with a spoke, or a pump, up their ass". Sales of the album and its singles were certainly respectable, but the tactic of releasing another double A-side single didn't pay off as well as it did with We Will Rock You b/w We Are the Champions from the previous album. With critics of the era behaving like a tank of hungry sharks, any signs of weakness were a clarion calls to start the feeding frenzy. Queen were CLEARLY on their way OUT, so you'd better get your bite in before they sank into the abyss.

In the years since its release, Jazz has most certainly been given a repeal of such undeserved harsh judgments, with both critics and fans coming to recognized the album's strengths. Within its baker's dozen songs, the band took fans on a breakneck, whiplash inducing thrill ride of styles and techniques. Rather than a chaotic hodgepodge, it's a roller-coaster ride, from the bizarre mania of Mustapha, to the menacing funk-rock of More of That Jazz, the band keep listeners on the edge of their seat through every turn. Numerous songs became live staples and Don't Stop Me Now, in particular, became Freddie Mercury's most quintessential composition, embodying the singer's philosophy and attitude in a way that has even been scientifically recognized as one of the most catchy songs ever written!

Personally, while I loved the album at the time it came out, and still do, back at the end of 1978, I was beginning a journey into a different realm. Though I started that year by joining the official Queen fan club, and stocked up my wardrobe with Queen T-shirts, badges and belt buckles (and I DID go to high school with ALL of it on!), by the end of 1978, I'd discovered music by RAMONES, The Clash, Sex Pistols, DEVO & Elvis Costello, so Jazz was kind-of the "beginning of the end" of my obsession with Queen. 1979 would not see them issue a new studio LP, only the uneven, poorly received Live Killers, and while I bought The Game in 1980, it was the last Queen LP I'd spend my money on for at least two decades. But nostalgia brought me back to the boys eventually and I still appreciate giving this record a spin now and then.