Track Listing

1. Staying Power
2. Dancer
3. Back Chat
4. Body Language
5. Action This Day
6. Put Out The Fire
7. Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)
8. Calling All Girls
9. Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)
10. Cool Cat
11. Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4561 in Music
• Released on: 1994-02-07
• Number of discs: 1

CD Description
1982's HOT SPACE is by far the most controversial album Queen ever released. Coming off a major disco hit with 1980's "Another One Bites The Dust", the band decided to take it a step further and released an album comprised mostly of tunes crafted from the same dance mold. This wouldn't have been a big deal for some bands, but the majority of Queen's fans were rock n' rollers, not disco buffs. Looking back, the band admits some trepidation at releasing HOT SPACE when they did, but there are indeed many strong Queen compositions included.
The most renowned track is the Queen/David Bowie hit collaboration, "Under Pressure", a tip of the hat to the then-thriving new wave sound that remains one of Queen's all-time best tracks. Other highlights include one of the band's most underrated songs, "Calling All Girls", as well as the anti-rifle protest "Put Out the Fire", and the charming love song "Las Palabras De Amor (The Words of Love)". Of all the dance-oriented material, the best is undoubtedly the U.S. hit"Body Language", while "Dancer" and "Cool Cat" are worthwhile listens as well.

Customer Reviews

Queen go disco!
'Hot Space' is infamous as being Queen's sole 'flop' album, as aside from the David Bowie collaboration 'Under Pressure' (which itself dates from a separate session a year before the album proper, and so in a sense could be described as a tacked on extra here) the singles from this album all failed to make an impact on the charts and the album was quickly dismissed as a misfire. Looking back while 'Hot Space' could never be described as one of their best albums it's certainly massively underrated, and to my ears is a far more interesting album than follow-up 'The Works' (by which point the band seemed so desperate for a hit single that the album feels more like a shallow compilation of A and B sides).

The big sticking point for any Queen fans will be 'Hot Space's original A-Side, where the band jumped onto the funk/disco genre with wild abandon. With 'Another One Bites The Dust' being such a big hit for them before Queen seem to have become temporarily disco obsessed, and the first 5 tracks are all based heavily around massive bass riffs. Where on 'The Game' the band had begun to use synthesisers they were mostly laid over the top of the normal Queen sound, but now the bass guitar is replaced by keyboards, the drums are replaced by drum machines and Brian May's signature guitar is cut back to a bare minimum. It's undoubtedly a shock, but for the most part the songs DO work, where the band may have overstepped the mark is in giving over an entire half of the album to this genre.

Even for those who aren't convinced by the disco/funk tracks Side-B is a return to the more familiar Queen rock/pop sound, with 'Put Out The Fire' being the albums sole heavy guitar rock song, while elsewhere the band provide a pair of ballads ('Life Is Real' and 'Las Palabras De Amor') the up-empo guitar pop of 'Calling All Girls' and the slow funky 'Cool Cat' which features Freddie in falsetto voice throughout.

'Hot Space' shows many of the faults common to the bands 80's output: too much synthesiser and a lack of the genre-hopping and invention of the bands 70's work, and this is also the first Queen album where Freddie is the sole lead vocalist on every song (Brian and Roger now relegated to backing vocals and the odd solo line here and there), a sad mistake which unfortunately would hold true for each of their remaining albums and stripped the band of the variety they once possessed: however, compared with the albums they produced before and after this is by no means a 'misfire', and worthy of rediscovery.

Not a classic, but by no means a failure either, 'Hot Space' is a good solid Queen album.

Hot Space - Was it really not so Hot
Hop Space as an album has that extra bounce that makes it stand out from the rest of Queen's Albums. It gives us a large insite in to Freddie's full range of musicical talent which ranges from Rock, Opera, Pop and now dance and funk, as well as the versatility of Brian May's Guitar playing. But does this album really deserve all the flack that the press gave it.
The first for tracks (Staying Power,Dancer,Back Chat and Body Language) are mainly lively Discotec songs that would of first shocked any harder Queen fan.
Action this Day and Put out the Fire bring us back to the real rock motivated song that Queen produce so well as seen before in their last album The Game.
In this great mixture of an album two very heart felt songs Life is real(Song for Lennon) and The Words of Love involve us in deep emotion which most listerns may indentify too.
Then back to funk with Calling all Girls and Cool Cat but the grand Finale is one song that will live forever Under Pressure.
This song is the light at the end of the tunnel, Mercury and Bowie compliment each over so well and Deacon's bass line is pure genius. So is this album all bad.
No Not at all it just shows a groovy side to Queen and i think it has stood the test of time very well.

More to this than meets the eye
OK, it's not typical Queen. OK, it's not aged well. BUT have those who dismissed this album truly explored all it has to offer? The lyrics and delivery of "Life is Real" by Freddie could easilly slot into any other Queen album and "Las Palabras de Amor" is my all time personal favourite Queen song that deserved to do better in the charts.

The rest of the album has a mix of songs that were a major departure but gave Queen the space to experiment with sounds that would later come together much stronger in "The Works" for example.

Oh, and what about "Under Pressure"??!!