My album of the week from my Club80s collection (read My Classic 80GB iPod)
Before drumming with Queen, Roger Taylor was the drummer in the late '60s hard rock band, Smile, along with future Queen guitarist Brian May. In 1970, that group morphed into Queen with the addition of flamboyant lead singer Freddie Mercury. Over the next decade, Taylor would generally write one or two songs per Queen album, usually singing on his own compositions.
After Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in 1991, Taylor returned to a solo career, releasing Happiness? in 1994. It's first single, "Nazis 1994," was banned by Radio 1 and several stores as it was feared it would lead to neo-Nazi riots. Nonetheless, "Nazis 1994" became Taylor's first hit single in England and was followed by two other Top 40 U.K. hits, "Happiness" and "Foreign Sand." Electric Fire, which saw Taylor add some slight electronica elements to his rock sound, was released in 1998.
With Strange Frontier, Roger Taylor seemed to try and cast himself as a British version of Bruce Springsteen, writing a set of songs that were similar to the gutsy and anthemic work of the American rock hero. The similarity went as far as the lyrics, many of which focused on working-class politics. Taylor even throws in a Springsteen cover, "Racing in the Street," for good measure. The differences between Taylor's music here and Springsteen's lie both in Taylor's production, which added some artsier ideas such as the symphonic break in "Killing Time," and in his vocals, which stray more into melodramatic territory than Springsteen ever has. For the most part, the concept works. The album is far from original, but Taylor is an accomplished enough songwriter that he doesn't come off like a poor man's Springsteen. The cover of Dylan's "Masters of War" is a bit bombastic but much of the rest of the album is fairly convincing with the title track and "Man on Fire" being among the highlights. Interestingly enough, Taylor's music is far more reliant on drum machines and synthesizers here than on his previous Fun in Space.
My favorite song in this album is Abandonfire.
Enjoy - some information are taken from http://www.allmusic.com.
Before drumming with Queen, Roger Taylor was the drummer in the late '60s hard rock band, Smile, along with future Queen guitarist Brian May. In 1970, that group morphed into Queen with the addition of flamboyant lead singer Freddie Mercury. Over the next decade, Taylor would generally write one or two songs per Queen album, usually singing on his own compositions.
After Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in 1991, Taylor returned to a solo career, releasing Happiness? in 1994. It's first single, "Nazis 1994," was banned by Radio 1 and several stores as it was feared it would lead to neo-Nazi riots. Nonetheless, "Nazis 1994" became Taylor's first hit single in England and was followed by two other Top 40 U.K. hits, "Happiness" and "Foreign Sand." Electric Fire, which saw Taylor add some slight electronica elements to his rock sound, was released in 1998.
With Strange Frontier, Roger Taylor seemed to try and cast himself as a British version of Bruce Springsteen, writing a set of songs that were similar to the gutsy and anthemic work of the American rock hero. The similarity went as far as the lyrics, many of which focused on working-class politics. Taylor even throws in a Springsteen cover, "Racing in the Street," for good measure. The differences between Taylor's music here and Springsteen's lie both in Taylor's production, which added some artsier ideas such as the symphonic break in "Killing Time," and in his vocals, which stray more into melodramatic territory than Springsteen ever has. For the most part, the concept works. The album is far from original, but Taylor is an accomplished enough songwriter that he doesn't come off like a poor man's Springsteen. The cover of Dylan's "Masters of War" is a bit bombastic but much of the rest of the album is fairly convincing with the title track and "Man on Fire" being among the highlights. Interestingly enough, Taylor's music is far more reliant on drum machines and synthesizers here than on his previous Fun in Space.
My favorite song in this album is Abandonfire.
Enjoy - some information are taken from http://www.allmusic.com.
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