Hot Space

Queen Album

Hot Space was Produced by Queen and Mack (and David Bowie).
Hot Space Cover Concept by Freddie Mercury

Hot and Spacey horns on ‘Staying Power’ by Arif Martin.

Recommended Songs on Hot Space : Action This Day, Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love), Under Pressure

Hot Space Album Review & Background

Hot Space is the tenth studio album by Queen and was released on 21st May 1982 by EMI Records in the UK and by Elektra Records in the USA. Hot Space was termed ‘a mistake’ by Brian May, as Queen, failed in an effort to try a different style of music. Queen tried to shidt the style of music with some funk, disco, pop, some R&B. Q Music Magazine actually listed the Hot Space album as one of the “Top 15 Albums where Great Rock acts lost the Plot” – maybe there is a little truth about that. Queen were not in a good place at this time, in reality,​ they were becoming tired of the studio, hence a 2-year gap to the next album.

Queen had huge success with ‘Another one bites the Dust’ from the album ‘The Game‘ and tried styling this album from the same cast as that song. It resulted in a controvercial album being released, as well as many internal arguements about the content of the album. The Queen fans who liked the Rock feel of We are the Champions or Bohemian Rhapsody felt it was not Queen and thus Hot Space was not well recieved, with comments like  ‘This is not Queen’.

When I first heard the album, I wasn’t impressed at all. “This was not the Queen that I was used to hearinf on tprevious albums”, was my first thought. I remember reading a review of the album, and they said ‘ you’ll like Hot Space… eventually !’. It is very true – overall it is a weakish album which is an attempt at Disco / Pop / Funk / R&B all in the one album – however the tracks ‘Action this Day ‘, ‘Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)’, ‘Las Palabras De Amor’ (my favourite on the album).The hit song ‘Under Pressure’ was a joint effort with David Bowie and that song gave the album a bit of quality in between the other tracks. Under pressure wasn’t actually recorded for the album as it was a separate recording session.

For all that, my Hot Space Review is that I do still listen to the album and Hot Space not a ‘BAD’ album, it’s just not the strong multi-harmony, rock riff Queen we heard on the previous albums.

Did you know …. the track ‘Under Pressure’ was a result of an all night jamming session in Montreux, Switzerland after a few drinks and a bit of messing with riffs and tapes. At one point they forgot the iconic bass line and John Deacon did actually remember it in the end.