Queen – Jazz
I was brought up on this album. It had a poster in it of naked women on bikes which, you know, in certain parts of Europe I think that’s pretty normal, but in England that’s not quite the case and that was super outrageous. We hung it on our wall. Roy Thomas Baker produced that album so there are loads and loads of dynamics. It’s too quiet in bits and then so loud it takes your face off. From when ‘Mustapha’ starts it lets you believe that the album is going to be a certain way and then halfway through that song it completely changes. It keeps you on your toes. I think all their great albums are like that to some degree, but I think that one is the most Queen of the Queen albums. Or at least the most Roy Thomas Baker of the Queen albums. It’s got ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ on it, which is a real favourite. I particularly used to like the more playful Queen tracks, and there’s one called ‘Dreamers Ball’ which sounds like swing music, but instead of the big band being all brassy, it’s just Brian May’s guitars.