I feel bad rating this album as low as I am, but man this is just way too maximalist for me. Every other second there's some random studio sound effect or vocal delay or distortion or harp or chimes or 128-track harmony that it's just exhausting to listen to. At times it feels like listening to a kid fuck around in garageband and I'm begging the album to just stay still for 2 seconds.
Because I am a person with ears, I've heard Bohemian Rhapsody about a million times, and it's still a great song, but when almost every song on your album is Bohemian Rhapsody levels of elaborate it gets very tiresome very fast. I'd also argue that the reason Bohemian Rhapsody is so good is that there's some level of restraint to the studio effects.
Speaking of, my favorite song on this is actually '39 - I really like it when Queen put away the studio equipment and let the song speak for itself.
I realize that telling Freddie Mercury to have some restraint is like telling a bird not to fly, and it completely misses the point of his appeal, but this is just really not my bag. I totally get why people would enjoy this and rate it so highly though.
If you want to hear the missing link between hard rock and metal, you could do a lot worse than this record. Thick, meathead riffs combined with genuine virtuosity keep this album interesting while still being fun. This is a really great album to listen to if you want to dip your toes into metal.
'Speed King' is of course a classic, but 'Flight of the Rat' is a particular standout for its wonderful interplay between the drums and guitar, and its almost funky beat at times. You rarely feel the length of the longer songs and Deep Purple never lose sight of the riffs that hold their music together. It's surprisingly heavy for 1970, which makes it all the more impressive.
Half a point off for your typical 70s hard rock/metal cliches, such as occasional falsetto abuse, guitar solos that get a tad bit overindulgent, and the orgasm vocals at the end of 'Child in Time' (yes dude, we know you have sex, good for you). But none of this is enough to really affect my enjoyment of the album. Logically I know that because of the above issues, this is more like a 4-4.5, but in my heart it's a 5.
Great album, historically important to the development of metal, absolutely deserves to be on here.
Blows my mind that people hate Octopus' Garden, what a fun song.
Anyways it's hard to rate albums this famous. I've heard the hits from this album about a million times growing up, so I can't really look at them objectively.
That being said I was pleasantly surprised to notice the use of Moog synthesizers that I never picked up on as a kid, neat to hear electronic experimentation by a band that's worshiped by the kinds of people who hate electronic music, lol. It's always done in a tasteful way and is never overbearing or gimmicky. The drums throughout are amazing, especially on songs like 'Bathroom Window'.
The mixing is beautiful, all the songs feel incredibly lush. The medley was mesmerizing to listen to. Also pretty poetic that the last two songs the Beatles ever made feel like echos of their early career, with The End starting off as more straightforward pop rock and Her Majesty being an unabashed lighthearted love song.
I genuinely can't really find anything to criticize, I mean even Maxwell's Silver Hammer is weird in a funny way and not an annoying way (at least to me). Just a really pleasant album.
This album is extremely 2007. Given I'm not a huge fan of 2000s indie rock this wasn't a good thing. I do like the church organs and the grandiose feel of a lot of the tracks, which gives the album a distinct sound and feel, but the album sometimes collapses under the weight of the hipster rock tropes it unfortunately applies far too often.
I also never understood this era's obsession with slathering a shit-ton of reverb over the vocals. It makes it hard to understand the lyrics for no reason and just makes you sound miserable and distant, but beyond that, it deeply annoys me for reasons I can't explain.
Speaking of, maybe I would connect more with this album if I grew up in a suffocating religious environment, but since religion was a non-issue in my childhood the lyrics kind of just remind me of all the obnoxious new atheists clogging the internet 15 years ago. More of a me issue than an issue with the album itself though, I imagine this would connect a lot more if you did grow up in that environment.
Cool album cover though. 2.5/5
