A Day At The Races - my least favourite Queen album

For me it's one of the best!

i think that shockingly proves my point about ADATR being a piano / ballet driven mess

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Brian's 1967 12-string Burns Double Six
He used this on Long Away.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/ ... ars-384279

BM: “I used this on Long Away. Funnily enough I think I bought it because I liked the pickups, but I fell in love with the guitar once I started playing around with it and the song materialised. The guitar actually inspired the riff that powers the song.

“We have played Long Away live occasionally, in Japan I think, and we did it recently with Taylor Hawkins’ band (The Coattail Riders). I should have said no because I’m rusty in those areas, but Taylor wanted to do the song and it was fun. It’s a bit of a fiddly song to play live; most of the stuff that works live is the stuff you can play without too much thought."

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*** Piano on 'Too Much Love' and 'My Life Has Been Saved' was digital, not acoustic, so therefore I don't count either. If I did, I'd have to count 'Best Friend' as well and so on.

Interesting list!
However, as a pianist I find it a bit dubious that you discount these two songs, because they are being played on a digital piano. They are most definitely piano-based, I would say.

They're piano-based (as is 'Best Friend') but I'm only counting acoustic pianos, as I said earlier.

They're piano-based (as is 'Best Friend') but I'm only counting acoustic pianos, as I said earlier.

Yes, I know. And I wondered why.

It was totally arbitrary.

Personally, it ranks right at the top along with QII/SHA/NOTW.

I actually prefer it to ANATO and it's not due to the "overplay" factor. I've just always liked it better.

1. A Day at the Races.
2. Sheer Heart Attack.
3-4. Queen II & News of the World.
5. The Game.
6. Jazz
7-8. A Night at the Opera & The Works.
9-10. First and last.
11. Hot Space.
12-15. Magic - Miracle - Innuendo.

Great stats compilation. This sort of explains why I like ADATR a lot. I'm a big fan of the piano sound in Queen. The more, the better. But I like ANATO better as a whole; individual songs are more my forte on ADATR.

Brian's 1967 12-string Burns Double Six
He used this on Long Away.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/ ... ars-384279

BM: “I used this on Long Away. Funnily enough I think I bought it because I liked the pickups, but I fell in love with the guitar once I started playing around with it and the song materialised. The guitar actually inspired the riff that powers the song.

“We have played Long Away live occasionally, in Japan I think, and we did it recently with Taylor Hawkins’ band (The Coattail Riders). I should have said no because I’m rusty in those areas, but Taylor wanted to do the song and it was fun. It’s a bit of a fiddly song to play live; most of the stuff that works live is the stuff you can play without too much thought."

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I remember this picture appearing in Guitarist magazine. I wondered at the time, still do, if the guitar pictured is Brian's, or has Brian got his facts right. The guitar in the picture is a Baldwin not a Burns. They were essentially the same guitar, Burns were badged Burns Baldwins were badged Baldwin. The obvious difference was in the pickups. The Baldwin used three generic single coil pickups while the Burns featured Burns Trisonics which again were single coil but with a larger coil than the Baldwin pickups.

Brian's quite a clever bloke with countless musical gems and a PhD, but it doesn't mean he's the world's most reliable source when it comes to what brand a specific instrument has, even if it's one he himself owns and recorded with - though, to be fair, it's been decades since that. Remember when he couldn't remember ever having used a Flying V on stage, despite having owned one and toured with one for three years?

As a stand-alone record, it's meh. But when you think of ADATR and ANATO as parts 1 and 2 of the same album, then it becomes brilliant.

I keep meaning to come up with a tracklist combining the two albums.

V.

As a stand-alone record, it's meh. But when you think of ADATR and ANATO as parts 1 and 2 of the same album, then it becomes brilliant.

I keep meaning to come up with a tracklist combining the two albums.

V.

Go for it!

I think I feel somehow that ANATO has more of a unity of feel and purpose than ADATR. So somehow even the lesser regarded songs shine within that context. Whereas with ADATR some songs IMO drag things down, while others are obvious standouts.

I like ADATR, especially as a companion/follow-up/partner/sibling to ANATO. Those two really complement each other well. It has some really great songs; TYMD and STL stand out especially, but it also has some filler, more than previous albums. Even though I like it and think it's a really good album over all, I'd say it's probably their weakest 70s album. That or Jazz.

I love it. Drowse, Long Away and Teo Torriatte are three of my favourite album tracks and that's before you even get to the singles. And even some of the tracks I would personally consider weaker like Millionaire's Waltz and You and I are still fantastic.