Queen Album Review – The Game

Cover spread for Queen's album The Game, with a silvery grey background. There is a black and white photo of the band posing together on the front, below the album title, while the back shows the track listing and credits.

Way back in lockdown, to fill some of the time, I wrote in-depth reviews of the 1970s studio albums by Queen, my favourite band, which took me from their self-titled debut up to the Jazz album. And they’re about to release a new deluxe edition of Queen II, which I’m looking forward to downloading and reviewing, just like I did for their Queen I box set.

However, it’s long been my intention to review the rest of their albums as well, and now I’ve got more time on my hands, I’m going to delve back into them at long last.

So we’ll kick off the 80s with The Game, the album that produced Queen’s best-selling single of all time, and the only two number 1 hits they ever had in America (where it was also their only number 1 album, selling over 4 million copies). The Game also reached number 1 in the UK for 2 weeks, and stayed in the top 40 for 15 weeks altogether. Overall it sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

Freddie Mercury, sporting a moustache and wearing a black leather jacket over a red top, leaning back against a railing overlooking a snowy landscape with trees and a couple of buildings.
Brian May, with his hands in his light brown jacket pockets, leaning back against a railing overlooking a snowy landscape with trees and a couple of buildings.
John Deacon, wearing a white shirt and a long black tie, leaning back against a railing overlooking a snowy landscape with trees and a couple of buildings.
Roger Taylor, wearing a black jacket decorated with small white motifs of aeroplanes, leaning back against a railing overlooking a snowy landscape with trees and a couple of buildings.

It’s also the first Queen album to feature a synthesizer (an Oberheim OBX), with their previous releases proudly stating that they never used them. Plus they had a new producer (Reinhold Mack, known simply as Mack), and they recorded the songs in a new location, at Musicland Studios in Munich. It therefore marked a new period of experimentation for the band, as they were persuaded to shift towards a more pop-friendly sound, although still infused with rock of course and it still sounds unmistakably like Queen.

It wasn’t always easy, with arguments in the studio as the band members were keen to be represented fairly on the record. But ultimately they were able to reach suitable compromises and produce another decent album with several great tracks. And as shown by the chart positions above, it enabled them to maintain their popularity in an era where other rock veterans were struggling, and even have their peak of success in the USA. The music scene was changing significantly in the 80s, but Queen were still very much in the game and still winning, at least for now.

So here are my reviews of all the songs, along with alternate versions, music videos, live performances, and a small selection of the many covers and remixes out there. And there’s lots more to see on my Queen & Covers playlists for this album as well that I haven’t mentioned here. I hope you enjoy!

Contents

See also: Ultimate Queen / Queen Vault / Wikipedia / UDiscover

The tracks on the album are as follows. Click their names to jump to the reviews:

  1. Play The Game
  2. Dragon Attack
  3. Another One Bites The Dust
  4. Need Your Loving Tonight
  5. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
  6. Rock It (Prime Jive)
  7. Don’t Try Suicide
  8. Sail Away Sweet Sister
  9. Coming Soon
  10. Save Me
  11. A Human Body (Non-Album B-Side)

The 2011 reissue of the album also includes an early version of It’s A Beautiful Day as a bonus track. But I’ll mention that during my future review of the Made In Heaven album when it’s more relevant.

1. Play The Game

Written by Freddie Mercury

See also: Ultimate Queen / Wikipedia / Song Facts

This track opens the album with some noises from the band’s new synthesizer, to show it’s now part of their musical armoury, as it draws us into the song very effectively. And a wonderful power ballad it is too, with great piano and guitar parts alongside beautiful lyrics and harmonies about the game of love. When released as a single, the song peaked at number 14 in the UK, as part of a 4-week run in the top 20, and it spent a total of 7 weeks in the top 40. Meanwhile in the USA it got to number 42.

The B-side was the track A Human Body, which didn’t appear on the original album, but was included as a bonus in the 2011 reissue, as discussed later in this post.

Isolated Tracks

Several years ago I downloaded the multitrack stems for a lot of Queen’s songs, which weren’t officially released on their own, but were sourced by the fanbase in various ways, with many extracted from the Rock Band video game or Rock Tour mobile game, in which tracks were broken down into their component parts for people to play along with them. They’re fascinating to listen to, as they give you a much greater appreciation for what each band member is doing, and sometimes you hear elements that you’ve never really noticed before in the final mix.

So for Play The Game, I have 8 tracks. And unlike the final album mix, there’s no fade out, so the song comes to a definitive stop.

  • Freddie’s vocal track, which includes the backing harmonies, is gorgeous of course, showing that the song works perfectly well in a cappella, and he hits the most powerful notes perfectly as usual.
  • The piano track is also a beautiful, impassioned and intricate performance by Freddie. You can just picture him bashing away at the keys.
  • Brian doesn’t have much to do on guitar for the first couple of minutes, with just a couple of short bursts, but in the latter half he makes a great contribution with a nice solo and some little flourishes.
  • John has a nice, slow counter-melody going on the bass. His parts can often go unappreciated, buried under everything else, but the song wouldn’t sound right without it.
  • Roger’s drumming, split into separate tracks for the cymbals, kick and snare, isn’t anything exceptional, but it lays a steady, dependable foundation, and he takes it up a notch in the bars before Brian’s big solo.
  • Finally, there’s a track of extra elements that mainly contains the synth parts, with the intro at the start, and then a triple section just after 2 minutes that leads into the guitar solo. It also has a couple of brief but important secondary guitar parts as well, to complement the main guitar track.
  • Listening to the track as an instrumental is nice as well, to get a feel for how the music goes together before Freddie’s vocals are added.

Music Video

The music video simply sees the band playing with flames in the background, and the fire changes colour when we look at each of the band members individually. But at the start and during the middle section there are stars in space behind them instead.

Freddie’s appearance is significant though, because it’s the first video in which we see his new moustache and cropped hair, which would become his trademark look for the new decade. I think it’s a cool look for him, but some fans didn’t take kindly to the change at first, throwing razor blades on to the stage during concerts in London. Freddie found that quite amusing, but he refused to shave off his new upper lip accessory. And then in the middle section of the video we get the added bonus of briefly seeing him topless and covered in Vaseline.

Meanwhile, Brian is playing a replica Fender Stratocaster instead of his Red Special, to be on the safe side for the moment when Freddie snatches the guitar and then throws it back at him. That part was filmed in reverse, so it was really Brian throwing it at Freddie, as it was easier to make it look like Brian starts his solo as soon as he catches it. Likewise the shot of Freddie jumping backwards onto the drum kit was clearly done the same way.

Live Performances

Queen played the song live in concert between 1980 and 1982, with Freddie doing a bit of piano improvisation at the start, and two such examples have been officially released:

There is footage online from other performances as well of course, in varying quality, some examples of which are on my Queen playlist, all with a unique bit of improvisation by Freddie on the piano at the start. Most notable amongst them is a performance from Caracas, Venezuela in 1981, which begins with an angry outburst by Freddie to “get rid of the fucking noise!”

Queen + Adam Lambert have also performed the song in more recent times and while there are no official releases, there are a few audience videos online, albeit not in great quality, where they do use the synth parts, so I’ve included a couple on my album playlist.

There’s also a live performance from the London cast of the We Will Rock You musical that was released on their soundtrack album. It’s a nice rendition, ending with a snippet of the piano part from Killer Queen, because that’s the character who’s singing it. The 10th anniversary edition of the album also included the German version as a bonus track.

Cover Versions

An American duo called Beach House recorded a dream pop cover that wasn’t given much prominence, tucked away as an iTunes exclusive bonus track on a charity compilation called Dark Was The Night in 2009. It was only 8 years later that they finally included it on an album of their own, a collection of B-Sides & Rarities. I’m not a fan of this version myself, and have never heard of them, but the fact their cover has earned a mention on the Wikipedia page for the original song suggests they’re fairly popular overseas.

In terms of other random covers online, beyond the relatively standard ones, I really like the solo acoustic version by Nataly Dawn that’s sung very sweetly, choral version by BinG! Barbershop in Germany, which is a great mashup with Killer Queen, and the a cappella version by Tufts sQ! that incorporates snippets of a few other Queen songs. And there are nice orchestral versions, including ones by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Sinfónica de Minería from Mexico City.

2. Dragon Attack

Written by Brian May

See also: Ultimate Queen / Song Facts

Inspired by the local disco club near their Munich studio called Sugar Shack, and born out of a drunken jam session, this is a solid, catchy, funky track, with John’s very cool earworm of a bassline and Brian’s guitar being the standout elements. But Roger also has a great drum solo, and Freddie’s vocals, performed in a similar style to We Will Rock You, include a reference to their new producer (“I’m gonna use my stack, it’s gotta be Mack”).

Live Performances

The song was a natural and popular choice for live concerts, with the band keeping it in their setlists from 1980 to 1985. Freddie would sometimes do some improvised call and response with the audience to lead in to it, or the band would have a bit of a jam, and then Brian regularly had fun with his guitar solos during the song. They often segued straight into Now I’m Here at the end as well. It’s appeared on a few releases:

  • Morumbi Stadium, São Paulo, Brazil on 20 March 1981 – The video of this performance was included with the 2011 iTunes reissue of the album, beginning with Freddie’s vocal improvisation, backed by the band. It’s a great performance, and the audio of just the song was also released on the 6-disc On Air box set.
  • Montreal, Canada on 24/25 November 1981 – Included on Queen Rock Montreal.
  • Milton Keynes Bowl on 5 June 1982 – Released on Queen On Fire: Live At The Bowl and also on the 2011 reissue of The Game. Brian snaps a string during this performance and dashes backstage to get a spare guitar, but John immediately responds by playing his bass solo from the album version, which he’d apparently only performed live once before but it sounds great, and Freddie improvises a bit as well. It shows just how tight-knit they are that they react so flawlessly, filling in for a few bars until Brian returns. The DVD for this concert also includes a performance of the song from Seibu Lions Stadium, Tokyo, Japan, on 3 November 1982 within the bonus material (taken from Live In Japan).
  • Sun City, South Africa in October 1984 – This is from a bootleg soundboard recording that was leaked on an unofficial Sun City 1984 album. Yet despite not being a formal Queen release, the album playlist is on the band’s official Youtube channel, lending it some legitimacy. It was highly controversial for Queen to play there given South Africa’s apartheid policy, with artists told not to do so by the UN and banned by the Musician’s Union in the UK, and there is an interview with Brian and Roger at the end of the album where they reflect on their decision.
  • Tokyo, Japan on May 11, 1985 – Originally released on Final Concert Live In Japan, which was exclusive to that country, this gig was also made available elsewhere on a bootleg album recorded from the radio broadcast. And just like Sun City, that bootleg has somehow found its way on to Queen’s official Youtube channel as an album playlist very recently. The sound quality’s pretty good though to be fair, so I’m really glad it’s been made available.

There are videos of other performances on my album playlist as well, not just from Queen’s heyday, but also a few from the Adam Lambert era, including in his solo shows after he’d started performing with Brian and Roger. His renditions aren’t as fast or strong as Queen’s original live shows, obviously, but he’s still clearly having fun doing it.

Remixes

A few alternative versions of this song have appeared in various places:

  • An instrumental with a bit of extra percussion appeared on the video game The Eye.
  • Two remixes were made for a 1992 US promo CD by Hollywood Records called BASIC Queen Bootlegs, where rock and rap producers were invited to reinterpret some of Queen’s hits. The project never made it to production, so was only ever pressed as a rare CDR in 1999. However, one of the remixes – a dance version by Jack Benson and R.A.K. – did make it on to the 1991 Hollywood Records reissue of The Game as a bonus track. And as is typical for the Hollywood Records Remixes, it’s pretty bad, stripping out John’s bass and Brian’s guitar that are intrinsic to the song, and adding a pointless rap section. The other remix by Dave “Rave” Ogilvie, which was never released anywhere beyond the CDR, is a slightly tweaked instrumental, so it’s very similar to the Eye version, which again makes you question the point of it.
  • Lance Herbstrong produced a remix incorporating elements of We Will Rock You on his album Meth Breakfast. It feels more original and works well to be fair.

Cover Versions

There isn’t much in the way of cover versions, though it’s been played in many a tribute show and other rock concerts of course. But there is a version by Shannon Curfman on her album What You’re Getting Into, which has cool guitar solos and other flourishes to make it her own, yet is still faithful to the original. She’s posted a live version too. And there’s a cool heavy metal version by Testament, which was a bonus track on their album Dark Roots Of Earth.

3. Another One Bites The Dust

Written by John Deacon

See also: Ultimate Queen / Wikipedia / Song Facts

Incredibly, this dance anthem was Queen’s best-selling single, shifting a massive 7 million copies. I know, you’d expect it to be Bohemian Rhapsody, but that didn’t catch on as well overseas in the way this one did.

Queen only ever had two chart-topping singles in America, and this was one of them (the first being Crazy Little Thing Called Love). Another One Bites The Dust spent 3 weeks at number 1 in the Billboard Hot 100, and 13 weeks in the top 5, out of a total 15 weeks in the top 10 and 31 weeks on the chart altogether. They marked the longest top 10 and top 100 runs of any song in 1980. The track also won the American Music Award for the best pop or rock song, beating Pink Floyd and Diana Ross, and was nominated for a Grammy.

In the UK, however, it only managed to climb to number 7, lasting for 7 weeks in the top 40 and 10 in the top 100. So with Crazy Little Thing also failing to top the British chart, it means Queen are the most successful act who have never had a joint transatlantic number 1 single (even though the album did get them a joint number 1). It seems extraordinary, but it may have been too much of a deviation from Queen’s traditional style for their home fans to fully get on board with at first.

After all, this was Queen’s first big foray into the disco scene, and it wasn’t a direction they’d expected to go in, as the genre wasn’t deemed to be very cool in the UK at the time. Brian later recalled that the band had “no idea” what John was doing to start with, and Roger’s first reaction was “unprintable”. But they went with it and got into it, so much so that Freddie “sang until his throat bled”. They didn’t intend to release it as a single either, until Michael Jackson encouraged them to do so after attending one of their concerts.

There are nice interviews with the band about the song in the Days Of Our Lives documentary, including a brief bonus chat with John on the Blu-ray edition, and Roger talks to Tommy Vance about it on a track in the On Air box set. And the band’s arguments about the song are represented by a scene in the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.

The walking bassline was influenced by Chic’s Good Times (which in turn was inspired by Kool & The Gang’s Hollywood Swinging) because John used to hang out with Chic’s bass player Bernard Edwards. But as well as his usual bass guitar, John also played lead guitar, piano and handclaps on this track, so he had much more involvement than usual. Roger created a drum loop – his drums having been taped down and filled with blankets to deaden the sound, which he hated – and Brian May added a bit of additional guitar, while the sound effects were created using real instruments rather than synthesizers, played in reverse and processed through a harmonizer. Meanwhile the lyrics, delivered powerfully by Freddie, were originally about cowboys until John rewrote them – although some Christians then tried to claim that the chorus played backwards sounded like “It’s fun to smoke marijuana”, which clearly isn’t true. So for all its relative simplicity compared to their more epic songs, there’s a lot going on here.

It all came together to make an incredibly catchy, funky hit, and it’s served them incredibly well since then. Along with We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions, it’s another of their tracks that’s become so embedded in popular culture that you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s always existed. It passed 1 billion streams on Spotify in May 2021, it’s regularly played at sporting events, it’s been used in a study training medical professionals to give CPR at the right tempo, it’s been sampled, remixed and covered by a lot of people, and it’s been featured in countless TV shows, films, adverts and other forms of media. For example, UK audiences are currently singing along with the chorus almost every week in the BBC series Gladiators when contestants fall during games like Duel and Hang Tough. It’s just everywhere.

Music Video

The music video, directed by Daniella Green, simply features the band playing on stage miming to the track. So it’s nothing special, but Freddie does have his new moustache, and he puts on a rather unusual baseball cap with horns halfway through. It was filmed at the Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas on 9 August 1980, 5 weeks into their North American tour, although Roger mistakenly recalls it as Detroit on the commentary for Greatest Video Hits I.

Live Performances

The song had a heavier rock vibe in Queen’s live shows and the band had fun improvising during the bridge section. So a nice variety of live performances have been released, including:

Later, between 2005 and 2008, Queen + Paul Rodgers also performed the track regularly. Paul was nowhere near as good as Freddie, nor was he trying to be anything like him, but they did a reasonable job with this, and Paul often interacted with the crowd during the middle section like Freddie had done. The most readily available versions are from:

There were also downloads from their European tours of songs from other concerts, of which I have all four versions of this one from 2008 in my collection, but not the one from 2005, but the Return Of The Champions release above makes up for that.

Since then, Queen + Adam Lambert have continued to play it a lot too, with much more energy compared to Paul Rodgers, and a version from Summer Sonic in Tokyo, Japan on 17 August 2014 was included on their Live Around The World compilation, and on the Japanese-only release Live In Japan. Later that month, Lady Gaga joined them as a guest on the song when they performed it in Sydney.

Adam has also performed the song by himself without Brian and Roger. For example, he sang it with an all-female group of musicians at the Youtube Space in New York in 2019 (where he also sang I Want To Break Free and a few of his own tracks).

And then last year, he sang it at the 2025 Polar Music Prize ceremony in Sweden (along with Who Wants To Live Forever?). Brian and Roger (accompanied by Brian’s wife Anita Dobson) were in the audience for this, because they were there to receive an award honouring Queen’s long and very successful career, and they gave lovely speeches when it was presented to them.

Finally for official live performances, the song is also featured in the musical We Will Rock You, with amended lyrics as it’s performed by the Killer Queen character, so it can be heard on the London cast recording, released in 2002. The album was then re-released in Australia the following year, with a bonus studio recording of Annie Crummer performing a remix of the song, which takes some getting used to but it grew on me after a few listens all those years ago.

Remixes

There have been a wealth of remixes for this song, of varying quality, but here are some of the official ones:

Hollywood Records

These are all completely pointless, and I hesitate to even call them remixes, as they deviate so much from the original, completely disrespecting the core elements of the song. So I’m only mentioning them for completeness:

  • Long Dusted B-Boy Version by Phase 5 – This 10-minute remix was on a 1992 compilation called BASIC Beats Sampler that was withdrawn due to clearance issues. A 4-minute version edited by Dave Ogilvie was then included on the even rarer BASIC Queen Bootlegs compilation in 1999 (discussed under Dragon Attack above). These mixes feature irrelevant and unnecessary samples from Flash and various non-Queen records, random speech extracts and a new rap verse.
  • ChySkillz Remix – Featuring raps by Ice Cube, Hi-C and Manson, this was also on the Bootlegs disc. But it sounds nothing like the original song at all, other than the title being sung as the chorus.
  • Dave Ogilvie Remix – This weird electronic remix was released on a 1992 sampler disc called Freak Show, and shoehorns in lyrics from Bohemian Rhapsody.

Wyclef Jean

The Wyclef Jean Remix from 1998, including rap vocals by Pras Michel and Free, was made for the film Small Soldiers, and was included on Queen’s Greatest Hits III. To me it’s awful, but somehow it caught on with the dance/R&B crowd, who propelled it to number 5 in the UK charts, two places higher than the original had achieved. That makes it only one of two Queen songs that reached a higher chart position after it was re-released (the other being Tie Your Mother Down, which got to number 31 in 1977, but number 13 in 1998 as part of a double A-side with No-One But You).

There were several variations of the Wyclef Jean remix, including an instrumental version, which sounds so much better without all the rapping. And a music video was also produced, featuring new vocals by Canibus as Pras wasn’t available. It saw Wyclef posing as a security guard at a museum who dreams about a waxwork of Freddie being stolen and how he could get it back.

Queen vs The Miami Project

This set of remixes were produced in 2006, the main one being the Cedric Gervais & Second Sun Radio Edit, which was released as a single, peaking at number 31 in the UK. And I quite like it, because it’s got a good dance beat and retains all the key elements of the original song. It came with a music video showing two young boys overcoming the humiliation of losing a break-dancing contest by perfecting their moves and returning to redeem themselves. An extended Vocal Mix was also produced, with a 2-minute intro that builds nicely and a longer outro, along with a similar but less interesting Club Mix that omits most of the vocals apart from the chorus and adds other little elements.

I also like the Soul Avengerz Remix (for which there is also a Dub Version), while the other remixes by Oliver Koletski, A Skillz and DJ Pedro & Oliver Berger are tolerable but not as good.

Cover Versions

There are lots of different interpretations of this song, of which I’ve included a wide selection on my covers playlist. Here are some of the more significant and interesting ones:

  • PiotreQ has some great mashups, combining it with the Chic song Good Times that inspired the bassline, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s rendition, the track Dancer from Queen’s Hot Space album, and This Is Radio Clash by The Clash. I also have some other mixes that I downloaded from their website before it was taken down, including alternative mixes of the Radio Clash version, a mashup with Rock The Casbah (another Clash song), and instrumental elements of the track mixed with Need You Tonight by INXS and ’39 by Queen.
  • Daft Punk – This mashup with their song Da Funk was one of 11 special mixes they contributed to the DJ Hero video game.
  • The SDJM Remix on EDM Bot’s channel is really catchy, and has over 8 million views.

And finally, don’t just think it’s humans that get into it – look at how much Snowball the cockatoo loves dancing to it and MrsStr1’s cockatiel enjoys singing it! Both of those videos have had over 8 millions views as well.

4. Need Your Loving Tonight

Written by John Deacon

See also: Ultimate Queen / Wikipedia

Nestled between two huge chart-toppers, this track is often overlooked and won’t be familiar to those who have only heard the Greatest Hits compilations. But, like the character portrayed in the lyrics whose relationship has ended, it deserves some love, because it’s a nice song with a good steady rhythm, and John plays acoustic guitar as well as bass. It wasn’t released as a single in the UK, but it was in America, reaching number 44.

Queen played the song regularly while on tour in 1980, and on some occasions the following year, but never again after that. It was different to the original version in that Freddie would play piano during Brian’s guitar solo, while Brian and Roger added backing vocals. It’s never featured on any live albums, sadly, but there is some footage of the band performing the song in Oakland, California on 14 July 1980, Buenos Aires, Argentina on 1 March 1981, São Paulo, Brazil on 20 March 1981 and Caracas, Venezuela on 27 September 1981.

And as for covers, the only really good one I can find is a performance by Tyler Warren & Neil Fairclough, which was posted online for John’s birthday during lockdown in 2020.

5. Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Written by Freddie Mercury

See also: Ultimate Queen / Wikipedia / Song Facts

Ready Freddie! This joyfully uplifting Elvis-inspired rockabilly-style song was written by Freddie in the space of 10 minutes, while taking a bath in Munich’s Bayerischer Hof hotel. He composed it on the guitar, its simplicity dictated by the fact that he could only play a few chords, and that works to its advantage.

He also played acoustic guitar on the recording, and even played the solo on the original version, though the tape of that has sadly been lost. It’s Brian who plays the solo on the final mix as usual, and for this track he used a Fender Esquire owned by Roger instead of his Red Special, which helped to give it that unique sound.

The song was released in advance of the album, making it their last single of the 1970s, and it’s their shortest single, at just 2:43 in length. It became the band’s first number 1 in America, staying there for 4 weeks, and also topped the chart in Australia for 7 weeks. In the UK the song peaked at number 2 for a fortnight, held off the top spot by When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman by Dr Hook, another great song that also reigned at the top for 4 weeks, and has a similarly short duration, being just shy of 3 minutes. And last year, in early 2025, the song hit 1 billion streams on Spotify, showing just how incredibly popular it still is.

Isolated Tracks

I have the multitracks for this song, which still sounds good as an instrumental, and it actually comes to a proper stop instead of fading out. Naturally the guitar part is lovely to listen to in isolation, including the solo, and the bass part complements it nicely with its bouncy counter-melody. Freddie’s vocals are of course amazing, and Roger’s simple but solid drumming pins it all together. In the stems I have, the backing vocals, hand claps and additional guitar are combined in a track set aside for those extras.

Music Video

The music video was made at Trillion Studios in London on 20 September 1979 and directed by Dennis De Vallance. It features the band performing while a clean-shaven Freddie in a leather jacket struts around with four dancers. At one point he poses with one of the ladies on a motorbike, then soon after he walks along a runway with clapping hands coming up through the floor. So it’s simple but fun, like the song.

A different edit using alternate camera angles, outtakes and other footage from the shoot was included as an extra feature on the Days Of Our Lives DVD & Blu-ray, so that’s interesting to see as well.

Live Performances

For the first time in concert, Freddie played the guitar with this song, remarking that he only knew three chords, or blaming the instrument for not playing the chords he wanted it to. Brian, meanwhile, would play up to 3 guitars – an Ovation Acoustic to begin with, then a Fender Telecaster for the solo, and finally he would return to his Red Special, at which point the band would have a fun jam together to extend the song.

Several great performances have been released, including:

Queen + Paul Rodgers included the song in their shows regularly as well, with performances released from:

6 further performances (3 each from 2005 & 2008) were included in the set of European Tour Downloads they released, and I have the 2008 ones in my collection.

Next, Brian performed lovely acoustic versions of the song with Kerry Ellis in their candlelight concerts, with a couple of performances released:

Sadly neither of those performances are on Youtube as individual videos, but there is some audience footage of the duo from other gigs online at the time of writing. I’ve included a selection on my album playlist, including:

Queen + Adam Lambert have naturally done the song many times as well, so there are quite a few examples on my album playlist.

In 2014, for example, there was a version from Summer Sonic in Tokyo, Japan on 17 August 2014 on Live In Japan, but that release was exclusive to that country. That year they also performed the song live for iHeartRadio, and in their New Year’s Eve Concert in London on BBC One, with less than 10 minutes to go until the new year. And in that following year they performed the song when headlining the Rock In Rio Concert in Brazil on 18 September 2015.

The most recent version to get an official release is on their Live Around The World compilation, as part of their set at the Fire Fight Australia concert in Sydney on 16 February 2020, although it’s edited down slightly on the CD compared to the video version.

Cover Versions

There are a ton of interpretations out there, far more than for any other song on this album it seems, so there are hundreds you can look through on my covers playlist. But here are some of the more high profile versions:

  • Miley Cyrus – She performed the song live with Brittany Howard. I’m not a fan of her voice personally though.
  • Orion – Given that the song was inspired by Elvis, here’s a great sense of what it might have been like if the King had sung it. Released on Sun records, this version peaked at number 79 in America.
  • Queen Family Singalong – Another song from the 2021 ABC special, this is performed by Jimmie Allen and Miss Piggy. It’s a very random collaboration, but it works, it’s really good fun.

The song was also performed no less than 3 times on Al Murray’s Happy Hour, by Katie Melua in the very first episode, One Night Only in Series 2 and The Kooks in Series 3. I can only find a video for the latter, and it’s not particularly good, though it befits Al’s style in sounding like a drunken singalong in a pub!

A few other versions that have caught my attention on Youtube include:

6. Rock It (Prime Jive)

Written by Roger Taylor

See also: Ultimate Queen / Song Facts

This isn’t one of Queen’s best rock songs and it isn’t widely known, but it’s still fun with a good beat to it. Two versions were recorded, with Freddie and Roger singing it respectively, as the band couldn’t decide who to go with at first. It was ultimately decided to use Roger’s vocals but with Freddie’s intro, and that seems like a fair trade-off (although it would be interesting to hear their original versions out of curiosity). Roger’s voice is good, but it isn’t amazing, so it made sense to have Freddie give it the strongest opening. It’s then nice to hear Roger doing his enthusiastic lead vocals for the rest of the song.

The band performed this track live in the Americas and Japan, with Freddie singing it all, during their tours for this album and Hot Space. But it was never included on any of their live albums. There are a few bootlegs online though, including from San Diego, California on 5 July 1980 and Buenos Aires, Argentina on 28 February 1981. It sounds better live than the studio version.

In more recent times, Roger has released a solo performance recorded at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 22 October 2021, on the live album for his Outsider tour. However, it’s the one track on the album where he doesn’t do the lead vocals, as they’re actually sung by fellow drummer Tyler Warren, who is very good to be fair.

Tyler also recorded a cover with Neil Fairclough for Youtube during lockdown in 2020, to mark Roger’s birthday and The Game’s 40th anniversary. The way they do all the parts between them is very impressive. There aren’t any other cover versions out there though, apart from a few concerts by tribute bands.

7. Don’t Try Suicide

Written by Freddie Mercury

See also: Ultimate Queen / Song Facts

This is a weird song that will certainly be triggering for some people. Lyrically it does what it says on the tin, with very forthright and blunt language, but you don’t expect it to be accompanied by a catchy musical arrangement with nice guitar parts and a funky bassline that gets stuck in your head. It almost makes you want to sway and sing along to it, but you’re not sure if you should given the subject matter. So I do like it somewhat, particularly in terms of the instrumentation, but quite understandably it won’t be for everyone.

It was released as the B-side to the American single of Another One Bites The Dust, and it was featured in the movie Teenage Suicide: Don’t Try It! There was also a remix by DJ Muggs included on the rare BASIC Queen Bootlegs CD discussed earlier, but it’s really just a terrible rap song that samples the Queen track. Least said about it the better.

The band never performed the song live, but among the tiny number of covers on Youtube there are a couple of very surprising stage performances by groups of young girls, which were posted in 2014 and 2015 by a Slovak art school. They’ve made it a bit more jazzy, and in fairness they do a good job of it.

8. Sail Away Sweet Sister

Written by Brian May

See also: Ultimate Queen / Song Facts

This is a really beautiful ballad, wishing a loved one well for their future as they move on to pastures new, and in some places the name of the track has the subtitle “To The Sister I Never Had” in brackets. It’s mostly sung by Brian, apart from the middle eight done by Freddie, and there are really nice guitar parts and harmonies too. So it’s one of the best of the lesser-known songs on the album.

Alternate Versions

The 2011 reissue of the album includes Take 1 of the song as a bonus track, featuring a guide vocal from Brian where the lyrics aren’t yet complete. It’s unusual in the sense that all four members of the band are playing together, as most of their backing tracks would start out as bass and drums accompanied by either guitar or piano but not both. The piano part is particularly prominent here and sounds very nice, but was rightly deemed to be too jolly, so it was toned down as the song took shape. So this is a fascinating glimpse into how it started out.

An early instrumental demo was also played at a Queen convention once, which unfortunately also means it has “Property of Queen Productions” spoken over the top of it repeatedly. It sounds similar to the final track, but with a heavier drum sound.

Live Performances

Queen have never performed the song live, which is surprising and a shame, as I think it would have gone down really well. Brian did perform the song during his Another World tour in 1998 though, which was never released on an album, so I’m glad there’s an audience recording.

Cover Versions

There aren’t many covers out there, but here are a few notable examples:

  • A month before they recorded Rock It for Roger’s birthday in the 2020 lockdown, as discussed earlier, Tyler Warren & Neil Fairclough performed a beautiful rendition of this song for Brian’s special day.
  • American hip hop duo Das EFX sampled Brian’s vocals on their track called Change, adding their own rap lyrics, so it sounds pretty awful.
  • Lucie Halamíková, who has covered a lot of Queen songs, does a lovely rendition on the piano on her channel.
  • There are lovely instrumentals by Valtteri Nieminen on piano, C-Jam on cello, and aT/dC on piano and ukulele.

9. Coming Soon

Written by Roger Taylor

See also: Ultimate Queen / Song Facts

This song has a firm, steady rhythm and some nice guitar work, but it’s nothing exceptional. The band have never performed it live either, and there are no covers worth speaking of.

One interesting anomaly, however, is that the 5.1 surround sound mix on the DVD-Audio version of the album from 2003 uses different takes of Roger’s opening vocals and the backing track, because the original master tape wasn’t available, so they had to use recordings from another session. It’s still much the same as the original album version in many respects, but you can hear the differences if you compare the two.

There are also a couple of catchy instrumental demos played at Queen conventions that are claimed to represent early stages of development for Coming Soon, though in both cases the tracks would have to go through a fair amount of evolution to become the final song on the album. One is a guitar-focused instrumental jam, while the other is a piano-led track called Sandbox, and they sound great regardless of whether they really are connected with Coming Soon.

10. Save Me

Written by Brian May

See also: Ultimate Queen / Wikipedia / Song Facts

This is another gorgeous ballad about a break-up that finishes the album in style, and was written about a friend of Brian’s who was finding things tough at that time. So here Freddie’s heartfelt vocals express a pleading tone born out of loneliness, while there are lovely piano and guitar parts played by Brian, which can be heard even more clearly on the instrumental version originally released on Greatest Karaoke Hits.

It was also the first single that Queen released in the 80s, coming out nearly 6 months before the album. It did pretty well too, although it’s surprising that in its 5 weeks in the top 40 in the UK, it only peaked at number 11. It deserved better, but it’s still very respectable. It wasn’t released as a single in America though.

Music Video

The music video, directed by Keith McMillan, was recorded at Alexandra Palace on 22 December 1979, as the band were performing there that evening. It’s a mimed performance of the track as usual, but it incorporates some animation of a woman and a bird quite nicely. I really like how the bird morphs into the live-action Freddie for the choruses, before it becomes a real-life creature that he reaches out for at the end, but in keeping with the song it escapes his clutches.

Live Performances

Queen performed the track in concert between 1979 and 1982, with Brian playing the piano for the first couple of verses before switching to guitar so that Freddie can take over on the keys.

A few versions were released officially, all of which are excellent:

There are more examples of live performances on my album playlist. As well as sublime renditions by Freddie, there are also some recordings of great performances by Adam Lambert, and the crowds clearly enjoy singing along with him.

Cover Versions

There are a fair number of covers and tribute versions out there, many of which are on my covers playlist, including:

A Human Body

Written by Roger Taylor

See also: Ultimate Queen

This track, which served as the B-side to Play The Game, wasn’t included on the original album, but was added as a bonus track on the 2011 reissue, and was also in the Singles Collection Volume 2 set. It’s led by Roger on vocals and guitar as well as drums, with Freddie and Brian joining him on backing vocals. It’s a nice little song about Captain Scott and his team pushing the human body to the limit on their expeditions to Antarctica, but I can see why it was deemed non-essential for the album.

Being such an obscure track, it comes as no surprise that Queen never performed it live, and there are only a few minor covers tucked away on Youtube (including one by Marcelo Formiga & Dario Blues Di Nardo and an instrumental by Edu Music 27).

Conclusion

So that’s it. I’ve played The Game and made it to the end, so another album bites the dust. It’s not one of their absolute best releases altogether, but it’s still a pretty good one, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Don’t forget you can check out my Queen & Covers playlists to explore the official videos, live performances, rarities, and other versions of the songs.

At the same time as their sessions for The Game, before the band moved to Germany, Queen were also recording for the Flash Gordon soundtrack. So I’ll see you for my review of that soon!

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.

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