Jazz (1978)
1. Mustapha
2. Fat Bottomed Girls
3. Jealousy
4. Bicycle Race
5. If You Can't Beat Them
6. Let Me Entertain You
7. Dead on Time
8. In Only Seven Days
9. Dreamer's Ball
10.Fun It
11.Leaving Home Ain't Easy
12.Don't Stop Me Now
13.More of That Jazz
Queen had the rare distinction of never really putting out a “bad” album. Sure, there were a few that leaned toward the uneven or the overly ambitious, but flat-out failures? Not really. By the late '70s, they were deep into their golden run — and Jazz, released in 1978, finds the band sitting comfortably in the middle of their most creatively fertile period. While it may lack the seismic hit that defined albums like A Night at the Opera or The Game, the material here is solid across the board. This is Queen doing what Queen does best: a little bit of everything, all at once.
Don’t let the title mislead you — there’s no actual jazz here, at least not in the traditional sense. The word “jazz” seems to be used in the “all that jazz” kind of way: theatrical, brash, energetic, and unapologetically varied. In that context, it fits. Much like News of the World before it, this album dials back some of the band’s operatic tendencies and instead favors a leaner, more rock-driven approach. But of course, being Queen, that still includes Eastern-tinged prayers, barroom piano flourishes, and a brief detour into disco.
The opener, Mustapha, is a prime example. Mercury channels something that sounds like an Arabic call to prayer, then suddenly shifts into a heavy rocker about 90 seconds in. It’s bizarre, over-the-top, and completely Queen. From there, the album steers into more straightforward terrain, but never loses its sense of adventure.
Once again, they attempt the double-single trick — though this time it’s more of a thematic pairing than a literal medley. Fat Bottomed Girls and Bicycle Race are linked more by marketing than by musical similarity, but both stand on their own as clever, left-field entries in the band’s canon. It’s a little odd that they’re separated on the album by Mercury’s delicate ballad Jealousy, which kills a bit of the momentum, but sequencing quirks aside, the singles are strong.
Elsewhere, the band tries on new hats. Let Me Entertain You is a sly bit of self-aware stagecraft, while Fun It and More of That Jazz flirt with a funk/disco hybrid that most rock bands at the time were either mocking or desperately trying to imitate. To Queen’s credit, they make it work — or at least, they make it sound like they believe it.
That said, the back half of the album does lose a bit of steam. While nothing here qualifies as filler in the classic sense, a few tracks feel like they’re running on autopilot. Fortunately, Don’t Stop Me Now shows up just in time to course correct. It’s since become one of Queen’s most beloved songs — and for good reason. Pure adrenaline, wrapped in melody.
Unfortunately, the album closes on a bit of a misfire. More of That Jazz is a decent track on its own, but for some reason, it ends with a rapid-fire montage of snippets from earlier songs on the album. It’s jarring, unnecessary, and undermines an otherwise strong closer. You almost wonder if they ran out of tape.
Jazz would be the band’s final release of the 1970s, and in many ways, it serves as a coda to their most creatively unfiltered era. While they’d go on to embrace the slicker, more synth-heavy sounds of the '80s (to mostly successful results), there’s something special about Queen in this mode — raw, fearless, and constantly shifting. This wasn’t just a band chasing trends. It was a band setting them.
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