The Game (1980)
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
Every once in a while, a hugely successful band decides to pull the rug out from under its audience and head off in an entirely new direction. More often than not, the results are awkward at best and disastrous at worst. But Queen, being Queen, managed to pull off the pivot with remarkable ease. The Game was a sharp left turn from the grandiosity of their '70s output — the operatic flourishes, the baroque detours, the layered vocals stacked to the ceiling. In their place? Simplicity. A tighter sound. A streamlined approach.
Even the album cover tells you as much. Gone are the elaborate costumes and surreal artwork. Instead, we get a black-and-white photo of the band in leather jackets, looking like they’ve just walked off the set of a James Dean film. And while this isn’t exactly a “heavy” album, there’s a certain 1950s directness to the whole thing. The songs are punchy, the structures are clean, and the arrangements are deliberately stripped down.
Why the change? Hard to say. Maybe it was a reaction to the end of the flamboyant '70s. Maybe it was an effort to usher themselves into a new decade with a sound that felt fresh. Whatever the reason, it worked. Some fans from the glam and prog days may have been left scratching their heads — likely the same people still holding out hope for a new Mott the Hoople record — but Queen picked up plenty of new followers in the process. This wasn’t a sell-out. This was a band with nothing left to prove, showing once again that they could do just about anything they set their minds to.
The big hits are enormous. Crazy Little Thing Called Love is a rockabilly send-up that Elvis himself could have crooned, while Another One Bites the Dust is one of the most unexpected — and successful — funk detours ever attempted by a rock band. The latter ended up being the best-selling single of the year, and the fact that it lives in the same discography as Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions tells you everything you need to know about Queen’s range.
Elsewhere, the band sticks mostly to the same script. Dragon Attack is a groove-heavy gem that somehow never became a single — a serious contender for best Queen deep cut. Need Your Loving Tonight is another sharp, radio-ready track that could have gone farther if given the chance. True, there are a few misfires — Rock It (Prime Jive) and Don’t Try Suicide are a bit goofy and haven’t aged particularly well — but even the weaker moments have irresistible hooks. You’ll be humming them against your will.
The only real knock against the album is that it doesn’t quite stay in its lane. Tracks like Play the Game and Sail Away Sweet Sister are nice enough — classic Queen, really — but they slightly disrupt the flow of what otherwise could have been the band’s most cohesive effort. For once, you almost wish they had resisted the temptation to be so diverse.
Still, The Game represents Queen at a creative peak. For all their stylistic shapeshifting, this is arguably their most focused album — and certainly one of their most listenable from start to finish. Some would call it their last truly great record. That may be a bit harsh, but it’s easy to see why fans of this one hold it in such high regard.
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