Artist: QUEEN
Album: JAZZ VINYL (LP)

Release date: 1978/ 2015
EAN/UPS: 0602547202741
Media type: LP

Jazz is a 1978 album by English rock band Queen. It was the band's seventh studio album, and comprises a number of different styles of music, including disco-funk ("Fun It"), vaudeville ("Dreamer's Ball"), hard rock ("Dead On Time") and a country-flavored stomp ("Fat Bottomed Girls"). Curiously, it contains nothing recognizable as jazz, except perhaps the music-hall swing of "Dreamer's Ball". The album's eclecticism was alternately praised and criticised; it was subject to a viciously scathing Rolling Stone review by Dave Marsh which included the suggestion that "Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band." Nevertheless, the album made it to #6 on the American Billboard 200.

The band had intended to sell the album with a poster depicting the all-female nude bicycle race staged to promote "Fat Bottomed Girls", but in the USA it was only available through mail order so as not to upset retailers. A small version of the poster comes with the Crown Jewels box set.

Roy Thomas Baker temporarily reunited with Queen and became their producer for this album. It was 3 years since he co-produced Queen's 1975 album A Night at the Opera. But this album also was the last album he co-produced for the band.

Included in the liner notes is the attribution "Thunderbolt courtesy of God", referring to the crash of thunder heard at the end of the song "Dead On Time" which May recorded with a portable audio recorder during a thunderstorm.

The album artwork was suggested by Roger Taylor, who previously saw a similar design painted on the Berlin Wall.

SIDE A:

"Mustapha" (Mercury) – 3:01
"Fat Bottomed Girls" (May) – 4:16
"Jealousy" (Mercury) – 3:13
"Bicycle Race" (Mercury) – 3:01
"If You Can't Beat Them" (Deacon) – 4:15
"Let Me Entertain You" (Mercury) – 3:01

SIDE B:

"Dead on Time" (May) – 3:23
"In Only Seven Days" (Deacon) – 2:30
"Dreamer's Ball" (May) – 3:30
"Fun It" (Taylor) – 3:29
"Leaving Home Ain't Easy" (May) – 3:15
"Don't Stop Me Now" (Mercury) – 3:29
"More of that Jazz" (Taylor) – 4:16

LINE-UP:

Freddie Mercury: Lead Vocals, Piano, Backing Vocals
Brian May: Electric & Acoustic Guitars, Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals
Roger Taylor: Drums & Percussion, Electric Guitar, Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Bass
John Deacon: Bass, Electric & Acoustic Guitars