"The '80s" was a weird decade for just about any band that had experienced success in the 1970's.
To put it simply, it was almost as if the moment that the '70s drew to a close, all past accomplishments were no longer viable and every band had to prove themselves all over again on January 1, 1980.
Of course, the 1970's weren't even over before one of rock's biggest bands found themselves the target of an entire musical movement hell-bent on trashing the rock establishment, especially those bands who embraced fame and all its trappings. Since no other band so openly relished the extravagant jet-set lifestyle of the rock elite more than Queen, the target was squarely on their backs.
When both Queen and the Sex Pistols found themselves recording at Wessex Sound Studios in London at the same time in 1977, Sid Vicious famously walked into Queen's control room and asked Freddie Mercury if he'd succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet - referring to a quote from a recent Mercury interview - to which Mercury responded by grabbing "Simon Ferocious" by his leather jacket and tossing him out of the studio.
Here in America, where punk made headlines but had little impact on the sales charts, Queen's popularity soared in 1977 as their new double A-side single "We Are The Champions" b/w "We Will Rock You" hit #4 and catapulted their News Of The World into the Top 5, selling over four million copies.
Even so, the seismic shift in musical tastes that was sweeping across the UK succeeded in getting one of rock's biggest bands to start second-guessing themselves - so much so that all four members of Queen would don leather jackets and strike their own Ramones-like pose for the cover of their 1980 studio album, The Game.
By then, of course, the Pistols were gone, Sid Vicious dead, but, even so, Queen seemed like a band playing catch-up instead of leading the pack after 1978's Jazz had failed to match News Of The World's landmark sales numbers.
Despite the stripped-down look of the band on the front cover and the rockabilly sound of first single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", The Game was anything but a straight-ahead rock album. In fact, each song seemed to dabble in a different musical genre, with "Another One Bites The Dust" being the most notable example. The John Deacon-penned tune not only topped the Billboard pop singles chart, but the R&B chart as well - a first for the band.
The album's mix of musical styles wasn't so much a conscious effort on the part of the band, but the result of two distinctly separate recording sessions that took place six months apart, making the album more like a collection of singles than a cohesive album.
In fact, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "Save Me", and "Play The Game" had been recorded during the first session in mid-to-late '79 and released as singles in the UK prior to the album's release.
It was the group's second session, in early 1980, that yielded "Another One Bites The Dust"; a song that would give Queen a new lease on life and make John Deacon rich enough to retire from music after Freddie Mercury's passing.
What makes The Game arguably the band's best album is the songs that comprise the rest of the set. After all, back when we kids still bought music, the last thing you wanted was to fork over good money for an album whose only good songs were those that had been released as singles.
In fact, Elektra Records, the band's U.S. label, could have released just about any song on the album as a single. That they chose to release "Need Your Loving Tonight" as the only single following the success of "Another One Bites The Dust" was a major mistake.
In doing so, songs like "Rock It (Prime Jive)", "Coming Soon", "Play The Game" and "Save Me" (which never got a U.S. single release) never got their just due are largely forgotten gems.
The blame for this decision to release only two singles in the States had much to do with the band's decision to record the soundtrack for the cinematic dud "Flash Gordon", which came out a mere six months after The Game and stopped that album's momentum in its tracks.
Had they seen the "Flash Gordon" project for the dog that it was and allowed The Game to remain their central focus for the next year, you can bet your ass we'd be talking about that album in the same reverent tone as A Day At The Races/A Night At The Opera.