Чудо: История альбома Queen

other albums with similar titles

The Miracle is the thirteenth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 22 May 1989 by Parlophone Records and Capitol Records in both the United Kingdom and the U. S. respectively, where it was the band's only studio album to be released on latter label. The album was recorded as the band recovered from Brian May's marital problems and Freddie Mercury's HIV diagnosis in 1987 (which was known to the band, though not publicised at the time). Recording started in January 1988 and lasted for an entire year. The album was originally going to be called The Invisible Men, but three weeks before the release, according to Roger Taylor, they changed the name to The Miracle. It was also the last Queen album with a photo of the band on the front cover. The album reached number one in the UK, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, and number 24 on the US Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. AllMusic would name The Miracle as Queen's best album of the 1980s, along with The Game. It would prove to be the band's penultimate album to be recorded with Freddie Mercury, as he died on 24 November 1991, nine months after their next album, Innuendo, was released.

"Party" began as a jam session between Freddie Mercury, Brian May and John Deacon. Mercury was at the piano and he started off the "we had a good night" section. From then on the three of them worked together and completed it. May sings lead on a small portion of the song near the beginning.

"Khashoggi's Ship" was started by Mercury with all four band members contributing to the lyrics and music. The song is about famous billionaire Adnan Khashoggi and a ship (the Nabila, now Kingdom 5KR) that he owned at the time and was one of the largest private yachts in the world. On the album, this track segues from "Party", to which it has a very similar lyrical theme. The song served as the reference to the name of the Khashoggi character in the We Will Rock You musical.

"The Miracle" is one of the most complex songs from the band's later years. Mercury and Deacon co wrote the chords together. It is one of May's favourite songs. The entire band contributed lyrical and some musical ideas, and Mercury played piano as well as many synth tracks, using a Korg M1 and a Roland D 50. The Collector's Edition included an alternate version ("Original Take with John's Ending").

"I Want It All" was composed by May in 1987. On the "Greatest Video Hits II" DVD, May commented that the song was inspired by his second wife, Anita Dobson's, favourite motto, "I want it all, and I want it now!" The idea of having intro, verses, choruses and solos over the same chord progression was reused on their next album with another May song, "The Show Must Go On", from 1991. Mercury sang lead vocals for most of the song, but Mercury and May share lead vocals during the bridge. Mercury played keyboards, May played acoustic and electric guitars while Taylor used double kick bass drums for the first (and only) time.

"The Invisible Man" is Taylor's first song on the album. The lyrical idea came from a book he was reading. May and Taylor commented (Queen for an Hour interview, 1989) that Taylor wrote part of the song in the bath (similarly to what happened with Mercury and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" ten years before). Each of the four band members are name checked in the vocals by Freddie throughout the course of the song: "Freddie Mercury" right before the first verse begins (done by Roger Taylor), "John Deacon" after the first verse, "Brian May" (said twice) before his guitar solo, and "Roger Taylor" (with the initial "r" rolled by Mercury to sound like a drum roll) after the final chorus; Taylor "answers" with a drum fill. The demo version contains a completely different middle eight with Mercury singing alternate lyrics in the style of Elvis Presley. The whispered parts of the chorus are sung by Taylor.

"Breakthru" is a combination of two songs: "When Love Breaks Up", by Mercury, and "Breakthru", written by Taylor with input by the others in the key change. Taylor's mid 1980s songs tended to be in flat keys, when he started writing at the piano instead of on a guitar. This song was released as a single and made the top ten in the UK over the summer of 1989. "When Love Breaks Up" was eventually released as part of the 2022 Collector's Edition.

"Rain Must Fall" is a collaboration between Deacon (music) and Mercury (lyrics). Taylor recorded a lot of Latin percussion but most of that was edited out in order to have more space for vocal harmonies, guitars and keyboards, the latter shared between Mercury and Deacon in this piece.

"Scandal" was written by May about the British press, in the wake of media fuelled controversy about his recent divorce, his relationship with Anita Dobson, and Mercury's rare public appearances due to his battle with AIDS. May played keyboards and did the guitar solo as a first take. Mercury's lead vocals were also a first take. Synth bass is played by David Richards. May has since commented that the song is very close to his heart.

"My Baby Does Me" is another collaboration of Mercury and Deacon. Both of them had the idea of a simpler track in order to ease off the album. In a Radio 1 interview in 1989, each of them claimed the other had constructed the bassline. The song was originally demoed as "My Baby Loves Me", but was rewritten to replace the word "loves" with "does" throughout.

"Was It All Worth It" was composed by Mercury. The song harks back to the band's intricately produced sound in the 1970s. Though the bulk of the song was masterminded by Mercury, all members contributed ideas and lyrics (for example, Taylor contributed the line "we love you madly!"). Deacon later cited the song as his favourite on the album. Taylor uses a gong and timpani. Despite it not being released as a single, it remains hugely popular among the Queen fanbase.

This song was initiated by Mercury, with lyrics that relate to his illness. The song's working title was "A Fiddly Jam". A blues rock style jam, it features lead vocals shared by Mercury and Taylor.

"Face It Alone" was recorded during The Miracle sessions in 1988. The song was eventually released as a single on 13 October 2022. "Face It Alone" was written by all four members of Queen and was produced by David Richards, Kris Fredriksson and Justin Shirley Smith. The song peaked at number 90 in the UK. An accompanying music video was released on October 21, 2022. The track was included on The Miracle Collector's Edition.

All three Brian May compositions were included for the first time on The Miracle Collector's Edition. Only the last of these was worked on in the studio with Freddie Mercury providing vocals.

The cover art was created by designer Richard Gray, utilising a chroma key and the Quantel Paintbox workstation, then state of the art image manipulation technology, to combine photographs of the familiar faces of the four band members into one morphed gestalt image. This visual is in line with their decision to dispense with individual credits and simply present their music as the product of Queen; the back cover went a step further with a seamless regiment pattern of the band's eyes.