"And nobody played the synthesizer." This comment was triumphant on the first set of 1970s Queen albums. The band was proud to be able to conjure the most wonderful sounds from Brian May's overdubbed guitar, without using any electronics. The sequel is known. From The Game (1980), the British quartet suddenly embraced the synthesizer and the drum computer, allowing Queen to connect with the prevailing
… fashion. More than twenty years to date, most of the records sound quite dated because of this. Time for revisionism! The re-release of Barcelona, the second solo album by singer Freddie Mercury from 1988, contains the phrase '..and nobody played synthesizer' for the first time in ages. The Prague Filmharmonic Orchestra has replaced Freddie's synths from the eighties. The album on which the flamboyant singer sings duets with the Spanish opera singers Montserrat Caballé sounds a lot fresher. It doesn't change much in the way of the songs that strike a middle ground between opera and rock with varying degrees of success. The collaboration between Mercury and Caballé was and still is exceptional. This clever piece of falsification of history does not detract from that, but does not add much either. (JE)more