Freddie Mercury, Montserrat Caballe - Barcelona
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Free Music Notes for Barcelona
Free Music Review: A must have for any Freddy fan, excellent vocals
Hit: 5 Stars
At first listening of this disc I fell in love with it. I have been a Mercury fan for a long time, and this Disc offers many "Queen" like backing, and high soaring vocals made famous by him. If you are a fan of the Discs "Made in Heaven", "The Miracle", and "Innuendo" you will find something on this Disc that you will love.If you are like me and love Mercury's piano ballads you will love cut 4.The song opens with a wonderful piano intro and a Caballe solo. Mercury adds a backing vocal and progresses into a full duet. The song continues to build with counter melodies, call and response, and finally building into a full blown unison free for all.
My favorite track is "How Can I Go On". This track combines solos from Caballe and Mercury into a mix of strong ballad bass lines and backing vocals. The track opens with Mercury singing solo with a moderate tempo in the classical Queen ballad format. Caballe sings a response to Mercury's vocal in the next verse with Mercury backing her in spoken words and high pitched backings made famous by him in other Queen recordings. The song closes with Mercury and Caballe singing counter melodys, a call and response and unison humming of the melody.
Overall I really enjoy this Disc. Mercury and Caballes' performances are top notch. The writing of the music is fresh, and dynamic, listening to the Overture reveals the flexibility of the composer. The recording is clean and mixed well. I get strong bass response even in the car where I don't have a Sub.
In impressive fashion Mercury and team merge two completely different styles of singing. Rock and Opera, moreover Queen and Opera. It starts in the writing of the music, in the performance of the artists, and finally in the Mix.
If I could vote 6 stars I would.
Free Music Review: what can't freddie do?
Hit: 5 Stars
the story as i understand it goes something like this.....
freddie was asked to write a song about the city of barcelona for the olympics,and wrote an inspiring and beloved song that still gets a ton of plays.
an opera singer who he absolutely loved,montserratte caballe,a spain resident and renowned,accomplished ,well loved by the residents of her home country,was in town at the same time freddie was there.freddie started writing a semi-rock opera with the brilliant mike moran,and asked mike to contact her to discuss the possibility of doing this new creation together.after many talks with her management,and many balks by the star herself,she reluctantly agreed to meet freddie.
freddie and mike performed a couple of the finished songs for her and she fell in love with the idea and agreed to do it.
something spectacular came out of the recording studio,and while the album can be considered a rock opera of sorts,freddie and mike's arrangements were toned down to be a softer rock creation,featuring much of ms. caballe's searing vocals.this cd will actually make you tear up,as this unlikely team sings some beautifully crafted music.
a few of the songs appear on freddies solo videos dvd,and ms. caballe is is as great an actress on live stage as she is an opera star.her vocal range is immense,and paired with freddies unmatched singing quality the album barcelona is perhaps an acquired taste,but worth a few listens to see the perfection of this enormous production.
a must for every freddie fan.....and it begs the question,what couldn't freddie do,and where would his mind have us at right now if he were still with us?
Free Music Review: An Amazing Swan Song for Freddie Mercury
Hit: 5 Stars
I have been searching for this disk for years ever since hearing a bootleg tape copy of it 6 years ago.This is a must own disk for any fan of Queen! Wow!
I truly believe this disk is among the best work Freddie Mercury ever put out. I think this was Freddie's last recording. I have heard that he was supposed to perform it live at the opening ceremonies of the Barcelona Olympic Games in '92, but died a few months before. (Instead, I have heard it was performed there with Queen band members and Julio Iglesias filling in - as a tribute to Freddie.)
Despite his failing health during this recording, you would never know it to listen to it. Freddie's voice is as strong (and the songs are as well written) here on his last recording as on Queen's earliest disks from the 70's. Unbelievable.
Freddie literally put his all into this recording. When you hear this you will know fully what a tragic loss his early death was. He clearly would have gone on reshaping the world of popular music had his life not been cut short. This album demonstrates his genius was unwavering even at the end. Freddie's end was tragic, yet the music on this disk is not sad, but triumphant. It was after all Freddie's final gift to the world.
He left us as he had always lived his life - not with a whimper but a bang and a shout. This disk deserves wider recognition.
Rating: 6 STARS ****** and a standing ovation.
Free Music Review: The bestEST CD I have ever heard!
Hit: 5 Stars
When you want to enter a musical adventure, when you want to let your feelings pour out of your soul, when regular music is not enough to produce an almost orgasmic feeling, it is then that Mercury and Caballé bring a precious and extremely marvelous work of art, capable of inspiring the most stone-hearted of men. Starting with barcelona, a perfect blend of Spanish and English, with its sudden changes in melody that set a perfect mood for the inspiring tracks to come. La Japonaise is another beautiful bilingual song (needless to say what languages) that leaves room for those of us who don't speak Japanese to wonder about those sections we don't understand. The fallen priest has awesome lyrics and musical variety, a very well-developed duet makes this song one of the best songs in the CD. Well, anyway, describing every song is not only too lengthy, but also useless. The best thing you can do is to GET THE CD. I have a couple of copies just in case I wear them off. I can only tell you that I LOVE the person who asked me to listen to this CD. My life literally changed the moment I heard BARCELONA for the first time. My favorite song: Guide Me Home immediately followed by How Can I Go On. These two songs have to coexist in that order for the sake of its musical beauty.Free Music Review: THE Mercury Showcase
Hit: 5 Stars
After nearly 19 years, the Barcelona album remains a hidden gem in the Queen/Freddie Mercury legend. While present-day music critics finally give Mercury and Queen the justice they so deserve, Mercury himself continues to be recalled mostly as the fantastic showman he was, with the musician taking a back seat. Barcelona gives us Mercury the musician. No lycra bodysuits, no half-mic stand, no day-ohhhhs. Just the voice, the words, the orchestration. And it stands up tall, big, dramatic, moving. And drastically different from the works of Queen.
Caballe of course is spectacular, though definitely not annoying or screechy as (in my experience) some opera can be. She functions as the perfect partner in crime for Mercury as they both held each other in awe and reverance, even after they became acquainted.
Every song is complex, layered and utterly brimming with emotion. Though Mercury went on to record two more albums with Queen (with Innuendo being one of the best of the entire Queen catalog), Barcelona stands in my mind as his crowning musical achievement.