Recorded between Queen commitments, and released three months before Live Aid, Freddie Mercury's uneven 1985 debut solo album arrived to mostly lukewarm reviews and only modest commercial success. Four decades later, this new deluxe vinyl repressing of the 2019 remastered mix does not make a case for Lost Classic status, but it is a pleasing reminder that even Mercury in flippant, throwaway, disco-jazz cabaret mode could still muster flashes of Olympian pop-rock genius.
Mercury claimed at the time that he made Mr. Bad Guy to explore musical territory unavailable to his hard-rocking day-job band, but with hindsight, the apple did not fall too far from the tree. Aside from dialling down the Wagnerian guitar solos, the sonic palette here inevitably recalls Queen in their slicker 1980s phase, notably their embrace of synth-pop, disco and funk on Hot Space (1982) and The Works (1984). This album was recorded at the same fabled Musicland studio in Munich, with German producer-engineer Reinhold Mack again at the controls.
