“Mr Bad Guy? That’s Me!” sang Freddie Mercury on his debut solo album, Mr Unhealthy Man. 40 years later, that document is being celebrated with a brand new vinyl reissue. The reissue, due for launch on December fifth, shall be accessible on each 180g translucent inexperienced vinyl and on image disc LP.
Initially launched in April 1985, Mr Unhealthy Man was Mercury’s first album away from the group he had co-founded 15 years earlier. “I had a lot of ideas bursting to get out and there were a lot of musical territories I wanted to explore which I really couldn’t do within Queen,” he shared on the time. Mr Unhealthy Man was impressed by the dance pop membership scene Mercury was personally immersed in, and confirmed listeners a special aspect of the singer from Queen’s arena-driven sounds.
Mr Unhealthy Man was recorded over a interval of a number of months at Munich’s Musicland Studio, the place Queen had made their most up-to-date albums. It was co-produced by Mercury and Reinhold Mack, who had labored with the group since their 1980 hit The Recreation. The album reached Quantity 6 within the UK album charts and produced 4 singles: “I Was Born To Love You,” “Made In Heaven,” “Living On My Own,” and “Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow.”
The brand new vinyl reissue options a mixture of the album by Queen’s longtime sound staff of Justin Shirley-Smith and Joshua J Macrae. “We went back to the original multi-track tapes,” shares Shirley-Smith. “The idea wasn’t to try to make it sound like they would make it now, it was to make it sound like it would have then if they’d had better technology and more time. And of course, it’s a massive honour to work on anything Freddie did, and we always treat it with the utmost respect.”
Reflecting on the album, Freddie as soon as shared: “I put my heart and soul into Mr Bad Guy and I think it’s a very natural album. It had some very moving ballads – things to do with sadness and pain, but at the same time there were some very frivolous and tongue-in-cheek songs, because that is my nature. I think the songs on that album reflect the state of my life, a diverse selection of moods and a whole spectrum of what my life was.”
Order the fortieth anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s Mr Unhealthy Man now.
