As part of Amazon’s monthly $5 MP3 album deal for April 2012, Queen‘s The Works is on sale for only $5.

Released in 1984 and during what would have to be categorized as their “lean years” in this country, The Works by the British group Queen, remains a mildly unknown yet still pretty decent record in their long history of making music. Coming off the heels of the album Hot Space, which was a commercial flop in America, and ending a stretch of long successes for the band which started in the mid 1970s with A Night at the Opera and peaked with The Game (which spawned the number one smash “Another One Bites the Dust”), The Works finds Queen in an adventurous mode and slightly stripped down.

Their penchant for multi-tracked harmonies remains on tracks like “Radio Ga Ga” (who’s title did indeed influence the pop/dance phenom Lady Gaga, love or hate that information) and “I Want to Break Free.” There’s also still the jackhammer attack of their signature sound by way of guitarist Brian May on “Hammer to Fall” and “Tear it Up” as well. But as usual, singer Freddie Mercury still commands the presence ultimately for the band, with his muscular range and parachuting vocals on all the aforementioned tracks and the obligatory ballads like “It’s a Hard Life” and “Is This the World We Created?” The disc also has some live tracks, some extended versions and remixes and the inclusion of the rare Christmas single by the band, “Thank God It’s Christmas,” originally released on 7″ vinyl (remember those?) around the time The Works was originally released.

Browse the main sale page to see all 100 albums on sale for only $5 each in MP3 format through the end of April 2012.

Track Listing

1. Radio Ga Ga
2. Tear It Up
3. It’s A Hard Life
4. Man on the Prowl
5. Machines (Or Back to Humans)
6. I Want to Break Free
7. Keep Passing the Open Windows
8. Hammer to Fall
9. Is This the World We Created”¦?
10. I Go Crazy
11. I Want to Break Free
12. Hammer to Fall
13. Is This the World We Created”¦? (Live in Rio, January 1985)
14. It’s A Hard Life (Live in Rio, January 1985)
15. Thank God It’s Christmas

Note – when you purchase MP3s through Amazon, it stores your purchases to Amazon’s Cloud Drive; from there you can stream the music right from their online player. Also, if you have a Kindle Fire, your MP3 purchases will automatically be available for you to stream on your device. All your purchases are backed up and available for you to download at any time. You can download the files to your computer to load to an MP3 device and to your iTunes account if you have one. If you’d like to gift these MP3 purchases, you can – just click the “Give album or song as gift” button on the right on the product page. From there you enter the recipient’s email address and then select either specific songs to gift or the entire album.