The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and under-appreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

HEART – LITTLE QUEEN (1977)

While I normally try to stick to the 80’s and 90’s when it comes to the albums I write about here in The Cassette Chronicles, I do occasionally branch out to other decades as well. 

This week’s trip to the late 1970s was inspired not by grabbing a tape out of the Big Box of Cassettes though. Instead, the choice of Heart’s 3rd album Little Queen was inspired by someone else writing about it.

In my other writing “job”, I review mystery novels. That has led to some friendships being struck up with a number of the writers whose books I read. One of them has a daughter who has surprisingly good (and old-school) taste in music. Recently she has been doing a series of posts on her own Facebook page and she did a post about Little Queen that I enjoyed. 

This led me to deciding to follow suit and write up a piece of my own. 

Fair or not, because there are a number of great songs on the album, I think the reason Little Queen is such a big cog in Heart’s success is because of the lead track “Barracuda”. Yes, I’m not exactly breaking new ground with that opinion but since it is the first track on the album, I figure I might as well get it out of the way first.

The song was written in outraged response to deceptive and disgusting marketing created by Heart’s first record label (I’ll let you look up the story for yourself). Funny how rage spurred such creativity, no? The song’s opening chugging riff is instantly identifiable, a masterpiece of what is now considered “classic rock”. Between the fiery music and Ann Wilson’s take-no-BS vocal performance, the idea that anyone could not love “Barracuda” seems just wrong to me. It is a tentpole rocker for the 1970s decade to me.

What makes the first side of Little Queen so interesting to me is the way “Barracuda” serves as an opening salvo and yet, the middle three tracks lean more towards a kind of softer rock singer-songwriter vibe for the most part.

Okay, “Love Alive” mainly gets that kind of tag for me for its intro, which is way more low-key than the intro for “Barracuda”. I like the way the guitar comes in after that intro and you can feel the build the song has going for it until it does finally burst into much more of a full on rocker type track.

“Sylvan Song” and “Dream of the Archer” are kind of a themed duology. With “Sylvan Song” you get an instrumental that starts with some ambient nature sounds before you get the guitar fading in. As the song continues the guitar work is fully at the forefront of the music and while I’m not always a fan of instrumentals myself, this one left me feeling quite entertained even with its just barely over two minute run time.

But when the song ends, it feeds directly and thematically into “Dream of the Archer”. While the song title would seem right at home as the title of a fantasy novel, I thought the music had a kind of cinematic flair to it. It’s definitely softer in both focus and delivery but when you combine the two tracks, it does make for an interesting listen.

And while those three tracks are not quite as aggressive in tone and delivery, the first side of Little Queen does have a straight up rocker in “Kick It Out” serving to close out the side and bookend it with “Barracuda”. The song’s ferocious delivery and hard driving rhythms helps the track live up to its title. And while it was wasn’t overly successful as the album’s third and final single release, the song is still a damn good slice of rock ‘n’ roll.

Before digging into the album’s 2nd side, I thought mentioning the album’s cover art was in order. Most of the time I see comments about the artwork, they are talking about how the band looks like they are at a renaissance fair or something. But for my money, I thought the art was closer to portraying the band as gyspies. I think it makes more sense given how much touring they were doing at the time. It, for lack of a better term, made them rock and roll gypsies.

The 2nd side of Little Queen opens up with the album’s title track. It has a mid-tempo pacing but thanks to the drum work of Michael DeRosier, it also has a bit of a stomp feel to it as well. While it failed to chart as a single, it is still a pretty good track that I’m always happy to hear when it occasionally pops up on the classic rock radio station I listen to.

If there’s a song that doesn’t truly catch fire for me on Little Queen, I would have to say that it is the track “Treat Me Well”. Written by guitarist Nancy Wilson, the low-key delivery might have something to do with why I don’t really find myself getting too into the song whenever I play the album.

That reticence goes away though when I get to the song “Say Hello”. It’s another mid-tempo track but this one has a nice rhythmic vibe to both the music and the way Ann Wilson delivers her vocal performance.

Meanwhile, the song “Cry To Me” has a slower and way more understated style. While it doesn’t blow me away, I do like the way this one was constructed. The album’s closing track “Go On Cry” does seem to go thematically with “Cry To Me”. It still manages to grab me though. The one thing I didn’t like was how long it seemed to take in the intro for the music to fade in and get the track fully underway.

While Little Queen may have just one stone cold classic track on it in terms of singles success, you’d be doing yourself a bit of disservice to simply dismiss the rest of the album. It’s chock full of some great songs that run the gamut of what you could expect from any rock band coming out of the 1970s. You get hard rocking tracks alongside songs that convey more of that singer-songwriter vibe to you. But what makes the album a winner in my book is how well it all works when you take in the album as a whole. Little Queen helped cement Heart’s status as rock royalty and even in the here and now of 2024, Ann and Nancy Wilson maintain that royal status.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Little Queen album has been certified triple platinum. When the album was reissued in 2004, the CD contained two bonus tracks. The first song “Too Long a Time” is actually an early version of what would become “Love Alive”. The second is a live recording of the band covering “Stairway to Heaven” from a 1978 show in Seattle, WA.

Because of various contract disputes and timing, when everything was said and done the first three Heart albums (Dreamboat Annie, Magazine and Little Queen) were all on the album chart at the same time.

What amazes me is that despite its status as one of the band’s signature songs, “Barracuda” peaked at only #11 on the singles chart when it was originally released.