'A Night At The Opera' (1975)

This album and its most famous song, 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' are now so familiar as to have been normalized as 'classic Queen.' It's 'classical' Queen, the Queen of the overt operatics, but not original Queen. In many respects, A Night at the Opera is a quite radical departure from their early sound, with the theatrics to the fore and the rock much diminished. The album represented a huge risk at the time. Queen had established themselves with a distinctive rock sound and had won quite a substantial following with that sound. The obvious thing for the band to do at this point would have been to consolidate their position after their breakthrough the previous year. Instead, they put it all on the line and shot for somewhere beyond infinity. Because 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is now so familiar there is a tendency to forget just how dramatically different and odd it appeared at the time. It should never have succeeded. And that's before we come to whatever mode of immensity 'The Prophet's Song' is. Queen could quite easily have fallen flat on their face with this album, losing the audience they had gained with their first three albums and alienating everyone else with the sheer oddity of it all. Had 'Bohemian Rhapsody' flopped, taking the album down with it, critics would be accusing the band of throwing away the triumphs of Sheer Heart Attack through sheer self-indulgence and pomposity. The accusations of self-indulgence and pomposity are made anyway, but only to denounce the band's sound. In this regard, those qualities seem to be instrumental to the band's success rather than its failure.

I'm able to go back to 1975 and remember the impact Queen made at the end of that year. This was the year the band not only 'made it,' but transcended all expectations in pop music. This album was 'above and beyond' the norm. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' seemed to top the charts forever, its nine weeks at #1 covering three months and two years, the end of 1975 and the beginning of 1976. No wonder that Queen were seen as rock royalty when punk exploded a couple of years later. That the band were elevated to the rock pantheon despite only having their first hit record in 1974 shows the immensity of the band's achievement in these couple of years. No sooner had the band arrived than they found themselves alongside the rock gods. 

It could all have turned out very differently. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' could very easily have flopped, gone unplayed and unheard, taking the album down with it. Instead the single went huge, the album with it. The song, like the band, has never been away since. Part of the shock at Queen's success over the years lies in the fact that people continually allow themselves to be swayed by the critics, who spent most of their time putting the band down for being over-hyped, over-produced, and generally awful. They say it so often that people presume it must be true. The same thing happened at Live Aid. Queen had been the world's best live act since ever, and yet no-one saw their show-stealing performance coming. All of which goes to prove that when it comes to music, trust your ears and your instincts, and not the words of critics.

You only needed ears to hear to have been able to predict something like 'A Night at the Opera.' The origins of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' can be found in several numbers, both ethereal, grand ballads and rock numbers, as well as in complex tracks like 'My Fairy King' and 'March of the Black Queen.' Although a hard rock album, 'Sheer Heart Attack' had ended on operatics and drama with 'In the Lap of the Gods .. Revisited.' You can hear the ballad part of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on 'Lily of the Valley.' And you can certainly hear the thumping rock mid-section of 'Rhapsody' all over the bands' music. So, yes, 'A Night at the Opera' is classic Queen in every sense of the word.

But even you had picked up on all the signs and were waiting for the next move, you would still have been stunned and swept away by 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'A Night at the Opera.' Buying the album, you would have been left similarly stunned, dazed, and amazed by 'The Prophet's Song,' Brian May's hard rock counterpart to Freddie's 'Rhapsody.' The album itself boasts an incredible array of sound, from the hard rock of 'Death On Two Legs,' 'Sweet Lady,' and 'I'm in Love with my Car' to the effortless pop harmonies of 'You're My Best Friend' and the refined love balladry of 'Love of My Life,' with all manner of styles along the way, 20s, 30s jolly vaudeville 'Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon' and 'Seaside Rendezvous,' the sci-fi folk of '39,' the jazz band ukulele George Formby pastiche of 'Good Company,' with dark rather than light lyrics. 

If you can't compass and comprehend such rich and varied styles, then the familiar rock and pop tribalisms will do for you. Queen transcend all of that, offering something for everyone in their own distinctive style. 

It is also worth emphasising that Queen's production values were formidable, with weeks being spent in the studio recording overdubs and vocal and guitar harmonies. All four members of Queen were smart guys, three of them having science and technology backgrounds, and Freddie with art and design. They were creative and technical whizzes in the studio. But there is more to Queen than that. Geeks can be impressed by the technical expertise, but in the end it is the quality of the songs themselves that moves people. Beyond the technical brilliance is the irrepressible love of life at the heart of the music. It could be grand and opulent. Let's be honest, it could be decadent and hedonistic to an extent that may not be quite healthy. But it was fun. 

A Night at the Opera (1975)

"Death on Two Legs"

Brutal and vicious. This song about a manager who had screwed the band over is about as subtle as a  sledgehammer, but hits twice as hard. This is a much harder follow-up to 'Flick of the Wrist' and makes for a foreboding album opener. I think Fred and the band knew how to nurture a grudge.

"Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon"

Good but slight, it's really a linking song on the album and, as such, has real value in itself. It lightens the mood in between two heavyweight songs and performances. It's a real shame that this great song tends to get overlooked on account of its short length, being just one minute and seven seconds and a mere eighty seven words. It's a little gem that is bursting with ideas and imagination. The song is short, sweet, and absurd in a very cheery way. It's clever, too, packed with little gimmicks and effects. The megaphone effect on the lead vocals was achieved by the vocals being fed through a pair of headphones placed inside a metal can in another studio. The sound was picked up by another microphone to generate the megaphone effect that was wanted. Which makes the point that these guys were not only great musicians, they were technically clever and very creative. Despite its short length, the song closes with the classic and unique Brian May "red special" guitar sound in a solo that stays long in the memory.

Freddie Mercury described the song in an interview to Record Mirror in 1976. "That's the way the mood takes me. Y'know... that's just one aspect of me, and I can really change. Everything on 'Sunday Afternoon' is something that... I'm really, I'm really sort of, I really... well, I love doing the vaudeville side of things. It's quite a sort of test... I love writing things like that and I'm sure I'm going to do more than that... It's quite a challenge."

He did indeed go on to do a lot more in this style, with this short interlude on A Night at the Opera reaching full flowering with "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" on the next album.

"I'm in Love with My Car"

Very many people love this one, and refuse to go near any list of the best Queen songs that doesn't place it high and handsome. It was once a staple of Queen concerts. For my part, I don't like cars at all, and so imagine the song being sung about something else entirely. The lyrics do indeed seem open invitations to alternate explanations. Some such thing has been suggested. It would make more sense of the emotional charge and the heat it generates in performance. Cars leave me cold in a way that substitutes don't. Brian May says that we all know the truth, though: Roger Taylor really was singing about his car.

"You're My Best Friend"

This is just great clean pop, pure and simple. It also makes clear the extent to which the Queen sound incorporated vocal harmonies on a par with The Beach Boys. This song is just seemingly effortlessly in its brilliance that it is easy to overlook its qualities. I think it easily rivals the bigger hit on the album, 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' whose unique qualities are rather obvious (and undoubtedly impressive). 'You're My Best Friend' is half the length of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' but integrates some incredible three- and four-part vocal and guitar harmonies. The song is just so easy on the ears that you are too busy simply enjoying the song to even notice let alone appreciate its musical qualities. The song was written by bassist John Deacon, whose sensibilities were more soul and pop than rock. Deacon added another killer dimension to the band. To this day, Queen are the only band whose members have each written a #1 song. This one didn't hit #1, but it should have done. Had this been #1 for a million weeks and 'Bohemian Rhapsody' the song which stalled outside the top ten, no one would have been surprised. As it is, 'Rhapsody' was the first single, people bought the album, and 'Best Friend' was relegated to follow up single. It has obvious #1 potential. 'Rhapsody' stole its thunder. It remains a huge favourite, though, and was a fair sized hit in its own right, reaching the UK top ten.

"39"

This can be described as utopian electro-folk (whatever that is), a techno tale of a trip into a future world played on acoustic guitar. File under odd. Brian May on vocal. 

"Sweet Lady"

I remember my mother sent a request for a Queen song to Radio Wales, and Richard Rees read the letter and played this one, which was not the song asked for. Listening to the show every week, it soon became apparent that Rees only had the one Queen album - all Queen tracks he played on his show were from 'A Night at the Opera.' 

'Sweet Lady' is a hard rocker about a lady who treated the writer 'like a dog.' It's a good rocker with a hard driving beat. It also has May's stacked guitar harmonies. The fact that the verse, chorus, and outro are all in different time signatures is also incredibly cool. Unless you are charged with the task of having to sing it. In live performance, I always thought Freddie had trouble getting the vocals right. It sounds like a straight rocker with a driving beat but is actually quite complex. The end is a great rock-out it has to be said. 

"Seaside Rendezvous"

This one is as daft as a brush and goes a long way towards explaining the appeal of Queen. The Queen fans I met over the years tended to be quirky, odd people who lived at a strange angle to the universe. I used to sing this one in class at school (what I was saying about quirky and odd). My poor teachers and classmates simply gave up trying to shut me up and reconciled themselves to being endlessly entertained at my pleasure. The song has got that 1920s, vaudevillian feel which characterises a number of Queen songs. The musical bridge section is remarkably inventive, showing the inherent musicality of the band. Mercury imitates woodwind instruments, including clarinet, with his voice and Taylor does likewise for the brass instruments, including tubas and trumpets, and even a kazoo. The pair also perform a tap dance segment, tapping thimbles on their fingers on the mixing desk. This song has an old-time feel, with vocals and sounds that could be placed easily in the 1920s and 30s ("Be My Clementine"). And who doesn't like to relax and enjoy themselves by the Seaside? I do. Opening line: 'Seaside, whenever you stroll along with me.' And here I am now living in Llandudno, strolling along the Promenade day and night. 'So adorable.' I'll have this one as my signature tune. 'Seaside Rendezvous' might be my most favourite Queen track of all. There are not many songs that have dancing thimbles.

"The Prophet's Song"

Written by Brian May, 'The Prophet's Song' is every bit as breath-takingly ground-breakingly immense as 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' When I first bought 'A Night at the Opera,' this was the song I played most of all. The song is epic in every respect, the heavy guitar and even heavier lyrics prophesying doom and disaster and even worse. The track is loud and heavy, the 'ambitious' vocal harmonies in the middle section every bit as unique and outlandish as the operatic section in 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' The song is bonkers, barking mad brilliance! 

"Love of My Life"

Delicate love song. The studio version has a combination of harp and piano, the live version is accompanied by acoustic guitar - both versions are quite lovely. The band that could rock as hard, loud, and fast as anyone could also pare their sound down to the most sparse and gentle of tones - and be even more compelling as a result, if such a thing could be possible. For those who consider Queen to be overblown and pompous, we can readily admit that they could be; but don't ever make the mistake of thinking that they weren't aware when they were going over the top and didn't know how far they were going. Queen were perfectly measured when going to extremes. They always knew their way back. And remember that they could do refined, low-key, and understated as well as anyone and better than the vast majority. 'Love of My Life' is a quiet, understated masterpiece. A gem, in fact, in both studio and in live performance.

"Good Company"

More quirkiness from 'A Night at the Opera.' I loved the way Queen would balance moods and shades on an album, going from hard to soft, serious to light, straight to strange and odd. This is one of those which made Queen albums a veritable palace of varieties. Odd, quirky, different. And brilliant. This track stood out for a number of reasons. Musically, there is the George Formby influence and the jazz band orchestration played through guitar:

'The horn lines on "Good Company" were done on four kinds of guitars. I was very keen in those days on recreating that sort of atmosphere. I mainly got the sound with small amplifiers. I used John Deacon's little amplifier and a volume pedal. For the trombone and trumpet sounds. I would record every note individually: Do it and then drop in. Incredibly painstaking! It took ages and ages. I listened to a lot of traditional jazz music when I was young, so I tried to get the phrasing as it would be if it were played by that instrument.' ( Brian May, 1982).

'Yes, it's all guitar all those instruments. That was a little fetish of mine. I used to listen to Traditional Jazz quite a lot, in particular, the twenties revival stuff which wasn't actually Traditional Jazz but more arranged stuff like The Temperance Seven who were recreating something which was popular in the twenties, sort of dance tunes really. I was very impressed by the way those arrangements were done, you know, the nice smooth sound and those lovely changes between chords. Because they were much more rich in chords than most modern songs are. So many chord changes in a short time, lots of intermingling parts. So I wanted to do one of those things and the song just happened to come out while I was plunking away at the ukulele and the song itself was no trouble to write at all. But actually doing the arrangements for the wind section, as it was supposed to be. There's a guitar trumpet and a guitar clarinet and a guitar trombone and a sort of extra thing, I don't really know what it was supposed to be (chuckles) on the top. I spent a lot of time doing those and to get the effect of the instruments I was doing one note at a time, with a pedal and building them up. So you can imagine how long it took. We experimented with the mikes and various little tiny amplifiers to get just the right sound. So I actually made a study of the kind of thing that those instruments could play so it would sound like those and get the authentic flavour. It was a bit of fun but, it was a serious serious bit of work in that a lot of time went into it.' ( Brian May, 1983).

All that multi-layered tracks through the guitar is just mad (genius).

And then there are the lyrics, which are dark and desolate in stark contrast to the jolly tune

:

'All through the years, in the end, it appears / There was never really anyone but me

Now I'm old, I puff my pipe / But no one's there to see / I ponder on the lesson of my life's insanity / Take care of those you call your own / And keep good company.'

All through the years of all that writing .... I may just have been talking to myself. Is there anybody out there? 

I always did know that Queen were singing for the odds amongst us. My kind of company, then. I always got the impression that Queen fans were creative, imaginative, quirky, and had an impeccably sane view of life.

"Bohemian Rhapsody"

Rubbish! Now that I have your attention, let's see if it's possible to say something about what is officially 'the greatest pop song ever' that hasn't already been said.

Everybody knows 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' and that over-familiarity leads many to overlook its distinctive and genuinely ground-breaking qualities. The way to appreciate this song, so vast and so different in so many ways, is to imagine yourself hearing it for the first time. Yes, mind-blowing, as in the 'what the heck is that?' kind of way. I remember hearing it for the first time. And then go on to say everything that everyone had already said about it - the song combines all styles of music in one - ballads, opera, and rock. That, in truth, says only the obvious (which doesn't need saying, because, having ears, we already know it). So let's try and say something we don't already know.

The song is quite distinct from other pop songs on account of its unusual structure. The song is neither ballad, opera, nor rock but all of them in the one song. In fact the song is not so much a song as a suite. It is not one continuous song with verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge, which is the normal structure. In fact, the track is most unusual for a pop song in that it completely lacks a chorus. So it is a bit of a misnomer to describe 'Bohemian Rhapsody' as a song; it is, rather, better described as a collection of sections: an a capella introduction; ballad; opera; rock; and a reflective coda. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is therefore a genre-busting epic that stands squarely in the tradition of The Beach Boys and The Beatles. With the opera section, Queen took that idea and expanded it beyond all previous ambitions. In truth there are just three voices which are made to sound like an immense choir. But it's not just the vocals that impress, there is harmony throughout the song, with an instrumentation that echoes as a result of multi-layered production. The members of Queen were not merely great musicians but great technicians, managing to put 180 individual tracks onto a 24-track, two inch tape. The song was a remarkable feat of production as well as imagination and musicianship.

Although 'Bohemian Rhapsody' stunned the pop world, expanding the scope of what a commercial pop song could be, it wasn't that much of an enormous leap by Queen standards. You can go back to the very first Queen album to the song 'My Fairy King' to hear Freddie writing songs that were structured in a very unusual way. The same with respect to 'March of the Black Queen' on Queen II in 1974. Both tracks combined ballad and rock sections, and great vocal sections that are almost, if not exactly, operatic. Not only were the other band members not shocked by 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' it inspired Brian May to write a rock opera of his own with the equally ambitious 'The Prophet's Song.' 

The most surprising thing of all about the song is the positive public reaction. The song - or suite - should never have succeeded commercially. It's hard to see who would have bought the song, even in the unlikely event of DJs coming to play it. In the main, tracks like this, which come from leftfield, bomb. This one made it through. The remarkable thing is that Queen had at least two other candidates for genre-bending masterpieces already in their catalogue. 

"God Save the Queen"

From this moment on, Queen would end every live show with Brian May's guitar rendition of the UK national anthem. It put Queen on a very different side when it came to the 'anarchy in the UK' that exploded a year or so later. Each to their own. As Fred would say of his being confronted by Simon Ferocious: 'I think we survived that test.' 

The track is often described in terms of Queen doing to the US national anthem what Jimi Hendrix did to the US anthem. There is, however, no comparison, other than the fact that both were played with an electric guitar. Hendrix' performance is radical, transforming the song into something new; Queen's version is very straight and traditional. There is no ulterior meaning, no political statement, nothing other than a communal celebration, not so much of Her Majesty the Queen but of Queen the band. It makes Queen sound very establishment, even though at this stage they had still to make it big. In fact, the band were broke and in debt. Had 'A Night at the Opera' bombed, the odds are that the band would have called it a day. And the critics who now rail against how bad the band are would no doubt be resurrecting the album and hailing it a lost masterpiece that could have made Queen the biggest band on the planet. In retrospect, the band already look and sound immense. It's an optical illusion. But there's no mistaking the confidence and ambition.