Queen are a band that divides opinion – some people loathe them, and some people truly hate them. There are, for all that, quite a lot of people who love them. I'd say that the people who love the band are the ones who are in tune with the quirkiness and the humour which characterises the music, not least because they tend to be quirky people themselves, people who take neither themselves nor life in general too seriously. It's a funny kind of humour, mind, seemingly self-deprecating, in the sense of being unafraid to take risks and deflate the pomposity of those who do take things far too seriously, but at the same time exuding a devil-may-care self-confidence that borders on sheer arrogance. To take the risks with taste and expectations that Queen did, caring nothing for what critics might say of them, the band members must have known themselves to be good – and all of them together even better. It's a self-possession that gives critics even more reason to loathe the band. Critics dismissed the band as a joke, and said so with such tedious regularity as to give the impression they were never quite as sure as their vitriolic words suggested. I learned that a lot of the people who have loathed Queen over the years simply didn't get the band and didn't care for the humour and the theatrics; they preferred musical substance over style and showiness, not realising that it was perfectly possible for the two to go together. They saw the pomp and decided there was no musical content. The critics were offended by the frolics and 'flounciness.' They took themselves and their own favourites far too seriously. Those who get the joke respond to the playfulness with images and surfaces that the band exhibited, and, being 'people,' embraced the unabashed populism with gusto. Those who don't get it see only a soulless superficiality, arrogance, and, in Dave Marsh's famous review of Jazz, even fascism.  

Queen could walk the tightrope between good and bad taste, and they could fall of it many times without it ever denting their confidence; they could do this because they knew they were good and didn't need any external validation and approval at all. Which maddens the music journalists even more, since they like to think of themselves as the king and queen makers. 

I've loved the band since I first became aware of them, which was with the 1974 single "Killer Queen." I responded positively to the peculiarities of the band immediately, even if I didn't remotely understand the precise nature of the band's oddity, and wasn't curious enough to probe further. It was the era of Glam Rock, with boys wearing spangles and makeup (and girls like Suzi Quatro wearing leathers instead of feathers). Even in that company, Queen stood apart. I thought them to be 'different' in some vague way and was happy enough to leave it there. It wasn't so much the image, which was strange enough, as the music. Another way of putting it is to say that rival bands and artists struck me as more straight, more dull, more serious or more predictable, and much less thrilling. That's an outrageous generalisation that simply couldn't be true of an era containing artists like Bowie and Roxy Music, Steve Harley and Sparks and a number of others. And if there is one word that describes Slade, then it is "thrilling." I still thought Queen to be extraordinarily different, though, offering something that set them apart from the others. It wasn't just the humour and the edginess, it was the sheer quality of the music and its diversity. Queen had substance behind the show, they had the ability and the songs to back their bombast up. 

After being seduced by "Killer Queen," I kept my eye on the band, watching their progress with interest. I felt that they had something different, something good, and watched their progress with interest. My hunch proved to be correct. When people were busy being staggered by "Bohemian Rhapsody," I simply took it as proof that my band was indeed a very good one.

Queen's career can be divided into three phases. There is the classic Queen of the seventies, which is critically acclaimed in retrospect, but actually wasn't at the time; eighties pop-rock Queen, with eighties production and sounds to match; and the nineties farewell. People who like their histories to be simple morality plays would write of rise and fall here, except that it would be more true to the facts to write of rise and rest before a final rise to redeem every promise the band had made at the start. Rise and plateau, and a patchiness before final consummation.

The eighties albums have a very different feel to the seventies albums and are more identifiably commercial pop-rock and mainstream, much less progressive. The pop sensibility was always there, mind, and the band could still rock hard when it wanted to. A much bigger difference for me is not style but sound, with that eighties production and instrumentation lacking the distinctiveness, authenticity, and musicality of the Queen sound of the previous decade. The eighties sound was much more synthetic, with clunky drums sounds and computerised beats that could be heard on the albums of most other artists at the time. It sounded generic rather than authentic.

Over my many years of being a Queen fanatic, I have often been asked to rank the Queen studio albums. Usually it is fellow Queen fanatics doing the asking - who else would be interested? - just for a little fun, allowing us to compare and contrast taste. It's really an excuse for Queen fans to talk about their favourite band. I  would prefer not to rank the albums. I love every album as a Queen album, with each album being 'same but different' in that distinctively Queen way we all know and love (most of us, anyway, apart from know-nothing critics and those ultra-cool men and women who have to flaunt their impeccably good taste as proof of their coolness. The rock fans of Queen also grumble a lot at the non-rock Queen songs). 

Rankings are an inexact science, so inexact, indeed, as not to be a science at all. How a list takes final shape is never a 100% reflection of what you really think, merely a matter of squeezing material into available slots, before you change the order round a week later.

Ranking favourite music is like ranking your children or pets in order of preference. I remember each album (bar the first two) as they were released, getting very excited as the great day of new arrival came. I would pour over every detail whenever I brought a new album home, as if welcoming a new member of the family. You don't measure precious memories, you treasure them. But seeing as it is the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Queen's first album, it seems time to declare certain preferences, however slight the margins separating one from another are.

Ranking albums by a favourite band is an entertaining, if idle, pastime. I enjoy agreeing and disagreeing, or shouting plain outrage, as the rankers set about their ranking. It resolves no issues, not least because there are no issues to resolve. And it passes a little time in a most entertaining way. And it's much better than watching television. I enjoy watching people present their lists, but note that almost without exception such presentations open with the disclaimer that these rankings are no more than personal preferences and of no greater significance than that. Which begs the question why anyone would pay any attention to something so arbitrary. I quickly discern who has a feeling for and knowledge of the music and those who don't, sticking with the former and giving the latter a wide berth. Those responsible for the better of these rankings, the ones who know the music well and get their facts right, do actually make an effort to present good reasons for their selections, reasons which count as 'good' for the way that they transcend mere personal preferences. The best rankings have some pretension to rest on more objective criteria with respect to artistic merit. I find those lists the most satisfying of all, with the ranking merely being a vehicle which allows insightful comment to be made on the music. The worst are those who explain their choices by way of "I like / I don't like," to which I say "I don't care." I want reasons!

Let's be honest, the exercise is just an excuse to talk about the music we like. It provokes more questions than it answers, which is no bad thing, because the worth of the entire exercise lies in its conversational and collegiate value, a sharing of a common interest with like-minded others. What else are you going to be doing with your time? Arguing politics on social media? 

Whilst I place no store at all in such rankings, I do enjoy seeing what others say about the music I like, especially when their views shed light on my own likes and dislikes.

Seeing as people enjoy making and reading lists with a view to further discussion, I simply thought it time to present my own rankings. I do so as a long-standing Queen fan. If I wasn't there from the very first album in 1973, I was pretty close, having followed the band since late 1974 and "Killer Queen" from "Sheer Heart Attack." I share a lot of history with the band. I defended them and Freddie's leotards and capes all through school, with punk rockers and all kinds of others hurling derision, abuse, and worse in my direction. I'm bullet-proof, tried and tested under fire. I have a view which should count for something. At the same time, I can also offer sound musical reasons behind my selections that are of more than personal significance. I have the knowledge and the credentials. 

I shall begin by issuing the usual disclaimers with respect to personal taste. Some people prefer rock, some prefer pop; some people are purists, some are impurists, some people came to the band in the 1970s, some joined in the 1980s, and some came later than that. I shall endeavour to go beyond taste to judge each album on its artistic merits, assessing each according to the extent to which they express some essential dimension of Queen's multiple musical identity. That said, I, like everyone else, have preferences which always but always trump pretensions to objectivity. Since there is no accounting for taste, there is much in the game of rankings that is arbitrary. Queen were an eclectic band, so there is room for considerable deviation in the lists offered by different people. There is, in the end, an ineliminable element of subjective preference. The Queen fans who made a fetish of 'no synthesizers' can hardly be expected to have warmed to the Queen albums from 1980 onwards. Likewise, the people who were turned onto Queen by 'The Game' and who loved the synthesised pop and drum machines of the 1980s may well find the early hard rocking prog/glam incarnation of the band well-nigh impossible to comprehend let alone enjoy. Especially the early 'prog' albums which were packed with fairies and ogres. I don't mind them at all, and only wish we could have had a few elves, dwarves, and goblins thrown in for good measure. My appetite is capacious enough to take it all in.

I'd prefer not to be drawn on rankings, mind, with the danger of views being set in stone for all time. Frankly, all Queen albums have their merits and should be appreciated for their unique qualities. If music really was about top ranking, we would simply listen to 'the best' over and again and nothing else. It is worth pointing out, mind, that Queen were often at their best, which drove the critics even madder, and that even the albums that dipped in overall quality in the 1980s contained some stellar singles and album tracks. 

So let's be honest as to what these rankings are: they are an excuse to talk about our favourite bands, albums, and songs. Such rankings resolve nothing and are not meant to. I've been making lists on Queen songs since my teenage years and these lists were never written in stone: my favourite songs would keep changing over time. It gave me something to do in class, saving me from paying attention to whatever the teacher was saying at the time. I'd say the merit in lists lies in the invitation to dialogue.

In presenting my list I shall add the crucial rider that each Queen album had something distinctive to offer and is best appreciated on its own merits. I also note a common error that seems inherent in the ranking system. Whilst those making these lists insist that the albums at the bottom of the list are not necessarily bad albums, the pretensions that such lists unfold from the least best to the best are soon lost as presenters start to focus on the flaws of each album, as if under a burden to explain why each album is much less than the best. The problem with that approach is that the accent falls so heavily on flaws that one is left wondering whether the band in question had ever made a good record.

I don't care for that approach and am at pains to avoid its obvious pitfalls.

The only thing that remains to be said is that I shall be ranking the fourteen studio albums Queen made from Queen I (1973) to Made in Heaven (1995), that is, the albums made by the classic line-up of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor. I exclude Flash as a movie soundtrack and exclude the live albums also. I also exclude The Cosmos Rocks which Brian May and Roger Taylor recorded with Paul Rogers in 2008. I like the album and listen to it quite a lot. But there's no Freddie Mercury and no John Deacon, so it's half a Queen and two-thirds a Smile. It's very earnest and worthy, and catches fire here and there. But we see what Freddie's panache, flair, and imagination added to the band, raising it above the rock mainstream. Freddie is incomparable, so it's unfair to make comparisons (the same applies with respect to Paul Rogers, a top-of-the-range vocalist in his own right). Focusing on the fourteen studio albums made by the original line-up has the merit of comparing like with like.

I'll not spend too much time explaining any lengthy rationale behind my selections. My in-depth appraisals of each of the Queen albums are contained on the "Guide to the Albums" page. I refer those looking for a deep detailed dive to follow that link. This post is simply about my rankings, with the briefest justification of my preferences serving in place of a considered review. It should go without saying that there is nothing set in stone and positions are open to alteration.

I will also add that the arbitrary nature of the exercise can be proven by writing a list of the fourteen Queen studio albums on a piece of paper, tearing the paper up into fourteen strips, and picking the titles from a hat. Whether you go from best to worst or worst to best, the rankings produced this way will almost always make some kind of sense. That said, I do think that there are at least half a dozen to a dozen Queen albums which just about have the edge over the rest.

14. A Kind of Magic (1986)

There are some superb tracks on this album. "One Vision" and "A Kind of Magic" were massive hit records, and deservedly so. "Who Wants to Live Forever" is one of the very greatest of Queen songs, and a genuine candidate for the greatest. It is superbly crafted and performed. These songs were standouts on disc and in live performance, too. I loved the heavy metal of "Gimme the Prize." That track along with the ambitious (and loud) "Princes of the Universe" take the band right back to the prog rock sound of the first couple of albums. But the album is curiously discordant, not of a piece. It didn't hold together as a listening experience. I found the effect jarring. Which isn't surprising. Half of the album was for the movie Highlander, and is loud and rocking; the rest sounds like further adventures in Hot Space. And whilst I don't really mind either of these things, they don't fit together well at all. Queen were always diverse, a band of many different hues and colours. The real problem is that some of the pop/soul wasn't quite as memorable as usual, or just wasn't very good, lacking either in song or in production - the eighties sound has dated badly, and I didn't care for it at the time. Context may also be important. After the band's spectacular triumph of "Live Aid," the album came as something of a disappointment, especially since the two great singles "One Vision" and "A Kind of Magic," released prior to the album, had raised expectations sky-high. The album fell short. (I should add that I love the bones of "A Kind of Magic," easily one of my most favourite Queen songs. Written for Highlander, it was originally something of a rock plodder in the hands of writer Roger Taylor, and Freddie livened it up, as did John Deacon with the baseline. Play the track back to back with Donna Summer's "Try Me" and you'll hear a similarity.

13. Hot Space (1982)

Hot Space was derided not just critically (nothing new for Queen there) but publicly, with many Queen fans disowning the album. But not as many as the histories allege. The album has had a bad rap. In the wake of the huge success with 'Another One Bites the Dust,' the band decided to explore the sounds of funk/dance/disco in their own unique way. It's just that, for once, they downplayed their own unique qualities in favour of the styles they were seeking to appropriate.  The success of 'Another One Bites the Dust' had surprised the band, May and Taylor in particular, who were leery of veering too much in that direction. The huge international smash of that single swayed opinion and this album was the result. Much of the album, particularly side one, is a complete departure from Queen's trademark style, being full of synths, electronic beats, and bass-lines that have a disco-funk feel. Whilst many old fans were turned off, too few new fans were turned on to make the venture a success. The result is that Hot Space is routinely dismissed as an aberration and a disaster, a view that seems to be set in stone. 

Looking at the album in cool light of day, it is possible to see the continuity as well as the change. The album is a departure, but not radically so – there are continuities which connect the album with the past, and not merely, and most obviously, with The Game, but earlier, with the likes of "Fun It" and "Don't Stop Me Now" from Jazz, and anticipating the future with "I Want to Break Free" (The Works), "Pain is So Close to Pleasure" (A Kind of Magic), and "My Baby Does Me" (The Miracle). Then there are quintessentially Queen-sounding tracks like "Put Out the Fire" and "Las Palabras de Amor." But if the album is not exactly an aberration, it was an artistic disaster. Queen had been the biggest band on the planet in 1980. They had momentum. Had they got this album right, they could have gone into orbit. Queen were exploring the terrain that Michael Jackson was shortly to go stratospheric with on Thriller in 1983. David Bowie, too, had a huge commercial and critical success in 1983 with the dance-themed Let's Dance. The band's ambition was right, but they got the execution wrong and missed their target, losing momentum and losing the USA in the process. 

I would have loved to have taken everyone by surprise and placed Hot Space much higher. As it is, many will think my rating of the album above Magic hugely controversial. I judge Hot Space to have been a potential classic that was lost in execution. Queen's standards up to this point had been phenomenally high, with every album released thus far - with the exception of Jazz - having a serious claim to having been their best. The problem is not simply the style. The songs on Hot Space are not up to Queen's highest standards and the album doesn't quite work, either in the instrumentation or the production. But where critics dismiss Hot Space as an appalling musical misconception, a hard rock band venturing into dance territory, I view it as a near miss. The idea was right, genius even, propelling the band out of the seventies and into a new era, but the execution was wrong. Instead of absorbing a different musical style into their own distinctive sound to produce a genuine blend, Queen tempered their own rock identity and deferred far too much to the contemporary sounds of synths, horns, and dance. It was an atypical loss of nerve on the part of the band, as if trying too hard to master a new sound that they knew was not their own. Instead of doing what they had normally done, which is to lead from the front, they decided to follow trends (and a disco trend that by now had been overdone and was passing). Had the band retained the hard rock of Taylor on drums and May on guitar, instead of tapering them down and computerising the overall sound, the result could have been something special, a fusion of hard rock, funk, and dance. The execution needed to be hard, hot, and heavy; instead it was light and somewhat weedy. If you disagree, take a listen to the performance of "Staying Power" at Milton Keynes and change your mind. On disc, it sounds tame; in live performance, it's red hot. That's how the album should have been recorded. That said, I'll argue with anyone that "Backchat" would have been a #1 smash hit and a worthy successor to "Another One Bites the Dust" had it been issued as lead single instead of the .. how to put this .. alarmingly lurid (?) "Body Language."

The album could have been a belter, beating Jackson's "Thriller" from 1983 to the post.

12. The Miracle (1989)

This is another album that had the potential to be much better than it was. The issue here, though, is the material that was left off the album, presumably to give the record greater variety and balance, or just greater oomph. I thought the album got off to a bad start with two decidedly average tracks, "Party" and "Kashoggi's Ship." These opening tracks seem to have been selected not on quality but on account of meeting the need for a lively and uptempo opening, adding variety and pacing to the album. These may have been the best tracks available for the gig, but they are singularly lacking in Queen's usual quality. I have experimented with track selection, opening the album with the omitted "A New Life is Born," and, to my ears at least, it enhances the up-tempo qualities of "Party" as it follows on. "Khashoggi's Ship" still sounds like a dull dog of a track mind. It seems clear that the band wanted an up-tempo opening, so cut mid-tempo material and ballads to include this pair. Musically, these two tracks are Queen-by-numbers; lyrically, they are the kind of eighties hedonistic excess that really hacked a lot of people off in that most socially divisive of decades. These openers got the album off to a bad start, destroying hopes and expectations immediately. Which is a shame, because the album contains some very strong material.

The last track "Was it all Worth It?" was an attempt at some grand finale that didn't quite do it (compare it to "The Show Must Go On" in 1991 for evidence of the earth-shattering ending sought). In academic life I was taught that if you were struggling for substance (or with nerves) when giving a presentation, you can score a triumph so long as you have a great beginning and a great ending. (People tend to sleep and clock-watch in between). With this album, Queen managed the feat of making the least of the great substance by bookending it with material of average quality.

This album is blessed with some super songs, nonetheless, boasting no less than five hit singles. "Breakthrough", "Invisible Man," and "The Miracle" show the pop sensibilities of the band working in peak form. I place "Breakthrough" alongside "Don't Stop Me Now" as perfect pop. I love its affirmative message. (I've spent my life in search of the great breakthrough). "The Miracle" is Beatlesque, and is wonderfully optimistic and life-affirming. "I Want it All" is one of the all-time great hard rock Queen songs. "Scandal" is superb, too. So far so brilliant. It's the weaker material that lets the album down, sounding like tired rehashes of the worst cuts on Hot Space. "Rain Must Fall" is a slight, breezy pop tune, lifted by an exceptional guitar solo from Brian May. "My Baby Does Me" is also average, a lesser version of "Cool Cat," as if the band were still trying to redeem the promises of Hot Space. It has a cool sound but is next to nothing of a song, with little by way of musical substance. Much better material was left off the album, some of it being very strong indeed. ("Dog with Bone" is cracking track which would have strengthened the album considerably). 

Where once a Queen album had great variety, it seemed that Queen in the 1980s were trying to make every song a chart smash. They often succeeded, with four singles per album becoming the norm (and five here), but the approach risked a dip in quality; the songs that missed sounded not unique and stylistically different, as was the case on the seventies albums, but sub-par pop, lowering the overall quality of the album. Whereas diversity in the seventies tended to strengthen an album, the attempts to hit the pop market with every track weakened the eighties albums. The album is good, with just a few weak points letting it down. It could have been so much better.

11. The Works (1984)

The album was presented as a Queen comeback after the controversies of Hot Space. It struck me at the time as being the work of a band trying very hard - and maybe too hard - to reassert its lost or uncertain identity. Queen were rattled after the critical and commercial failure of Hot Space and clearly felt the need to reestablish their public profile. They seemed to realize that they had gone too far with Hot Space, taken liberties with the fan base, and needed to show remorse and repentance by paying tribute to the old pieties. Brian May called the result "definitive" Queen. Whilst that may well indicate his intentions with regard to the album, if we look closely we can see that that statement isn't quite true. The band look backwards as well as forwards on the album, and in a way that is unusually self-conscious. Whilst there is still innovation, nothing is being left to chance. May's hard rock guitar, sadly missed on Hot Space, is brought back to the fore. But something of the synth pop of the previous two albums is also retained. 

The Works is another album that could easily have been so much better, with a lot of excellent material going spare ("Let Me In Your Heart Again" is said to have been too hard to finish) or used in other projects ("Love Kills"). The band clearly went for a definitive statement of a certain guitar-ready Queen style, but that meant just eight tracks and a slight acoustic ballad to make nine. "Radio Ga Ga" was memorable, but "Man on the Prowl" and "It's a Hard Life" sounded like Queen retreading the highlights of "The Game." That view is unfair. "Life" might sound like "Play the Game," but is rightly judged to have been one of the great Queen songs. However, whilst I loved "Prowl" at the time, there's no hiding the fact that it is a pastiche of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," which itself is a pastiche of early Elvis. I like it, but it's never a good sign when you can see the mechanics. 

"Radio Ga Ga" is a song which divided opinion at first. Whilst The Works was trailed as Queen returning to their trademark style, "Radio Ga Ga" is as big and bombastic assertion of synthesised pop as anything on Hot Space. Just better executed. And it wasn't dance or disco, it was a synth-ballad with a computerised beat. Live Aid ended the controversy and cemented the song in Queen history. The same could be said for "I Want to Break Free," especially after the iconic video, which some saw as highly amusing, some as "controversial," as in outrageous. As much as I loved the video - and 'controversy' meant nothing to me after 'Bicycle Race,' 'Fat Bottomed Girls,' and 'Body Language,' - I never quite flipped over "I Want to Break Free" the song as others did. I may be missing something, but it just sounds "confined" and computerised to me, piped in and plodding, leaden rather than lively. You can hear that the song has substance, but it sounds constrained to my ears. That writer John Deacon didn't want May's guitar on there makes it clear that this is very much the revenge of Hot Space (the fact that it was a huge hit could be taken as vindication of the 1982 albums' vision). "Tear it Up" sounds like Brian May's revenge against Deacon and Hot Space, but is loud and dull rather than exciting, lacking the usual Queen bounce and verve (compare to 'Tie Your Mother Down'. There is no comparison). It's hard rather than thrilling, an attempt to take the building by force (although the band was not averse to frequently attempting the latter, succeeding often). This is a band at war with itself. 

There are some good Brian May rockers, and a lot of hard rock guitar on the songs others contributed, too. The balance has shifted back to guitar from synthesisers. There is plenty here that is excellent. The blend of rock guitar and synths on "Machines" is magnificent whilst "Hammer to Fall" is as hard and heavy as anything the band did in the 1970s. 

The album generated four substantial hit singles, each of which made an enduring mark on the public consciousness. For all that, though, it is two of the album tracks I tend to single out for real praise. My taste for "Machines (Back to Humans)" might be somewhat idiosyncratic, but I think the juxtaposition of rock and synths sums up much about the band's transition between two worlds. The track I love most of all, though, is "Keep Passing the Open Windows," which is the most overlooked track on the album. It's a life-affirming song which tells us to keep hoping against hope, to keep on keeping on when hope is almost gone. That the song is a hard rocking version of Joe Jackson's "Stepping Out," which was hugely popular at the time, probably led to the track being kept in the shadows. It stands up very well over time. The Works is a very good album. That three of its tracks were performed at Live Aid gives it a certain immortality.

10. The Game (1980)

The first record at Musicland studios with Mack. He reinvented the band's sound, pared everything down, packing in innovation and groove.

The Game tends to jump around with Jazz in my estimations. It is easy to see the pop and dance continuities which unite the two albums (particularly in the Freddie and Roger Taylor contributions). The four singles are superb. "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Crazy Little Thing" were the worldwide #1 smash hits, and deservedly so. Queen were the biggest band on the planet for a while. But "Play the Game" and "Save Me" were the choice tracks for me. The effortless, languorous style of "Play the Game" sounds better with each repeated play. The song is an absolute classic. "Save Me" comes across like an update of "White Queen," rendered more personal and poignant, less coldly gothic, by its lyrical content. But it is the non-single "Dragon Attack" that is the album's secret weapon, an utterly compelling combination of hard rock/funk/dance that showed the band how they really ought to have executed the Hot Space idea. "Another One Bites the Dust" was the big hit but "Dragon Attack" is, in my view, even better; it is a red hot R&B track boasting powerful drums and bass and a hard rocking guitar. That's precisely how Hot Space should have been done - with both feet down hard on the dance floor! Sad and wistful, "Sail Away Sweet Sister" is gorgeous. Two or three of the pop tracks are, however, somewhat slight, and that counts on an album containing just the ten tracks. The B-side "A Human Body" is stronger than Taylor's two tracks on the album, and stronger than "Don't Try Suicide," too, but fits the overall sound less well. Queen paid attention to blend and balance, with the result that stronger material was often left off an album. It's a fine album, though, one which really brought the band to the centre of the pop scene the world over. The album may mark the time the band became less of an album band, focusing instead on trying to make each song a hit single, generating an uneven quality in place of the usual blend and balance via variety. The band's identity became more pop than rock.

9. Made in Heaven (1995)

This album is somewhat interchangeable with "Innuendo," in some respects deeper, in others lighter. A lot of critics don't care for it, seeing it as something that was pieced together with whatever vocals Freddie had left in the vault after his death. Straight away, some people are turned off by the idea alone, and don't give the music a chance. That criticism is terribly unfair. It was always likely that any surviving Freddie vocals would be turned into songs - that's why Freddie sang to the end and that's what the great public wanted. The album is very well done. If there is a criticism, it may be that some of the material is a little overdone in a concerted attempt to stamp the authentic Queen sound on it. Clearly, the remaining members of the band have determined to make a 'definitive' musical statement, in the manner of The Works. And I think it works. The result can be a little too guitar-ready in places, just to stamp the mark of Queen on tracks that came from outside of the Queen catalogue. But the album contains a number of gems for all that: "Let Me Live" is Queen at their "Somebody to Love" gospel best, the Queen choir in full bloom to sing the band out at the very end of days. "Mother Love" is chilling in the way it cuts deep vocally and lyrically. "A Winter's Tale" brings a sense of a life attaining peace and tranquillity as the end approaches. "You Don't Fool Me" is such a good driving dancer with stunning guitar work from Brian May. Of the reworked material, "Heaven for Everyone" is a bone fide Queen classic, with an eminently reasonable message. It deservedly became a global smash hit. There is a linking theme with "It's a Beautiful Day," an unfinished track from 1980 that was reworked. There are solid ballads and reworked material that had been left off previous albums. I cherish the album for those final Freddie vocals and the way they go to certain places denied to other albums. It's a very decent piece of work indeed and makes for a fitting finale. Why isn't it higher? For the simple reason Queen issued any number of great albums. 

8. Queen (1973)

Prog rock fans who place this at the top will be going mad at this scandalously low ranking. And I for one don't blame them. That's the problem of numbers and hierarchies for those foolish enough to make the attempt of squeezing music into narrow confines. It's nothing to do with me, I've done my best to avoid having to produce such a list. I'm responding to public demand! (I've had discussions over the years with the odd person over best and favourite albums). But seeing as I am here ... Queen I is a great great album, it's just that the band got better in sound and production, upped the consistency with regard to the quality of the songs on their albums, with Freddie coming into his remarkable voice later on. It's not quite there yet, but it's definitely close to coming. The album is genuinely great, with three or four classic cuts. It is one of the greatest debut albums in history, but the band got better. Only innocents and purists living in the land of the Fairy King maintain that the first of everything is the best with everything that comes after a fall from grace would argue otherwise. 

"Keep Yourself Alive" should have been the band's breakthrough single, top twenty at least, but wasn't. It would become a staple of live performance in the years to come, and rightly so. But the real strength is elsewhere. Three tracks on this album are in another orbit entirely - "Liar," "Great King Rat" and the impossibly imaginative "My Fairy King." The latter is a remarkable song and shows that "Bohemian Rhapsody" didn't come out of nowhere. This album is bursting with ideas, intelligence, and imagination. OK, purists, I agree: it's the best!

7. Jazz (1978)

Jazz is something of an intermediate album. With the benefit of hindsight we can see it as the last album of the seventies albums and the first of the new era. The rocking sound is still there, with Brian May contributing some blistering guitar. But the dynamics are pop. The band are clearly moving past the 'big sound' of their previous albums to put out shorter, punchier, poppier songs. Sonically, the album sounds very different to previous Queen albums. The album doesn't have a great sound. Musically, though, the album is eclectic, innovative, and diverse, combining so many different sounds and styles, but in a way that keeps the tempo fast. It's a thrilling album which holds the interest in its diversity. There are quirky tracks, edgy rocking tracks, soft ballads, and the odd outrage and very guilty pleasure. It's a pacy, racey album that has you wondering breathlessly 'whatever next?', and in a very good way.

In many respects, Jazz prefigures The Game. There's a pronounced pop theme to the album. There is the sheer hedonism of "Don't Stop Me Now," and the funky disco sound of "Fun It." The difference is that Brian May's hard rock guitar is much more to the fore, with the album hitting hard in several places. "Dead on Time" is a blistering track. "Let Me Entertain You" is a piledriver, too. "Mustapha" is not just loud and heavy but plain odd. There is also super quirky stuff like "Dreamer's Ball." The album is brash, loud and 'colourful.' It also contains the achingly sad "Leaving Home Ain't Easy." The album had the biggest impact any Queen album made on me at the time of release. There is just something about seeing Freddie strutting around on Top of the Pops in leathers and braces singing about "Fat Bottomed Girls" that sears into the psyche and stays there. Apparently it's what makes the rocking world go round. Being a natural scientist at heart, I was most curious to find out. The performance was most memorable, almost as memorable as my mother's reaction. I went into my usual neutral mode and said I liked a good tune. "Bicycle Race" is another good tune. In fact, as good tunes go, it is in a class of its own, containing the greatest bell solo in rock'n'roll history and much else besides. It's the kind of song and video Caligula would have made had he been mad. This album, more than "Bohemian Rhapsody," confirmed my status as a lifelong Queen diehard. Perfect pop-rock in somewhat dubious taste. You really couldn't ask for more. I could quite easily place this at #1, especially when I'm feeling in a decadent mood. (Which, mercifully for the world of more sedate and sober others isn't too often).

6. Innuendo (1991)

Many people might be surprised to see how highly I have placed "Innuendo," the last album Queen released before the death of Freddie Mercury. I gave this a lot of thought and made a point of listening to the album again, and closely, just to make sure of my high estimation. As I listened intently, it became even more clear to me just how strong a record this is. There are some substantial tracks on here, allying ideas and imagination with peak musicianship. Then there is the power and passion of Freddie Mercury's vocals. You get the impression of four quality musicians and songwriters joining in unison to pour everything they know into one final band effort.

Innuendo is a fantastic record that tends not to be rated too highly. The shadow of Freddie's death and all that followed in the aftermath seems to hang over it. The album stands in need of revaluation. It's for that reason I have given the album the slightest of slight edges over Jazz, (an album I could easily place in the top four). I have a theory. ('You have a few theories,' a colleague once said to me, striking a somewhat sceptical tone, after I began another exercise in idle speculation with my usual phrase 'I have a theory.') I have a theory. The longer a favourite band is around, the more the warm memories attached to the records that made you a fan in the first place start to grow and glow. You tend to stick with the records you grew up with, with the result that later records can tend to be looked at as falls from a perfect, pristine youth. I have very fond memories of Jazz, for many reasons associated with the release of the record. I don't have the same fond memories of Innuendo, for the reason the Queen world was settling into comfortable middle age with nothing left to prove. But just put Innuendo on and listen from start to finish imagining that it's a new album. It's got weight, it's got comedy, it's got tragedy. It's got musicality. And it's got history. This was clearly a great band mightily pulling out the stops at close of play. They put everything they had left into the album. Innuendo is the last album that Queen released before Freddie's death and is a mighty fine farewell. Had the band started their career with this record it would hailed as genius. The title track "Innuendo," the poignant ballad and sad goodbye "Days of Our Lives," and the show-stopping "The Show Must Go On" are immense. The crystalline "Bijou" is possibly the best track of all. It's full magnificence couldn't be squeezed onto vinyl but was revealed in all its full beauty on CD. Searing, heart-rending Brian May guitar bookending Freddie Mercury's aching vocals singing to and for all eternity. Those four tracks alone are sufficient to place this album at #1. The heavy tracks on this are bombastic and pompous and grandiloquent in classic Queen style, taking them back to their prog rock roots. 

So great are the hits that they have tended to overshadow other gems contained on the album. "Ride the Wild Wind" rarely if ever gets a mention, but it has the most thrillingly propulsive sound. It's a standout track and quintessentially Queen, combining everything we know and love about the band. There's decent rock, too, ("Headlong" in particular) as well as the Queen gospel choir on "All God's People," left over from Freddie's "Barcelona" project. Whilst some smiled at the Noel Cowardesque "I'm Going Slightly Mad," I heard something much more unsettling, more foreboding (the insanity that comes before death, the effects of Freddie's illness). It's all very well done in the classic Queen style. "Don't Try So Hard" is a personal statement offering sound advice with an achingly beautiful vocal, vulnerable but powerful. 

This is a highly underrated album. It rocks hard in places. The title track is very much a successor to "Bohemian Rhapsody," combining Zep's "Kashmir" with flamenco, opera, hard rock, the lot. "The Show Must Go On" is the perfect final statement. It's heavy in its underlying theme, too. "I Can't Live With You" shows the band's pop sensibilities still working in overdrive. My mum liked "Delilah," even if no one else but Freddie and the all the cat lovers of the world did. Which is a lot of people, and probably good company. It's a strong album.

5.Queen II (1974)

A criminally low ranking, critics and prog fans among the Queen fraternity will say. And, again, I will readily agree. This album could easily be placed at the very top. (But look at the albums it is ahead of! If you haven't got the message by now I'll spell it out, I place most Queen albums at the top, leaving it to others to randomly pick them out of a hat should they have need of a list). 

This is the prog-pomp rock Queen at their most progressive and pompous, in the very best senses of both those words. The plethora of ogres, queens, and fairies on the album might not be to everyone's taste but suit me fine. If I have a criticism I'd have liked to have seen a few dwarves, elves, and goblins in there, too. "The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke" .. my, what an imagination! (It comes from that very strange 19C painting by Richard Dadd). There is some seriously heavy rock on this album, and some seriously heavy musicality. "Procession," "White Queen" and "Father to Son" bleed into one another to make for a mighty Gothic opening whilst "March of the Black Queen" shows Freddie Mercury's incredible grasp of dynamics; the song contains several movements within an epic rock opera that makes "Bohemian Rhapsody" sound like mere perfect pastiche! 

"Seven Seas of Rhye" is just a great rock song with wonderful imagery. It became Queen's first top ten hit. This is Queen's peak as a prog rock band. This is a straight-ahead hard and heavy rock album, with just a couple of lighter moments. This is the album which rockers will identify as true Queen, with everything coming after as a fall. 

So why is Queen II not higher? Because the purists are wrong and are simply judging according to musical taste. The rockers would have been more than happy had Queen followed Queen II up with Queen III, IV, V etc forever. That point offers some explanation as to why the album doesn't go higher. It is all of a piece, cohesive, and self-contained, an almost perfect document of its style. That means it has a certain 'sameness' of sound, whereas the band at its vibrant best is much more diverse, even divergent, in style. It's a little one-paced for a Queen album, albeit a superb pace. And, frankly, five is an incredibly high ranking in this company.

4. A Day at the Races (1976)

I really really really so desperately wanted to be contrarian and place this album at #2 or #1, even, but chickened out. A Day at the Races is an album that is routinely dismissed as a rehash of A Night at the Opera. That is such a lazy view that I feel the need to be somewhat iconoclastic and reverse the normal ratings of these two albums. "Day" is the perfect realisation of every creative ambition that had gone into the making of "Night," leaving us to decide which is worthy of the greater value - the origin or the end? 

The idea that "Day" is just a retread of "Night" is a view that many are prone to fall into sharing second-hand by way of repetition. But just because critics repeat it doesn't make it true. The devaluation of "Day" is just plain wrong. In the first place, you simply can't rehash or repeat the innovation, imagination, and ingenuity that went into the making of A Night at the Opera. That album took an immense craft and musicality that is simply not available for repetition. There is no formula you can simply pick up and apply here. To reach those levels you have to be at the top of your game. It is more accurate to describe A Day at the Races as the perfect consummation of the vision that went into the making of A Night at the Opera. This view can be argued track by track. The hard rock verve of "Tie Your Mother Down" beats "Sweet Lady" hands down, and makes for a much more up beat opener than the admittedly more complicated and ambitious "Death on Two Legs." The pop and pastiche on "Day" is at least on a par with "Night" and, in "Millionaire Waltz" and "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy," fuller and better. OK, it's a contentious view, with "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" and "Seaside Rendezvous" having such effortless, infectious bounce and verve, something that comes in the first flush of imagination. The margins are so negligible here as to be non-existent. "White Man" is a more compact version of "The Prophet's Song," whilst remaining as hard hitting and prophetic (admittedly, the latter is more ambitious and imaginative .. We can say that "Night" captures that first flush of vision again, whilst "Day" is more clinical). "Long Away" is right up there with the best of The Beatles whilst Deacon's "You and I" is perfect pop in the manner of his "You're My Best Friend" (which, again, is peerless in its pop perfection). "Take My Breath Away" is one of the most beautiful ballads in the entire Queen catalogue, and at least the equal of the much better known "Love of My Life." I say better. Freddie Mercury thought "Somebody to Love" a better song than "Bohemian Rhapsody," and who are we to disagree? He outranks us all as the author of both pieces! "Somebody to Love" might well be the best Queen song of all. 

In all honesty, I can't separate the two albums and as a music lover don't see the need to. I would be inclined to place "Day" higher than "Night" just to make the point in the most forthright terms that this album is an absolute classic, regardless of what those idiots who go by the name of critics say. How about we all do what Brian May does and see "Night" and "Day" as a double album, the latter as the completion of the vision of the former? It would be the greatest double album in history.

3. News of the World (1977)

News of the World is interchangeable with Jazz for me. They may be different sounding albums, but are equally inventive and equally brilliant in their own ways. It all depends on what mood you are in. The margins are so fine at the higher end (top ten) as to hardly exist at all. What gives this album the edge for me is purely personal. "Spread Your Wings" is a particularly favourite track of mine, both musically and lyrically. It's a song that appeals to oddballs with talent stuck on the margins and overlooked by the mediocrities and conformists who occupy the centre ground of official society. The singles on Jazz, too, had great personal appeal, mind, albeit in a very different way. I think that the poignant lyrics of "Wings," appealing to the odds and outsiders everywhere, just has the edge over the admittedly very appealing hedonism of the non-stop girls and bicycles on Jazz. Just. It depends whether I am in happy or sad mood, hopelessly optimistic or realistic and reconciled. I never could ride a bike.

The album has the unashamed and irresistible populism of "We Will Rock You" and "We are the Champions" in its favour, of course. It is also studded with stellar tracks. Although Brian May has said the band attempted a stripped back style on the album, "It's Late" is long, ambitious, loud and magnificent, coming in several movements. It's another rock opera, this time from Brian rather than Freddie. I also think the driving, aggressive "Fight from the Inside" is a criminally overlooked track, hard rock with a disco beat, pointing towards what Hot Space could and should have been. "My Melancholy Blues" shows the band still delivering one of those old, antiquated, music hall tracks with great aplomb. (It's Gracie Fields' "Sally," saloon bar style, I kid you not). "All Dead, All Dead" contains a beautiful guitar orchestration that stands amongst Brian May's very best work. There's an awful lot to be said for Jazz in its crazy variety of styles, but I think "News" just has the edge when it comes to sheer quality of song. "Sheer Heart Attack" is hard and heavy, fast and furious (but so, too, was "Dead on Time" on Jazz). I never quite understood why "Get Down, Make Love" went under the radar, causing no controversy that I can remember. They didn't hide it, with this bold-faced slice of erotica becoming a staple of concerts well into the 1980s. Gee the excuses I had to make whilst trying to refuse my mum's insistent requests to hear the new Queen album I had been gifted on Christmas Day is worth an essay in itself. She thought I hated my Christmas present and couldn't understand my reluctance to play it for the family as they sat around the table eating Christmas dinner. A year later she started to understand, when she confiscated the poster that came with Jazz, which made for another awkward Christmas. I thought it best not to protest too much. I had hoped she would just buy the album and wrap it up for Christmas without taking a look at the contents. I had been looking forward to a merrier than usual Christmas.

2. A Night at the Opera (1975)

OK, I wimped out here and ranked the most obvious choice most highly. There is a good reason as to why the album is an obvious choice. What can you do once you admit objective criteria into selection? I would have liked to have placed this lower, just to avoid being so predictable. But there's no value in being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. This is a great album. This is the Sgt Peppers of the seventies and one of the greatest albums of all time. Surely this masterpiece of pop perfection must be Queen's best album .. This is another album that could and should have been top. I've given reasons why above in the entry on A Day at the Races. This is the album that made Queen 'classic', the epitome of classic Queen, the band blessed with an incredible music imagination and intelligence and the musicianship and production skills to match. Great rock, great pop, great pastiche, great ballads - it's all here. It's the #1 album for sure. The only negative point I would make about the "Night" and "Day" albums is that they are so polished, so elegant, and so well crafted that the rock isn't quite on a par with Queen at their best, either in quantity or quality. And in making that point I should investigate possibilities of taking both albums a little further down the rankings and moving two or three albums ahead of them ... Or, better still, calling the entire exercise a high-score draw.

1. Sheer Heart Attack (1974)

The people who came to Queen in the 1980s, either after The Game or after Live Aid, warmed to the pop sensibility of the band. That sensibility was always there. I remember Queen as a band who could rock the house like no other. They were loud, but they were thrilling. They rocked not merely with volume but with verve, imagination, and flair. Only the truly great can do that. All of those qualities are perfectly presented on Sheer Heart Attack, making it hard rock at its most accessible and imaginative. It's impossible to pick out a standout track, for the reason that all the tracks on the album shine in their own very special ways, and for the reason that the album flows effortlessly from start to finish, with the tracks seeming to blend seamlessly, the one into the other. The album has all the imagination and intelligence of the "Night" and "Day" albums, but rocks much harder, and with great panache. Most of all there is the great fluidity of style and presentation to make the album the perfect realisation of the hard rock of the first two albums. The album is breathtakingly breathlessly brilliant from first to last. This is where the band added a pop sensibility to the rock. They still rock hard with the likes of "Brighton Rock," "Now I'm Here," and "Stone Cold Crazy." But these tracks are concise, quick, fluid, and dynamic. 

Some critics are inclined to say that the rock of Queen II now gives way to pop, but that completely misidentifies what is going on here. Compare Taylor's "Loser in the End" on Queen II to his "Tenement Funster" on Sheer Heart Attack, and there is no comparison; the latter is infinitely superior in the way it is crafted and rocks harder. You can do likewise with "A Flick of the Wrist" compared to either "Ogre Battle" or "The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke." The band have found the ability to rock harder by way of concision. The hard rock is crystallised. And the brilliant has been made even better as a result. What there is is a greater variety of musical ideas. There is a greater pace and dynamism, with hard rock allied to a great pop sensibility. My only problem with the album is the cover, showing the members of the band all hot and sweaty in a most unappealing way. The worst album cover for the best album, and a huge letdown after the classic image of Queen II.  

Conclusions?

Queen were a truly great band who set the highest standards and nearly always lived up to them, or even surpassed them, throughout the seventies at least. I still say that part of the controversy over Hot Space was not simply the change in style, but the dip in the quality of material contained on the album and/or the execution/production compared to previous albums. It was the first time that Queen missed, which says something about how good they had been up to this point, given how high they had always aimed. It was noticed by critics who had been waiting years to pounce, with the album's relative failure coming to be exaggerated as a result. True, the 80s sound and production have dated badly, and it didn't sound too much like Queen at the time. Queen's first eight albums are all very different (apart from the similar sounding "Night" and "Day") and all have claims to have been their very best. Hot Space was a departure. The band should have let rip with their own rock sound and gone hell for leather on the dance floor instead of trying to 'get it right.'

I would divide the list above into three. Each of the albums in the top five could easily have been placed at the top, they are interchangeable. I would say the next five are not far behind the top (and those with different tastes will have no compunction at all in placing them top). Of the remaining four, The Works and The Miracle could have been significantly improved with the addition of material that was cut, bringing them on a par with the albums just above them, whilst I will argue with anyone who has the nerve to take me on that Hot Space could have been a classic had the band added their hard rocking edge to the dance grooves they were experimenting with instead of deferring to synths and disco - blaze your own trail rather than follow fads and fashions that are soon dated. Queen needed to adapt the dance to their own style rather than vice versa. Listen to "Staying Power" at Milton Keynes Bowl and accept that I am right. Which is my way of arguing that all the Queen albums are great and worth a place in your collection. I just wouldn't recommend Hot Space as a starting point for those new to Queen. I would have no problem recommending any of the other albums. With any of the top five you will make a Queen convert for life.

14. A Kind of Magic (1986)

13. Hot Space (1982)

12. The Miracle (1989)

11. The Works (1984)

10. The Game (1980)

9. Made in Heaven (1995)

8. Queen (1973)

7. Jazz (1978)

6. Innuendo (1991)

5.Queen II (1974)

4. A Day at the Races (1976)

3. News of the World (1977)

2. A Night at the Opera (1975)

1. Sheer Heart Attack (1974) 

My Personal Ranking

The above list is the 'official' ranking, one that blends subjective preference ('my truth') with sound reasons based on (pretensions of) objective good taste ('the truth'). I shall now present my rankings according to purely personal taste, with my most favourite album of all at #1. Everyone's preferences will be different. Everyone has a view. This is my view. 

Taking wholly unnecessary risks of repetition and redundancy, whilst relishing the chance talk even more about my favourite band, I shall offer brief reasons explaining, any possibly thereby justifying, my preferences. The reasons offered are purely personal. I grew up with this band, so albums and songs are associated with memories of my life in its unfolding. This list, then, is the story of my life as a Queen fan, the reasoning flowing easily compared to the reasons presented above. To ensure the greatest possible accuracy, I went by immediate gut feeling first and sought to explain why only after. Personal favourites require little thought. It's what you go to first and go back to always. 

I shall present the albums in descending order, placing the 'objective' rankings above in brackets.

15. The Miracle (1989) (12)

This is a controversial placing for an album containing so many great songs. When the The Miracle was released in 1989, Queen had been out of the limelight for quite a while. It had been three years since their previous album, and three since their last live concerts. There was nothing left to prove and no validation to be sought. The controversy that once surrounded the band - and which had both annoyed and thrilled fans, giving us a cause and a crusade to fight - had gone. Queen's musical status had been secured. Critics who had complained to no avail for years had given up. Queen were the best! Just nine years separated this album from The Game, but where with the former Queen were Kings of the Whole Wide World, now they were part of the establishment with nothing left to prove and seemingly nowhere left to go. I purchased the album with the least excitement and anticipation than any other Queen album, was profoundly disappointed by the opening couple of tracks, thought another couple of tracks idle. First impressions count, and I was profoundly underwhelmed by the album. The stellar tracks - and "I Want it All" and "Breakthrough" are two of my most favourite Queen tracks of all - just didn't lift the album, merely begged the question as to why a band that could still be this good was seemingly treading water. The album struck me as patchy and, in parts, uninspired. It could have been substantially improved had some of the tracks been replaced with "Dog with a Bone" and one or two others. More than anything, 

That judgement seems overly harsh. I am sure that the timing of the album's release coloured my appraisal, and coloured it dark. The album was released May 1989, just a month after the Hillsborough Disaster which claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool football fans, leaving hundreds more injured. The psychological wounds were at least as harsh as the physical. The 97th victim, indeed, committed suicide many years later. I had been down the tunnel of death that day, and was lucky enough to have had time enough to turn around and find another way onto the terraces. I ended up in pen 4 to the right of the two centre pens where the crush took place. I was involved in the recovery, joining others in ripping advertisement hoardings off the wall and using them as stretchers for the injured and the dying. I was feeling none too hopeful with respect to miracles. The truth should have been enough, but it wasn't. The Liverpool fans sought justice in light of truth, and found that there was none to be had. I had graduated the previous year but, far from entering some brave new world, had hit a brick wall. The album simply passed me by at the time. It was only over time that I would come to appreciate its considerable merits. "Breakthrough" is a strong candidate for being my theme song. As the years go by, I find I am warming to the record. I wasn't in any mood for a 'party' at the time. 

14. A Kind of Magic (1986) (14)

My reception of this album was coloured by the sky-high expectations I had in the aftermath of the band's show-stealing performance at Live Aid as well as the two inestimably great lead singles that had been enormous hits prior to the album's release. The album simply wasn't up to the high standards of the "A Kind of Magic" and "One Vision" singles. There were a couple of good heavy tunes, harking back to the early 'Prog' Queen, but the dialogue that could be heard suggested - rightly - that we were in soundtrack territory. Pop tracks like "Pain is so Close to Pleasure" struck me as limp, worse than anything on the much derided Hot Space. "One Year of Love" is much better, a very strong soul ballad indeed, but I never quite took to Freddie's vocals on it, straining for effect, emoting so hard as to be inauthentic. That's a harsh view, but I found it off-putting at the time. The album sounded like a collage - or collision - of the Hot Space and Works albums at their worst, with a dash of Flash thrown in - with the considerable exception of the two great singles and the profound and weighty "Who Wants to Live Forever." 

I was at university when the album was released, but it came out in the summer holidays, so I had no-one to discuss important musical matters with. I didn't know any Queen fans at university in any case. So the album came and went without the social impact that normally made things so memorable. I was used to promoting and defending the band's releases - and excesses - with alacrity as they came out. This one passed my life by as I focused on studying. Queen by 1986 were not a controversial band; after all, there was no longer an issue. Why not just appreciate the music? I did. It's just that the 1980s albums were not quite as impressive in their variety as the 1970s albums had been, and there were no longer any crusades to be fought and won. We were a little older, and the band had become almost respectable.

13. Made in Heaven (1995) (9)

I rate the album most highly and think that it contains a number of stellar tracks which bring Queen's immense career to a profoundly completion. But there is just such sorrow and solemnity about it all that means I play the record sparingly, and even then when in a sad, reflective mood. There's a place for that. There's a closure here. The classic line-up went out with a number of harrowingly beautiful songs, and the odd joyful and optimistic one. But there's no getting over the fact that this is a closure that came far too early, and that's what preys on the mind when listening to this album. The album is too bound up with the death of Freddie for it to be claimed as a favourite. That's no reflection at all on the content. It's just that the record comes with issues and implications and too heavy a heart for me to make it a go-to album. There are a number of superb songs on here, mind - You Don't Fool Me, Let Me Live, Mother Love, A Winter's Tale, Heaven for Everyone are straight up classics.

12. Flash (1980) 

Ah-ha! I left Flash out of the 'official' rankings as a movie soundtrack. Flash is nearly always ranked bottom in these lists on account of it being a movie soundtrack full of instrumentals, containing just the two songs. The people who place the album bottom should simply exclude it, since it is apparent that their objection is that they are not comparing like with like when it comes to this album and the rest. I excluded Flash for that very reason. Now that  I am ranking according my own personal preferences I feel justified in bringing the album in from the cold. I loved the album the moment I heard it. And I heard the album long before I ever saw the film. I had the imagination to be able to make up my own story as the tracks followed in succession. The album came along at around the same time as The Game, and is inextricably bound up with the excitement surrounding that album in my history. The album contains just two songs but they are exceedingly good. "Flash" was the hit single but "The Hero" was even better, hitting with full-force, like a modern-day "Seven Seas of Rhye." Queen's performance of this song with an up-tempo "We Will Rock You" after the recorded intro of "Flash" at Milton Keynes in 1982 is a strong candidate for the greatest opening to any concert ever.

Flash is actually a hugely entertaining soundtrack full of interesting sounds. Critics who claim that the instrumental music is boring without the visuals are simply incapable of listening to music. And the music does stand up in its own right and is not merely incidental. The album is full of great pieces, imaginative, atmospheric, and exciting in turn; it is genuine electronica, and in a much more ambitious and successful way than anything on The Game and Hot Space. In that respect, Flash offers an example of how Queen could have developed their experimentation with the new sounds. Let it be said that the band's use of electronica on this album is infinitely more imaginative and musical than on the rest of their eighties albums. So skilled and intelligent musically in the main, the band's use of synths on the eighties albums is unusually predictable and safe, just falling in with the prevailing sounds of the time. That's not true of Flash, though. There is much on the album that is thrilling, and much that is ethereal. It's a tremendous record, it really is. In the days before I owned a pair of headphones I would listen to this entire album with a speaker pressed to either side of my head. It took me into another world. I have fond memories of this album.

11. Hot Space (1982) (13)

This will be considered a controversial view, but I rather like Hot Space. In fact I loved it a lot when it came out and was quite excited to see how the new sounds would go over. I was hopeful, only to be disappointed by the reception. I liked the cover, for one thing, it struck me as really cool. So much so that a year or so later I got a trainee hairdresser, a friend of a pretty new friend, to perm my hair in something of the style of the slight light curls of John Deacon on the cover. She did such a good job I asked her to do it again a few months later. Happy days. And I liked that Queen were committed to doing groovy pop tunes. I continue to enjoy the controversy that Hot Space provokes. It appeals to my contrarian nature and gives me a just cause to fight. And it allows me to sound like I know something important when I say that Hot Space is a good album that could have been so much better. A lot of people just don't like dance and disco, it's as simple as that. I quite like a groovy tune or three or more. I don't see why so many people insist on making music an either/or issue  (not just with respect to genre but also to good and bad taste). My main complaint with Hot Space is that the tracks could have been a whole lot hotter had they been done faster, harder, and heavier, as live performance was to prove. Critics tend to refer to the immense "Under Pressure" as a track somewhat apart from the rest of the album. It's on there and it is indeed immense, boosting the standing of the album considerably. I think Mercury's "Staying Power" a strong opener that could have been immeasurably stronger had it been quicker and with a lot of guitar; May's "Dancer" is a follow-up to his "Dragon Attack," (albeit much less incendiary);  and Deacon's "Backchat" the follow-up to his "Another One Bites the Dust." I still say that "Backchat" would have been a substantial hit had it been the lead single instead of the sexually alarming (for some) "Body Language" (I have the single, but I was always ready to be entertained and amused). Like "Staying Power," though, "Backchat" was edgier, harder, better when done live. We can argue about whether these things "should have been", but the album "could have been" pretty damned hot. But wasn't. So, in part, I am rating the endless debating the album provokes. 

I was in the sixth form studying for A-levels when the album came out, where it provoked much discussion among the musos. The rockers lamented the absence of rock, the cool kids smiled dismissively at the dance, without being overtly critical, knowing that their favourites, Bowie and Roxy, were threatening to experiment in this direction. The album was a combination of the attempt to be musically and sexually transgressive. My mum loved "Las Palabras de Amor." Which helped when it came to negotiating the embarrassment of "Body Language", a track which was greeted with no comment at home when it was played on TV and radio. What could anyone say? It is a groovy tune, when all is said and done. I rather enjoyed the controversy, but kept my head down. I did acquire the single, without ever admitting to it. It was always more memorable than "Under Pressure, although not necessarily for good reasons. Freddie thought highly of it. Had it hit #1 and stayed there for nine weeks like "Bohemian Rhapsody" we'd all be hailing it a classic. It didn't, but it was a much bigger hit in the US than "Bohemian Rhapsody" had been. It's a life of surprises. I think it's always better to be open-minded and be ready for when the next surprise comes. You never know, you might enjoy it.

10. Innuendo (1991) (6)

This is a great album, no question. But it is oh so heartbreakingly heavy. For me, the album signalled the death of youth. Not before time, many would say, but Queen had always kept me young. I had been with Queen since 1974. I grew old very quickly with this album. The past had now become the land of lost content. 'The happy highways where I went,' I now realised, 'cannot come again.' That's a memorable life event, of course. But I had always rather enjoyed the fun and frolics that accompanied this band, even as I expressed a certain nervous trepidation with regard to the excess and hedonism. It was a kind of escapism. When little else was going right in life, having to face one challenge after another, I rather enjoyed the band's over-the-top, larger-than-life, jaunts. This album struck me as heavy the very first time I heard it. Even before Freddie's death, I felt there to be a cloud hanging over this album. The title track "Innuendo" is heavyweight, and really did seem to be making some kind of statement at the time. I thought it a "Bohemian Rhapsody" with the autobiographical elements stated explicitly. And I remember wondering why such an explicit statement was felt to be necessary. Some people laughed at "I'm Going Slightly Mad." I didn't. I detected a dark undertow. There is a foreboding to the track, something that the black-and-white imagery and costumes of the video accents. That makes it an even greater track. I'm not putting the album down at all in making these points. I am saying that the balance between fun and seriousness had tipped markedly towards the serious. I only listen to the album when I am in certain moods, and never when I want to cheer my spirits. Every time I listen to the album it blows me away. It's a cathartic experience. It's the end of the road. It's a goodbye. And I never wanted to say goodbye to the days of our lives. A great album that is remembered sadly rather than fondly.

9. Queen (1973) (8)

I came to Queen's debut album very late in the day, not having been a Queen fan from the very start. I already had the seventies albums from Sheer Heart Attack onwards before I dared venture back into the mythical past populated by fairies and ogres and such like. I had heard from the rockers that Queen were a proper heavy rock band early on, with them claiming that everything was downhill from then on. I worried that it might all be too much for me. The rockers put me off! As it was, I was blown away by the album when I borrowed it from a friend. For quite a long while after I first heard it I rated this as my favourite Queen album of all, a ranking that tracks like "Liar," "Great King Rat," and "My Fairy King" more than justify. That said, although the trademark Queen imagination and musicianship are fully present, the Queen sound isn't quite there (which is maybe down to the De Lane Lea studio where the album was recorded) and Freddie has yet to come into his full voice. So in personal memory, the album is somewhat semi-detached in time and place. 

8. A Night at the Opera (1975) (2)

The "Night" and "Day" albums are expertly crafted and well produced. Some critics are inclined to say that they are over-produced, too, with the result that some freshness and spontaneity is lost. There was some tacit recognition of the truth in that criticism by the band itself in their decision to strip back production with the album that came after (News of the World), and opt for a looser, more rocking sound, cutting to the chase rather than exploring all manner of elaborate and fancy avenues. Brian May's way of putting the point in interview was to say that the band had developed that "classical" approach as far as it could go. "Night" and "Day" could, in that respect, be considered the final statement of Queen as a progressive band, with the hard rock of the early albums being refined and tempered with more varied instrumentation. There was nowhere else for the band to take the idea so, like The Beatles after "Sg Pepper's" and "Mystery Tour", they sought a return to roots. The albums tend always to be placed near the top of the Queen rankings and the reasons are not hard to find – they are quality albums packed with quality songs. But they could also be considered to be so well done as to lose something in soul and spontaneity, a certain liveliness. One listens to them earnestly, as one does art, because one must; but there may well be greater thrills and pleasures to be had on other albums. That's certainly my view of The Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's." I think it applies to a lesser extent to "Night" and "Day" (albums I rate far higher than "Pepper's", whose three or four great tracks make some average and dreary material sound much better than it is). But it applies all the same. They are undeniably great albums full of quality songs. But, at risk of sounding paradoxical or merely contrary, they may well be too good to be the most thrilling Queen albums. 

All that said, I have fond memories of purchasing A Night at the Opera when on holiday in the Lake District, with the middle-aged lady who owned the record store playing a track where she thought she detected a scratch. The track just had to be "The Prophet's Song", which went on for eternities, the choral symphony blasting out down the little cobbled side-street. She did her best to hum along, as I stood there wondering "what the heck is this!?" I always rather fantasised about playing favourite records with teenage girls of my own age - one walked out on my Elvis record uttering just the one word - "boring." I still don't know whether she meant me or Elvis. I carried on listening to the record. But a forty-something would-be Queen fan was genial enough company to be keeping. And she knocked fifty pence off the price in case a scratch was indeed discovered. The choral harmonies finally wore her out.

The album is classic. So classic that I simply take it for granted that it is Queen's best, going on to draw attention to all the others in the collection. In terms of reception and perception, this is the "Bohemian Rhapsody" album. That's far too reductive for an album that contains the equally immense "Prophet's Song." The songs are rich and varied. It's possible to suffer from the Sgt Peppers syndrome. You get so used to hearing the album over and again, and hearing people praise it over and again, that you just take it for granted that it is the best and feel the need to proselytize for other albums. None of which are very good reasons for not placing the album at #1 at all. I loved the bones of "Seaside Rendezvous" and "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon," enjoyed the futuristic folk of "39", and consider "You're My Best Friend" as as perfect a pop record as there could be. "Love of My Life" is the perfect love song, boasting a delicate harp and piano arrangement, whilst "Good Company" is the story of my life, a jolly quirky confession of the madness that comes from living in a world of one's own. From what I read of the 'real world,' my world is a much healthier, happier, and saner world. I just don't think that there is enough good rock on the album for it to punch its considerable weight. That's a controversial view. But I have no great personal memories attached to the album, apart from the middle-aged lady I shared a brief afternoon with in the Lake District. Which isn't too bad as memories go. My other memory is that of "Bohemian Rhapsody" offering final conclusive proof just four albums in that Queen were the best. When in time I come to review this list, I have no doubt that "Night" will jump a few places higher. I guess I've just got so used to its brilliance that it no longer dazzles as it once did. The trick with the familiar is to listen again as if it were new. 

7. The Works (1984) (11)

The academic year 1983/1984 was a very good year for me. I usually claim it as my most favourite year of all. I spent a year at night college sat next to 'the prettiest girl who ever lived', earning "A" grade distinction in the A-levels at the end of the year, and finding myself with a lot of spare cash to waste/spend on pop/rock records. It was a year which was bursting with possibilities of all kinds. In the middle of it all, Queen released a much awaited album. It was presented as something of a comeback. There were four excellent singles released from the album, accompanied by four memorable videos. I bought every single, despite owning the album. It was a very active year for a Queen fan and I enjoyed it very much. I have very warm memories of this album, memories which the music lived up to. Three of the tracks went on to be performed at Live Aid, cementing the high estimation and warm associations of this album. The album was the soundtrack to the parting of the ways with my youthful self. It was university and new friends after this. Sadly, I was to find that the new life wasn't remotely a patch on the life - and the 'pretty girl' - I left behind. I'd like to go back to 1983 and 1984, valuing what I had then rather than gambling it away for promises of something better.

6. The Game (1980) (10)

 People might be surprised to see The Game riding so high in the list, not least because it was considered to be the most un-Queen like album at that point. The Game was released June 1980, heralding the start of my final year at senior school. I hated school with a passion and, to be fair, school hated me, too. I identified strongly with the lyrics of "Save Me," which had come out as a single early in 1980. The song pretty much summed up my predicament and frankly parlous existence at school, where I was scarcely surviving. That's the kind of personal memory you tend never to forget. I owe the song - and album - a lot. I thought my problems would all end after I had left school, only to find myself still singing Queen anthems like "Spread Your Wings" and "Breakthrough." And "Save Me." "Save Me" is a great song, a modern, more personalised, upgrade of "White Queen." "Sail Away Sweet Sister" is also very poignant, very much a song in the classic Queen style. But there is definitely a change of pace and direction on this album. We knew it to be different at the time and, far from being outraged, were actually very excited. The Queen fans I knew at school were an open-minded and adventurous bunch with broad tastes, ever ready to be entertained and amused. We found the breaking of the "No Synthesizers!" rule to be thrillingly transgressive rather than an shameless surrender of musical integrity. It was that sense of transgression that made us make more of tracks like "Rock It" than they actually were. "Another One Bites the Dust" was the big hit but "Dragon Attack" is even better, with some great Brian May guitar as well as great drums and bass. 

'I thought Queen were a rock band,' one school friend asked my friend the Queen fan. 'They are,' he replied, adding with typical modesty that 'they just wanted to prove that they are the best at other genres too.' That seemed cogent reasoning to me, and appropriately arrogant. As I remember, Queen friends were none too worried about new adventures with synths and dance, being more inclined to celebrate the band's march into new territories in pursuit of conquest and annexation. It seemed to work, as Queen became the biggest band in the world for a while. Which suited us fine. The singles were great, and Queen were huge the world over. It seemed like a new style for a new age.

As an Elvis fan, I loved "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," and thought the video most memorable (not least the Crazy ladies striking provocative poses - I perfected the art of looking whilst looking elsewhere, subverting parental supervision - maternal, actually, since I'm sure my dad was looking, too). My favourite track, though, is "Play the Game." I love the deceptively languorous feel to the song, the way it just slowly unwinds and then explodes. The day will come when the track is recognised for being the masterpiece it is.

Given the stage of life I was at when this album was released, I probably played this album and poured over its contents, cover, and inner sleeve more than any other Queen album. I studied the images of the band members, noting how much appearances had changed. The silver foil cover intrigued me, as did the rockabilly image on the front, which bore no relation whatsoever to the contents except one maybe two songs. The album was an event, marking the time that Queen silenced their doubters, proved their critics wrong, and conquered the world. It was also the album I left secondary school to. Liberation was in the air. It was as if all the struggles of being a Queen fan at school had now ended in final and complete triumph. And I topped the final year in history. 

Can the album bear such a high and weighty estimation? Not quite. Leaving aside questions of musical taste, there are more weak points on this album than had been typical for Queen albums up to this point in time. That said, the high points are really high. And the weaker material sounds better than it is because of the successful change of direction, style, and quality that comes with the stronger tracks. Many of the tracks here are etched into my psyche. The four singles are stellar, as are "Dragon Attack" and "Sail Away Sweet Sister" (the latter was hugely popular among the Queen fans I knew at the time, but seemed to get overlooked as the years passed). Traditionalists and purists may grumble, but Mack at Musicland really succeeded in getting Queen to pack a real pop punch by condensing their sound, making the tracks shorter and to the point. There is a great economy to the music on this album. It's no surprise that it became a global smash and made Queen the biggest band on the planet. All of which is more than enough to be remembered fondly. And I still say that "I Need Your Loving" is far better than "I Want to Break Free." I remember the album very fondly. I was at the age at which I thought I was the cat's whiskers, and this album was my soundtrack. Save Me? 

5. Queen II (1974) (5)

In the 1980s I was a huge heavy rock fan. I was a seriously hard rocker. I had them all, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, not to mention Whitesnake (a band for whom I caught hell off my mother, a) for song content b) album covers c) videos - in my defence I merely replied that I liked the songs. Which was true, being a lover of blues rock). Queen were a proper heavy rock band and could rock as hard as anyone. They rocked hard on disc and, if anything, rocked harder in live performance. The band were loud and thrilling, but - the big difference that raised them above most others - impressed by control rather than volume. Tracks like "Father to Son" and "March of the Black Queen" took me into another world (from which I never quite returned - I mean, why would you?) The album's opening is perfect, the instrumental opening into the blistering "Father to Son" which blends into the gothic "White Queen." I love the quirkiness, too, with "The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke" not so much being in a class of its own as a category of its own. "March of the Black Queen" is rock opera boasting dynamics and movements to match "Bohemian Rhapsody." It could be the greatest Queen track ever. I used to play it endlessly, more than any other track I would guess. I thought it peak Queen. Ending with "Seven Seas of Rhye," I love this album to bits and can play it end-to-end transfixed, unable to move or notice anything else going on in the world. So why is it only at #5? Simply because the album lacks the killer catchy pop that defines the Queen album. That's no bad thing, say the serious hard rockers. I like a catchy tune or four. I've heard all the great rock bands. Queen were a great rock band. They proved it on disc and in concert. I could so very easily place this album higher. 

4. Sheer Heart Attack (1974) (1)

Great album, no question. This album flows seamlessly from beginning to end. The tracks seem to be arranged in segues and themes, with wonderful little interludes in between. It's a remarkable album. I would go so far as to say that Sheer Heart Attack is the one Queen album that everyone who is into both pop and rock music would rate highly. The album marks Queen's discovery of its pop sensibility. You never forget your first love and mine, with Queen, was "Killer Queen." The album could easily be my #1. In truth, as a Queen fanatic, most of these albums are #1 in my affections. So why isn't this album my #1? It probably is, alongside half a dozen others. The album has everything, the hard rock I love and that great pop sound that defines the band - tracks like "Lily of the Valley," "Dear Friends," "Misfire," and "Bring Back that Leroy Brown," not to mention "Killer Queen," (a breakthrough #2 hit and arguably the greatest Queen song of all (another one)). The quality and diversity of tracks on the album reveal a band on the verge of breaking through. And in saying all that I could easily push the album up a couple of places or more. It's not my fault! It's the arbitrary nature of ranking. Plus the album has "Tenement Funster," which I had a tendency to praise most of all back in the day. Perhaps, in the end, the reason the album doesn't go higher is because I was much too young to appreciate its full meaning and merits at the time of release. People would tease me with the lyrics to "A Flick of the Wrist," and I could never see what they were getting at. Had I been older, my memories would have been sharper and this would have been higher. Possibly.

3. News of the World (1977) (3)

Love it! This album has always been a personal favourite of mine. Naturally, in a list organised entirely around personal preferences, the albums I have the fondest recollections of will rank highly. You will always be loyal to your first loves. It seems that with me my favourites are those in which first loves proved themselves to be true loves to last a lifetime. In Catholic terms, whilst the first communion is hugely important, the confirmation matters most of all. More than "Bohemian Rhapsody" and A Night of the Opera, News of the World was my confirmation.

This is the album in which the band decided to get exciting, raw, and rocking again. With "Night" and "Day," rock opera had come to veer too closely in the direction of the opera, very ornate and entertaining and very clever, but at increasing distance from the rock. The arrival of punk meant that Queen were in danger of being outflanked, with the former prog rockers in danger of being exposed as hard shells containing soft centres. That's a travesty, of course. Queen could rock as hard as anyone, and had more than enough power to blow punk and its tuppenny ha'panny sound off stage any day of the week. But … the issue was in the balance. The response was big, loud, raw and direct, with "Sheer Heart Attack" - originating in 1974 – being punk before punk. 

Some people don't like "We Will Rock You" and "We are the Champions," considering them the moment when Queen finally went too far with the pomp and bombast, sending them in the direction of fascistic mass rallies. Queen were certainly crowd pleasers and, on these tracks, set out explicitly to please - and move and manipulate and satisfy - the gathered masses. These were songs designed to incite instant mass response. The fact that they 'work' offers no kind of a rebuttal to critics' complaints of fascism and instead offers proof. But the fact is that they do indeed 'work,' as was proven at Live Aid. If you want to rally a mass audience ... for whatever ends ... Queen had the tools.

It should, by now, be clear that I like all the Queen albums, and like most of them a lot. This album rates so highly for a few reasons. 'Spread Your Wings' became my theme song the moment I heard it. I suspect this was the case for many other Queen fans, quirky souls used to being on the margins as they often were. 'All Dead All Dead' is gorgeous, blessed by a guitar orchestration that counts among Brian May's best pieces of work. 'It's Late' is a towering slab of rock opera, rock as opera. 'My Melancholy Blues' always grabbed me. I found 'Get Down Make Love' a most intriguing proposition. The album's secret weapon, though, is 'Fight From the Inside,' which is a track I would play over and again, playing air guitar. Funk-rock disco! It's the future!

2. A Day at the Races (1976) (4)

I feel the need to explain why A Day at the Races places higher than News of the World. I could easily place "News" at the top: it is thrilling, raw, and direct. But I do like the playfulness and pomposity of the band, its taste for frolics and frivolity. I thought the band rocked hard, but also had a lot of room for fun. The band pulled it off with aplomb on A Day at the Races. (They did on Sheer Heart Attack for that matter, opening the debate out further). The album has always fallen in the shadow of A Night at the Opera, and suffered under the lash of predictably predictable critics. In my view, it is a more consistent, more even, and more realised version of "Night." That, to some, might make it more boring, with creativity giving way to craft, but there are some high quality tracks on the album that show the creative muse and imagination of band members in peak form. I remember during a particularly boring lesson at school circa 1980 launching the purely random thought to no-one in particular that A Day at the Races was Queen's best album. One class member, Ste Smith, heard me, turned around, and said he agreed. And he should know. That might not be the strongest straw poll in the world. But at least it shows I was never entirely alone in my view. The album is the perfect realisation of the creative vision that inspired A Night at the Opera. It has perfect symmetry and balance, five quality tracks on each side, rock and ballads and fun and frolics - and opera blended with gospel and soul on Somebody to Love, probably the greatest Queen song ever (another one). 

1. Jazz (1978) 

I hesitate to offer a rationale here. I was at the age at which eager but hesitant boys take an interest in unstoppable girls of appealing shapes and sizes performing impressive physical feats with bicycles. (If you know the album, you'll know what I'm talking about; if you don't, you'll no doubt now have a burning desire to listen to the album). This album came with an added thrill that I couldn't quite work out at the time (and didn't try to work out, given that playing the innocent was my best defence when following the band). Queen were thrilling, provocative, forced you to take sides for and against, and were somewhat, well, risque. I wasn't quite sure what that was, but there was something about this band that was a bit 'different' and which promised very probably illicit pleasures. They weren't boring. My brother loved the Electric Light Orchestra. E.L.O. are a great band, ain't gonna lie, with a string of great songs and albums to their name. I liked them too. They just seemed a little dull alongside Queen. Then again, critics said that Queen were a big joke when set alongside other more serious bands of good taste. Queen were never cool and had a 'funny' sense of humour. And therein lies the divide: I got the joke.

I've nothing more to add. But it may be worthwhile finishing with a note as to why Queen, and my fanaticism for the band, were somewhat … controversial. I remember the days when Queen seemed to be universally loathed and scorned by the critics and by cool people of impeccably good taste. It always amused myself and fellow Queen fans; we chuckled at how angry and serious people were! If you enjoy triggering po-faced people who come equipped with poles inserted up their rear-ends, then Queen are the band for you! If Queen really were so appallingly bad and awful, why do critics have to reminding everyone?

Music critic Dave Marsh is someone I normally respect, not least on account of his insightful and respectful writings on Elvis, my favourite singer by far. His review of Jazz in Rolling Stone was scathing. I nearly wrote "coruscating," but that makes his view of the band seem a whole lot better than it was. He damned Jazz as "more of the same dull pastiche" from Queen, which tells you exactly what he thought of the band generally. The album may be many things, but "dull" isn't one of them. I can see the "pastiche." Queen had pastiche down to a fine art. But "dull"? Hardly. Dull doesn't divide the way Queen divided opinion. And dull doesn't incite the passions the way Queen did. Dull doesn't explain why rock critics like Dave Marsh got so angry discussing the band. Marsh liked his rock'n'roll simple and, most of all, straight. He condemns "heavy-metal clichés, light-classical pianistics, four-part harmonies that make the Four Freshmen sound funky and Freddie Mercury's throat-scratching lead vocals." I quote accurately and in full to embarrass Marsh fully. If you know anything about music, just check the Queen harmonies on their classic albums (on "You're My Best Friend" for instance), and know that Marsh is talking nonsense. It is evident that he is another music journalist who is just a journalist in lacking a knowledge of music. he knows bands and artists and songs, knows his favourites, and knows his tribe. But he doesn't know music. 

That he describes Queen as a band of "arrogant brats" strikes me as the most revealing part of the review. Queen made it clear very early on that they didn't need the critics to make them; they were self-made men who hit the top by their own talent, by their own steam; and they made it their own way, on their own terms. The band's success was a practical demonstration of the uselessness of the critics, and that revelation really upset the word scribblers, damaging as it did the sense of their own importance. So every Queen album that came out was accompanied by said critics doing their level best to break the band that they never made. The band went from strength to strength. 

Marsh accuses Queen of elitism: "The only thing Queen does better than anyone else is express contempt." He says "Fat Bottomed Girls" isn't sexist at all, as other critics allege "it regards women not as sex objects but as objects, period (the way the band regards people in general)." I'm not so sure. I have a theory that the overt sexism of the Jazz poster and lead single was an attempt to mask Freddie Mercury's 'coming out' as gay. Freddie performed the not inconsiderable feat of adopting a more overtly gay posture whilst retaining the teenage boys of all ages in the fanbase. Naked ladies were a big help. I don't remember much attention at all being paid to Freddie Mercury's sexuality at school, other than with the odd abusive comment, and even these were of a general nature, to the effect that Freddie was prat. We paid no attention. I do remember a lot of excited talk about ladies on bicycles. Other people may remember things differently, but to me it was always about the music, and the confidence, not merely the courage, to be different in whatever way, no matter what other people said. 

Marsh is either too stupid or, since he is far from stupid, too bigoted in his hatred of Queen to see the meaning that Freddie Mercury planted deep in the songs he sang. Liking his rock'n'roll straight and simple, Marsh sees only the surface, where Freddie states the obvious crudely in order to be able to turn it all on its head. Some people see and hear only in surfaces; Queen were multi-layered.

'This group has come to make it clear exactly who is superior and who is inferior. Its anthem, "We Will Rock You," is a marching order: you will not rock us, we will rock you. Indeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band. The whole thing makes me wonder why anyone would indulge these creeps and their polluting ideas.'

That view is plain wrong and betrays a complete ignorance of the origin of the songs "We Will Rock You" and "We are the Champions" (the audience at a Queen gig spontaneously broke out singing in unison to keep the show going, and the band members thought it would be nice to give them some Queen anthems to sing by way of recognition and thanks.)

One month later, Mitchell Cohen of Creem gave Jazz another scathing, and maybe even more contemptuous, review, calling the album "absurdly dull" and filled with "dumb ideas and imitative posturing." So we can see how he would be a fair and judicious critic. (It always beggared belief that so many people would pay any attention at all to what critics said, parasites as they are on others' creativity). Cohen's next line is priceless: "I still despise Queen, but their music is so absurdly dull on Jazz, so filled with dumb ideas and imitative posturing, that it's impossible to feel threatened by a barely competent rock group …" Leaving aside questions of the band's musical competence (which seems beyond question to me), such words of spitting contempt are those of someone who feels threatened in some way. The same with rexpect to these words: "can you imagine a Queen Army, a pack of mascara'd lounge lizards walking in lockstep?" There is something more than music going on in these critics' dislike of Queen.

"All four of Queen's writers seem to know what a song is (they've learned and stolen from the worst of The Beatles just as Cheap Trick have absorbed and adapted the best) .."

Cohen next describes Freddie Mercury as "a screeching bore," "the weakest link of the quartet," with his compositions dismissed as "earsores."

I quote at length to give some indication of how on the outside Queen fans felt at the time, their favourite band and therefore themselves held up as objects of ridicule. Cohen's review concludes with this line: 'For me, their snappiest one-liner is on the inner sleeve: "Written, arranged and performed exclusively by Queen" As if anyone else would want to step forward and take credit.'

I'd loved to have written 'Bicycle Race'! 

If you want some insight into what the appeal of Queen was to oddballs and misfits like me back in the day, then these contemptuous 'reviews' go a long way towards explaining why. Queen were never cool; they never fitted conventions, tastes, and fashions. Delicate piano intros, falsetto voice, and smooth harmonies, sing-a-longs, they were completely unfashionable and without taste. They were out-of-step, unique, different; not so much treading the fine line between good and bad taste as simply navigating towards the future by their own taste. They didn't leave you indifferent. They were thought uncool and dismissed. And the quirky people among us could care less, being uncool ourselves. They shut out trends and fashions and focused on what they could uniquely do, and went hell-for-leather to excite. They were not dull. There was never a dull moment. I thought it was all rather good fun. And never boring.

My point is that I go back to the days when being a Queen fan meant something. The band were not widely popular and not mainstream and were subject to an awful lot of derision. So my recollection of the Queen albums and rating of personal favourites is bound up with a history of facing scorn and ridicule. It's ridiculous, of course, and I don't recall Queen fans paying critics much attention at all, beyond a general hilarity at the po-faced pomposity of critics. It's hard to take seriously people who take pop and rock music so seriously.

The critics took things generally far too seriously, themselves most of all, and most seem to have had a sense of humour bypass. Alexis Petridis wrote in The Guardian that "Jazz was hysterical in every sense of the word, but the music press comprehensively failed to get the joke, particularly in the US." The Americans missed it, just as they missed the humour on "I Want to Break Free" and got it banned. Dull and unimaginative? Pot. Kettle. Black.

The band survived and thrived, coming in time to be broadly loved and celebrated. Even the critics thawed a little. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic describes Jazz as "one of their sleekest albums." He notes that the album's diversity and exaggeration made it "more fun than any of their other albums." That's what I heard, the thrill of wondering what on Earth was coming next. Even having played the album umpteen times, it still has that capacity to thrill. 

In 2006, Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times included Jazz in his list of "The Great Albums," describing it as "a genre-hopping tour of diverse musical styles." That's what fans like me responded to from the very first. You had to be wearing blinders to miss it. He concluded that "What ultimately keeps me coming back to the album, however, is that ambiguous sexual energy running through all 13 tracks; the fact that each of them boasts more hooks than some bands have on an entire album, and the inviting sonic density of it all." Quite.

Placing Jazz third in the ranking of Queen albums, Ultimate Classic Rock says this: "Whenever discussions take place about Queen's incredible string of classic albums throughout the late '70s, 1978's Jazz is the one that often seems to get the shortest shrift, but tucked away behind its unusually nondescript cover art lies one of the band's finest albums. Never mind the reliable hit single double-whammy provided by 'Fat Bottomed Girls' and 'Bicycle Race,' Jazz is astonishingly deep with underrated Queen gems, ranging from Mercury's Eastern-spiced wig-out 'Mustapha,' to Deacon's head-banging beast 'If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them,' to Taylor's infectious disco tune 'Fun It'. And he's not even mentioned the best tracks! 'Dead on Time,' 'Don't Stop Me Now,' and 'Leaving Home Ain't Easy.' 

Rolling Stone finally repented and named Jazz in their list of 10 Classic Albums Rolling Stone Initially Panned. Stating that they now regarded the album as a "classic," they firmly placed the blame on Marsh: "Sometimes a reviewer just seems to have a really, really low opinion of a band, which seems to be the case with Dave Marsh and Queen." That was obvious in Marsh's review, as it was in most of the reviews at the time, in Melody Maker and elsewhere. Queen made it without the critics' help, and that made the critics madder still, burning with a seething resentment and jealousy for years after, determining to break the band in order to prove the truth of their words. The critics were wrong but, in a classic case of the sunk cost fallacy, dug deeper and deeper until they died a death. It never ceases to amaze me that people pay any attention to the critics. I like Frank Zappa's definition of music critics: people who can't write writing for people who can't read.

So that's what everyone else thinks of Jazz. The question is, what do I think of the album? I like it. As to why I rate it as my #1 album ...

I love the diversity, I love the 'whatever next' feeling, I love the quality of the songs, I love the quantity of songs, and I love the bonkers mad fun of it all. There seems to be a million songs on the album. It is a real roller-coaster. It has ballads, it has rock, it has blistering guitar work, it has piano, it has dance beats and even disco. And it has the simply bizarre. The opening track is one-of-a-kind, "Mustapha," a hard rocker containing lyrics that are English, Arabic, Persian, and very probably gibberish. The track used to skip on my album, so I took it to a friend to play on his record player. The speakers ran through the house, although they could be switched on or off in different rooms. He forgot to switch them off when he played it. The track starts soft, then goes hard, loud, and heavy - thunderous, frankly, and in an instant. When the guitar thunder came crashing in, we heard his mother dropping the pans or the dishes or something in the kitchen. 'What the hell is that?' she screamed. I didn't wait to find out what she had dropped, probably the family's tea, and took my record and fled. I hadn't been asked to stay for tea, anyway. If there was anything left of it.

There are glorious ballads, the piano ballad 'Jealousy' and the sadly beautiful 'Leaving Home Ain't Easy,' may be the best track on the album. 'In Only Seven Days' is pleasant, the slightest track on the album. 'Dreamers Ball' is music hall fun. 'Fun It' is funk and disco with rock guitar, anticipating Queen's (mis)adventures in the 1980s. The pace and variety of the music is simply breath-taking. The rock songs are good, the blistering 'Dead on Time' the best of all, closely followed by 'Let Me Entertain You' and 'If You Can't Beat Them.' The album's closer 'More of that Jazz' is loop-based, guitar based funk, running through short clips of a number of tracks on the album. 

Most memorable of all, for me, are the singles. It was the singles that confirmed me as a Queen fan, ready and willing to take the plunge for life with the band. Jazz was my final confirmation. It is interesting hearing Brian May and Roger Taylor in interview say they were somewhat unpersuaded by "Don't Stop Me Now" at the time, seeing it as ephemeral and poppy. Only in time did they come to see the song's qualities. I loved the track immediately and for a long time it was my most favourite Queen song of all. I loved the video, I loved the energy, I loved the thrill and the excitement, and I loved the lyrics.

Then there is the other single from the album, a double-A side consisting of two equally good, equally controversial songs. "Bicycle Race," which contains the greatest bell-solo in the whole of rock'n'roll history. Lyrically, the song is witty and clever, musically it is inventive and infectious. The video is interesting, too. It's quirky. "Fat Bottomed Girls" probably doesn't need a description, and it's probably wise not to attempt one - it is what it says it is on the tin. I loved it for the guitar and the thudding, insistent beat. As for the lyrical content, I refused to be drawn. I remember my poor mother looking somewhat worried when the band performed it on Top of the Pops. I really liked it, but thought it best not to offer a view as to conjectures regarding what made the rocking world go round left refutation come by way of the channel been switched over. I knew the signs. I'll simply say that the song's writer, Brian May, is a PhD astro-physicist, and that he should know about planetary movements if anyone does. I was intrigued to test out the song's central thesis, being a natural scientist by instinct and inclination, if not by training and expertise. I bought the single. I have the happiest memories of this album.

Queen studio albums ranked

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