#231 - Queen - A Night at the Opera (1975)
MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:
BACKGROUND – QUEEN
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970 by Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), and Roger Taylor (drums, vocals), later joined by John Deacon (bass). Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock, and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock.
The founding members of Queen met in West London during the late 1960s. Guitarist Brian May had built his own guitar with his father in 1963, and formed the group 1984 (named after Orwell's novel). May left the group in early 1968 to focus on his degree in Physics and Infrared Astronomy, and to find a group that could write original material. He then formed the group Smile, but was missing a drummer. May placed an advertisement on a college notice board for a "Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker type" drummer. Roger Taylor, a young dental student, auditioned and got the job. While attending college in west London, May's bandmate became friends with fellow student Freddie Bulsara, who was from Zanzibar and of Indian Parsi descent. Bulsara had studied fashion design for a year before switching to graphic art and design, and soon became a keen fan of Smile. He asked if he could join the group as lead singer. In 1970, Staffell quit Smile, feeling his interests in soul and R&B clashed with the group's hard rock sound and being fed up with the lack of success. He formed a new group, while Bulsara became lead singer. Bulsara suggested the group should be renamed to "Queen". The others were uncertain at first, but he said, "it's wonderful, dear, people will love it". At the same time, he decided to change his surname to Mercury, inspired by the line "Mother Mercury, look what they've done to me" in the song "My Fairy King". They attracted the attention of producer John Anthony, who was interested in the group's sound but thought they had the wrong bass player. After three live gigs, Mike Grose decided not to continue with the band and was replaced by Barry Mitchell on bass guitar for more than a dozen gigs. After going through another bassist, in February 1971, John Deacon joined Queen. In addition to being an experienced bassist, his quiet demeanor complemented the band.
When Queen was still known by Smile, Freddy Mercury encouraged them to experiment with more elaborate stage and recording techniques. The band released their self-titled debut album in 1973. Queen first charted in the UK with their second album, Queen II in 1974. Sheer Heart Attack followed later that year, and then A Night at the Opera in 1975 brought them international success. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was very popular, and stayed at number one in the UK for nine weeks and helped popularise the music video format. The band's 1977 album News of the World contained "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions", which have become anthems at sporting events. By the early 1980s, Queen were one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world. "Another One Bites the Dust" from The Game (1980) became their best-selling single, while their 1981 compilation album Greatest Hits is the best-selling album in the UK and was certified nine times platinum in the US. Their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert is ranked among the greatest in rock history by various publications. In August 1986, Mercury gave his last performance with Queen at Knebworth, England. Though he kept his condition private, Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. The band released two more albums, The Miracle in 1989 and Innuendo in 1991. On 23 November 1991, Mercury publicly revealed that he had AIDS, and the next day died of bronchopneumonia, a complication of AIDS. One more album was released featuring Mercury's vocal, 1995's Made in Heaven. John Deacon retired in 1997, while May and Taylor continued to make sporadic appearances together. Since 2004, they have toured as "Queen +", with vocalists Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert.
Queen have been a global presence in popular culture for more than half a century. Estimates of their record sales range from 250 million to 300 million, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. In 1990, Queen received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, and with each member having composed hit singles all four were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2005 they received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors, and in 2018 they were presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
The band have released a total of 18 number-one albums, 18 number-one singles, and 10 number-one DVDs worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists.
Queen drew artistic influence from British rock acts of the 1960s and early 1970s, such as the Beatles, the Kinks, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Who, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, David Bowie, Genesis, and Yes. Mercury has credited rock and roll singers Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and the gospel singer Aretha Franklin as influences. On the Beatles, Brian May stated they "built our bible as far as musical composition, arrangement and production went. The White Album is a complete catalogue of how you should use a studio to build songs." Mercury said, "John Lennon was larger than life, and an absolute genius. Even at a very early stage when they were the Beatles, I always preferred John Lennon's things. I don't know why. He just had that magic." May and Mercury were influenced by Jimi Hendrix, with Mercury saying "he really had everything any rock 'n' roll star should have", and May adding "Jimi is, of course, my number one. And I've always said that [...] I never stop learning from Jimi." Mercury's thesis for his college degree was on Hendrix. Queen's music has been characterised as "Led Zeppelin meets Yes" due to its combination of "acoustic/electric guitar extremes and fantasy-inspired multi-part song epics". Although Mercury stated Robert Plant as his favourite singer and Led Zeppelin as "the greatest" rock band, he also said Queen "have more in common with Liza Minnelli than Led Zeppelin. We're more in the showbiz tradition than the rock'n'roll tradition". Eddie Trunk described Queen as "a hard rock band at the core but one with a high level of majesty and theatricality that delivered a little something for everyone" Rob Halford of Judas Priest commented, "It's rare that you struggle to label a band. If you're a heavy metal band you're meant to look and sound like a heavy metal band but you can't really call Queen anything. They could be a pop band one day or the band that wrote 'Bicycle Race' the next and a full-blown metal band the next. In terms of the depth of the musical landscape that they covered, it was very similar to some extent to the Beatles."
Queen have been credited with making a significant contribution to the hard rock and metal genres. The band have been cited as an influence by many diverse musicians (which matches their diverse musical catalog). Bands that have cited Queen as an influence ranges from groups like Judas Priest,Iron Maiden, Anthrax & Rob Zombie, The Melvins, Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Stev Vai, The Cult, Foo FIghters, Carrie Underwood, Muse, the Flaming Lips, the Killers, Faith Hill, George Michael, Robbie Williams, Adele, Lady Gaga and BTS.
ALBUM BACKGROUND – A NIGHT AT THE OPERA
Queen were straining at the boundaries of hard rock and heavy metal on their album Sheer Heart Attack, but they broke down all the barricades on A Night at the Opera, a hard rock masterpiece. Using the multi-layered guitars of its predecessor as a foundation, A Night at the Opera encompasses metal ("Death on Two Legs," "Sweet Lady"), pop ("You're My Best Friend"), campy British music hall ("Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon," "Seaside Rendezvous"), and mystical prog rock ("'39," "The Prophet's Song"), eventually bringing it all together on the pseudo-operatic track "Bohemian Rhapsody."
Brian May on the philosophy and mentality behind this album "For A Night at the Opera we sort of returned [to the] Queen II philosophy. We had our confidence because we had a hit. We had a kind of almost desperation about us too because we were totally bankrupt at that point. You know, we had made hit records but we hadn’t had any of the money back and if the A Night at the Opera hadn’t been a huge success I think we would have just disappeared under the ocean someplace. So we were making this album knowing it was live or die …each of us individually wanted to realize our potential as writers and producers and everything … "
Much of the material was crafted alongside producer John Simon (no relation), who joined the recording when Paul Simon suffered from writer's block. The album was recorded gradually over the period of a year, with production speeding up around the later months of 1967. Commercially, given its musicality, “Opera” was a major risk. The final version left UK music execs nervous due to it being an unprecedented financial gamble. Too many of this eclectic set of songs failed to “rock”, or pop-out, commercially speaking. it was reportedly the most expensive album ever recorded at the time of its release (until Fleetwood Mac's Tusk in 1978).
Rewinding to before “Opera” began, Mercury convinced a busy John Reid, Elton John’s manager, to also manage Queen, after a bitter (legal) battle to exit from their prior “deal” was a done deal, leaving the band nervous, remaining in debt-sunk poverty (despite the lucrative worldwide success of album #3, Sheer Heart Attack). John Reid simply told the band to record their best music ever, without money-worries. Their creative flow led to unprecedented levels of cash-flow in servicing their creative musicianship.
This was album was named after the Marx Brothers' film of the same name.
Freddy Mercury on the preparation for this album "I did discipline myself... Take vocals, because they're my forté especially harmonies and those kind of things. On Queen II we've gone berserk. But on this album I consciously restricted myself. That's brought the songwriting side of it across, and I think those are some of the strongest songs we've ever written." Brian May added "It has a couple of the heaviest things we've ever done and probably some of the lightest things as well. It is probably closer to Sheer Heart Attack than the others in that it does dart around and create lots of different moods, but we worked on it in the same way we worked on Queen II. A lot of it is very intense and very ... layered."
This is the only time that we'll be talking about Queen on T500. On the 2020 rerank, A Night At The Opera came in at 128, moving up 103 spots.