Essential
Sheer Heart Attack (1974)
The predecessors, “Queen” and “Queen II”aren’t bad albums, they just, like many prog or art rock records of the era, suffer from difficult-to-understand concepts and made-up mythologies. “Sheer Heart Attack” was their first and successful attempt at mass communication and was immediately accepted. The song “Killer Queen” became a number two hit in the UK, a glam anthem that seemed sexier than any song David Bowie had previously presented in the role of Ziggy Stardust.
At 2:12 minutes, the hard rock of “Stone Cold Crazy” was a long-overdue admission that stories don’t always have to be told as epics (well, if you’ve fought your way through the three-minute guitar solo of “Brighton Rock” beforehand). Only the overrated “Now I’m Here”, which featured new stereo effects on the record (whoa, now the sound suddenly only comes from the left speaker!), seemed a bit silly – but as a live gag it was a crowd pleaser.
A Night At The Opera (1975)
Queen are a five star band, the only five star band without a five star album. (Is that because every band member always wanted to contribute songs?) But this one comes close to five stars. Many even consider record number 4 to be the debut because it contains “Bohemian Rhapsody”, a larger-than-life hit and a magnificent sound statement. As the penultimate of twelve album tracks, it still doesn’t go down. “You’re My Best Friend” was John Deacon’s first major composition. Mercury’s “Love Of My Life” was written for his partner Mary Austin.
News of the World (1977)
What must it have been like to hear “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions” for the first time? Metal and opera in two and three minutes respectively, the most famous opening sequence to ever start an album. All the sporting events in which the double pack continues to this day, the schoolyard karaokes with raised fists… The double “We” justified the claim to leadership for the second half of the 70s. The arrangement of “We Will Rock You” – just drums for three-quarters of the song, then feedback-introduced guitar – mocked the minimalism of punk.
The Game (1980)
This is where the often self-ironic pop emerged, with which Queen almost became a caricature in the 80s. But that wasn’t foreseeable. Album 8 contained her first two – and only – number one singles in the US, “Another One Bites The Dust” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. If Americans had understood Mercury’s dress code in the year of “Cruising” cinema, neither song would have been hits. The touching one Title track, “Play The Game”, offers Mercury’s wise realization that life can be very short – and therefore needs to be exploited to the fullest.
Rewarding
A Day At The Races (1976)
The success of the “Opera” single “Bohemian Rhapsody” set expectations for the pre-release single for this album. All the more brilliant that Queen subverted these expectations with “Somebody To Love”, a leaner pop gospel. The George Michael version at the AIDS awareness concert established the song in the canon of most important Queen songs. But not everything was successful. For every flirty “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” and straight rockers like “Tie Your Mother Down,” there are also well-intentioned but unintentionally funny pieces like “White Man,” which looks at colonialism from the perspective of indigenous people.
jazz (1978)
“Jazz” as an expression of “free” music? A cliché. But four songs on this album (which offers rock instead of jazz) have released themselves and provide the stuff that legends are made of.
“Mustapha” combines, unusually in the 1970s, Arabic with English with Dada-Farsi (Mercury has Persian roots); “Bicycle Race” received a video that showed naked female cyclists showing bicycle rental companies demanding money to replace the saddles; “Fat Bottomed Girls” was thrown out of hit collections (accusation of body shaming). “Don’t Stop Me Now,” an unremarkable single at the time, is now her second most-streamed Spotify song.
A Kind Of Magic (1986)
Whether with Paula Abdul, the Stones, the Dire Straits or the Pumuckl: the interaction of real people with comic characters (like in the video for “A Kind Of Magic”) was very popular in the 1980s. But that doesn’t disguise the high quality of this cinematic work. Six songs for “Highlander” plus solo contributions from Mercury that show him at the peak of his vocal art, as in “Princes Of The Universe” and “Gimme The Prize”. The ballad “Who Wants To Live Forever” deservedly became a classic after Seal’s performance at the tribute concert.
Supplementary
Flash Gordon (1980)
In the most successful year of… “Game” nor this predominantly instrumental soundtrack for the comic hero who wanted to inherit “Star Wars”. The title song is a sensational, eruptive showcase of all four musicians. The score marked the start of a series of eighties albums in which pop bands recorded music for supposed prestige projects.
Innuendo (1991)
The most famous musical final word from a singer who intones his songs with his last strength in the face of death. Not quite as impressive as Bowie’s “Blackstar“. Pieces like “The Show Must Go On” and “These Are The Days Of Our Lives” took on a completely new meaning after Mercury’s death nine months later. The most beautiful, however, is “Delilah”, the ode to his cat.
Weaker
The Miracle (1989)
Not their worst album – that’s the posthumously released “Swan Song” in 1995 “Made In Heaven” – but still her most disappointing. The work would have sounded better as a pure guitar-bass-drums album. Queen tried trends like house (“The Invisible Man”) and wobbly bass (“Breakthru”), and they also composed a hastily executed “BoRhap” pastiche (“The Miracle”). Only “I Want It All” offers terrifying Led Zeppelin power.
film
“Concert For AIDS Awareness”
The most exhilarating charity concert of all time took place at Wembley in April 1992. The biggest stars of their time (Metallica, Bowie, George Michael) delivered memorable performances, such as Elton John and Axl Rose with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. To this day, it is unique for a top celebrity like Elizabeth Taylor to shout to hundreds of thousands in a stadium and millions in front of their televisions: “Please use condoms!”
Precious items
Rarities and obscurities
“Cool Cat”
The “Hot Space”album from 1982 was a flop – this song celebrated a renaissance among hipsters through TV advertising and Record Store Day release as a pink single. A bootleg version contains uninspired vocals from David Bowie – fortunately never released.
“We Will Rock You (Fast)”
The more live versions (or BBC versions) of the faster, euphoric version of this evergreen appear, the more one begins to ponder: Is this alternative performance perhaps superior to the hip-hop-like avant-garde of the original?
“New York, New York”
In the “Highlander” film, the villain Kurgan races across the Brooklyn Bridge to this Sinatra cover. A 40-second snippet of Mercury’s vocals. No matter how hard archivists try, there is no complete version of the song. At least not online.
“A New Life Is Born”
Mercury’s piano intro to “Breakthru” is even better than the actual piece and is included on the studio outtake “A New Life Is Born”, only released in deluxe versions many years later.
“Flash’s Theme”
In a bonus documentary of the Blu-ray reissue of the “Flash Gordon” film, a real rarity can be admired: Brian May intones the title song – on the piano.
“My Life Has Been Saved”
B-side of the 1989 “Scandal” single, which was released for “Made In Heaven” was re-released six years later in a more opulent, superfluous version.
“Mad The Swine”
By Roger Taylor at the time of “Queen” Composed in 1973 and then sent to the archive. But don’t forget: Released in 1991 as the B-side of “Headlong”.
“A Human Body”
The B-side of “Play The Game” undoubtedly lacks the quality of the A-side. Roger Taylor’s composition is worth listening to thanks to the use of a vocoder.
