Since I'm normally the go-to guy for the heavier end of the metal spectrum on RevelationZ, I thought I would branch out and review something a little different.
And quite frankly you wont get much more different than
A Night At The Opera by
Queen, one of the most "out there" albums ever released by a major label band. It encompasses so many styles and sounds that it's still bewildering first time listeners more than thirty years after it's release.
Around the time of it's recording
Queen were becoming one of the most well known rock acts on the planet thanks to the success of their Sheer
Heart Attack album. This afforded them a little more financial clout and influence over record executives to release an album closer to the vision in their heads.
In reality this record just shouldn't work, it jumps between musical styles from song to song (and frequently within the songs themselves) and features all four band members contributing their own material that seems to be pulling in completely different directions. Yet somehow despite the myriad of musical influences, the album creates a unifying, gloriously overblown sound that I fell in love with the first time I heard it.
A Night At The Opera begins with it's claws out scratching bloody marks all over the object of its ire with the scathing
Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to..) which bears all the familiar hallmarks of the
Queen sound, Freddy Mercury's powerful vocals, the layered backing vocal tracks and Brian May's instantly recognisable, often copied guitar tone. May is on top of his game with this one as he squeals and solo's his way through the track, Rodger Taylor's booming drum sound also helps drive the song home.
It then jumps right into a one minute and eight seconds of the most ridiculously camp music ever recorded,
Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon. As I kid I would frequently rewind this song just to revel in Freddy's joyously playful vocals and wish that the song didn't instantly end after the short and sweet May lead part. Alas it did every time.
One of the ways that the band creates a sense of continuity within the wildly different music is to have the tracks meld into one another. Going from the camp of Sunday Afternoon to the Roger Taylor sung, innuendo heavy hard rocker
I'm In Love With My Car shouldn't work but by God they manage to make it flow. Like many of the songs on the album, the use of overdubbed harmonies really helps to elevate the song to new heights.
Right after the drummer's song writing efforts come the bass players, with the John Deacon penned
You're My Best Friend. This is one of the albums most famous songs and with good reason. It's a sweet number with some excellent, warm vocals from Mercury; the way he sings
"Oooh, I've been wandering round" still sends shivers up the spine. On this track May's guitar work takes a back seat but if you listen close you can still hear little guitar parts in the background adding extra depth to the song.
On of the album highlights for me is
'39, it's simply perfect. Composed and sung by Brian May, it's an attempt to do what he called "Sci-fi skiffle". This roughly translates into an acoustic folky number with incredibly touching lyrics perfectly delivered by the guitarist. It tells the tale of a spaceship leaving earth on a mission, returning what the astronauts think is a year later only for them to find out that one hundred years have passed and everything they once loved is no more. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's honestly really moving.
Sweet Lady picks the pace up again but to me isn't much more than a passable rock number, certainly the weakest song on the record. It's then time for more camp, honky-tonk piano lead fun in the shape of
Seaside Rendezvous, as the lyrics say -
"So adorable" One of the most powerful songs on the album is the epic
The Prophet's Song, which is mind-blowing in its scope and idea's. It's a very proggy number with an intense, taut beginning unfurling into a very powerful acapella section. During this section the echoing vocals are sung in turn by Mercury then by May and Taylor with a delay on them so they layer and reverberate off into the heavens. If you want to know where bands like
Blind Guardian and
Gamma Ray get their wilder vocal ideas, check this song out.
This song ends with an acoustic guitar part which melds into another album highlight, the heartbreaking
Love Of My Life. I challenge you to listen to this song for the first time and not be moved close to tears. Freddy's vocals are perfect as he handles the high falsetto notes with pristine beauty. My favourite part of the song has to be the
"Hurry back, hurry back" refrain after the solo section.
A change of mood and pace instantly set in again with the jazzy May composition
Good Company. It's a very musically upbeat, jaunty number, whose music intentionally belies the more serious subject matter.
And talking of serious subject matter, A Night At The Opera's grand finale is the behemoth
Bohemian Rhapsody. I would think almost everyone on the planet is familiar with this song and its extravagant song structure and potent playing. In many ways it's a perfect summing up of the album itself. It's split into three distinct parts that really have no place being sat side by side in a six minute song. But have somehow, through the power of musical alchemy being melded together to produce one of the most famous pieces of rock music the world has ever heard.
How the band did this I still struggle to work out, but I'm glad that somehow these four talented musicians found each other and bonded together to create something very special indeed. A Night At The Opera is a landmark album that is still essential to this day.
Written by
Stuart Sunday, May 15, 2011
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