Queen LANDMARK: A Night At The Opera by: Steve Scully Mon:29-Oct-07 Label: EMI Year: 1975 WB rating 91 out of 100

Ask anyone to name a Queen song and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is the one you’ll get. Forget ‘We are the Champions’, ‘We Will Rock You’, all that rubbish, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is the song from Wayne’s World, the bit with the head-banging car scene: perhaps the only acceptable car sing-along scene from any film. So, for your everyman Queen recogniser, A Night at the Opera is the definitive Queen album: rounded out by ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and Brian May’s take on ‘God Save the Queen’ (like Hendrix’s ‘Star Spangled Banner’ but with more of an orchestral bent), it has all the campness and grandeur that Freddie Mercury and his men (his men in the band that is) made their signature.

Named after a Marx brothers film (and notable at first for its liner note declaration – “No Synthesisers!”), A Night at the Opera is beautifully anachronistic in its aims. While the mid-‘70s provided advances in music technology beyond the classic rock band construction, Queen used this album to showcase the brilliance that can be achieved using the traditional elements of rock music and added their trademark twist on this. A Night at the Opera is as much a classic rock record as it is a homage to the bygone eras of vaudeville and old-time Broadway. 

The Mercury-penned ‘Death on Two Legs’ possesses all the Queen hallmarks: the harmonies, the lush piano, the screaming guitar solo, the over-the-top, show-tune nature of it all. An invective against someone (unnamed by the song’s parenthesised sub-title ‘dedicated to…’), the lyrics are biting, sometimes downright bitchy: “Insane, you should be put inside/You’re a sewer-rat decaying in a cesspool of pride/Should be made unemployed/Make yourself null-and-void.” A killer opening, it’s belted out with passionate disgust, hatred rarely heard in the pop music world, and what makes it even more effective is the contrast between this inescapable mood and the fluffy show tune follow-up ‘Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon’. All 1920’s tennis-gear and parties at Jay Gatsby’s, the song paints a painfully misplaced, yet hilariously compelling little picture of detached, affluent lifestyle: “I come from London town/I’m just an ordinary guy/Friday’s I go painting in the Louvre.”

Mercury’s vocals are undoubtedly the centrepiece of the Queen vision, which makes the brilliant ‘I’m in Love With My Car’ such a surprise. Sung by drummer Roger Taylor, it’s a roaring homage to “autolove” and one of the more powerful rock ballads Queen produced. Drenched in satire – “Told my girl I’d have to forget her/Rather buy me a new carburettor” – it’s nothing short of spectacular in contrast again to the subsequent track: the honest, wonderful ‘You’re My Best Friend’. “Ooo, you make me live,” Mercury sings over John Deacon’s electric piano riff. The song sits in such stark contrast to ‘Death on Two Legs’, in its overwhelming joy and gratitude that you sense Queen’s overriding intention wasn’t to create a one-mood album, but to carry the listener through a range of emotive responses, from the extremes of hate, sadness and love to the grey areas of listlessness, humour and indifference. ‘Love of My Life’, a basic piano ballad, exudes the same heartfelt honesty as ‘You’re My Best Friend’, tainted a little by May’s electric guitar tampering throughout.

If a flaw is to be found on this album, it’s Brian May’s epic concoction, ‘The Prophet’s Song’. Zeppelin-esque in its evocation of “seers” and “wretches”, the song’s grand, mythological scope is indulgent, even for Queen. Perhaps it’s through the tainted eyes of a Spinal Tap fan, but it seems that so much of what is on show in this song has been parodied to the extent that it can no longer be taken seriously. There’s absolutely no doubting the skill present in Mercury’s layered, a capella harmonies throughout the song’s mid-section, but it’s all far too dramatic. ‘The Prophet’s Song’ is an aberration, for the rest of A Night at the Opera, despite the brilliantly disjointed ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, is concise, controlled genius.

Of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ enough has already been said. Mercury’s vocals are sublime; Brian May’s solo is unbelievable; the operatic vocals are a touch of genius; the lyrics include the words “Scaramouche”, “Galileo”, “Bismillah” and “Beelzebub”. Simply, the song is a risky venture, piling incongruities upon one another, making it seem more of a pastiche, more of a medley than a song in its own right, but in the hands of Queen it makes remarkable sense. Like A Night at the Opera as a whole, the song is a mish-mash of styles and emotions - one that is so brazenly executed that listening is not a choice, but a compulsion.

Far greater than merely ‘the album with that song’, A Night at the Opera may very well be Queen’s most complete effort and is possibly their definitive album. Queen were a grand showcase for pop masterpieces: Mercury’s own performance and image may very well be what the band is remembered for, but there was true genius behind him in May’s wailing guitar and the deft hands of Roger Taylor and John Deacon’s rhythm section. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ may live the longest in the collective consciousness, but ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ are two of many tracks from this record deserving of equally high acclaim. A Night at the Opera, as operatic in its scope as its title suggests, is pop music done to perfection, and you can’t help thinking Andrew Lloyd Webber must have given it more than a few listens when concocting some of his rock-musicals… I suppose that gives us one reason to regret Queen’s influence.