Queen
A Night at the Opera

Jeeeeeeeesus dude give it a rest

Album Rating: 5.0

@Comatorium. Nah, I'll write what I want when I want. I write for fun and I review what I want to for fun. I don't write to bring attention to "less mainstream" artists or introduce new things, I like introducing my new ideas and takes on things that are well known that I enjoy. I write for the fun of it and will continue to do as I want to do. The site doesn't have that much use anyways anymore and no new accounts can be created. If you don't like that, then I am sorry but I will continue reviewing what I want to. This will be my last one for a while anyways since I'm busy with College at the moment.

Album Rating: 2.0

let me 1 this @mx

I’m not reading that wall of text, I read enough of your community college newspaper music reviews already lmao

"with a key of C Major and 4/4 meter in a swing feel, rare for pop"

Eh? C major might be rare (there's no C-string on a guitar so I guess that's possible), but honestly it's totally trivial since 99.999999% of listeners couldn't tell if they were playing in C, or in A, or in F-sharp, including me, and I can actually find these keys on a keyboard. It takes years of ear-training to identify stuff like that, and if you can identify it you're probably listening to Prokofiev, not Queen.

And 4/4 is so non-rare that it is actually called "common time."

As for swing, Rock inherited it's rhythms from Rhythm & Blues: Poly-rhythmic "swing" is inherent in many Rock drum parts, especially the faster ones from the classic era.

In fact, I don't hear much syncopation at all in "You're My Best Friend." Compare for example the drums in Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" to this one. There, Bonham is tapping out beats on the cymbals that are beating AGAINST the bass and are "misaligned" until they both come together in a single beat with the snare. But on the Queen song the cymbal just doubles the snare and bass, and they are moving so "straight" they could almost pass for an industrial or techno track if you used a drum machine instead.

I guess I'm not hearing anything "rare" anywhere on this track. Freddie himself was a rarity, but this stuff just sounds like cookie-cutter seventies pop

Album Rating: 5.0

^ *snorts*

Album Rating: 4.0

"Nah, I'll write what I want when I want."



I'm quite sure this is how you get your reviews deleted, you know, by spamming the front page with them and pushing other people's work off.



Also, you push this narrative that people magically loved Queen with this when it couldn't be further from the truth. The way you go about this reeks of revisionism, because contemporary writers were often mixed on the band, not one way or another. The hostility only really came by the end of the decade (surely, you know of the Rolling Stone review for "Jazz", no?), and a great deal of it came from America. There's a reason why they stopped bothering with the U.S. market in the 80s. The hostility they experienced is a symptom, but not the cause, but the reality is audiences moved on.

I'll write what I want when I want. I write for fun and I review what I want to for fun. I don't write to bring attention to "less mainstream" artists or introduce new things, I like introducing my new ideas and takes on things that are well known that I enjoy.

Album Rating: 5.0

Fripp is totally correct here. The battle for Queen to become the beloved act they are today was a loooooong one. They were polarizing as hell in the 70s, mostly because of their eclecticism and bombast (which is what a lot of prog acts were criticized for in the 70s). And sure, A Night at the Opera might have been the first album of theirs to receive predominantly positive reviews, but it was far from universal acclaim. I would argue that they weren't fully embraced by the U.S. until Live Aid in 1985, and by then, they were already in their twilight years as a band (Queen+ projects notwithstanding). I'm just glad that they've gained so much retrospective acclaim; they certainly deserve it imo

Queen was all over American radio in the mid- to late-70s. I remember. Critics liked to target them, that's true, but they had a lot of songs getting regular play on radio and were selling albums, even if the didn't come across as an album band in the same way as, say, Zeppelin or Floyd.

As for this album, I never liked it much--I preferred their earlier glam metal period, and I thought Day at the Races was better, too. They made the eclecticism flow and cohere better, I thought.

Album Rating: 4.0

I really like this album and it has better songs but I do agree that A Day At the Races is an overall better album and I am kinda surprised that it isn't the more popular opinion.

Album Rating: 4.0

"I would argue that they weren't fully embraced by the U.S. until Live Aid in 1985"



as much as I'd like to agree with this sentiment, this is something May/Taylor tried really hard to push in the following years, especially after the movie. Their records sold decently but nowhere near their peak. Capitol didn't know how to promote the band in America, which was made worse by their refusal to tour there, both because of the decline in popularity (they were not filling up the venues like the used to by Hot Space, which I feel would've happened no matter what because of the absolute and total cultural difference in the States) and because of how shows were promoted here as well. The costs skyrocketed and it wasn't something the band were willing to deal with, because of the decrease in profit. So, as a result, Capitol basically tried to coast on the band's name as each successive album did just *fine* sales-wise, but not enough to raise any eyebrows.



Americans, simply put, didn't care as much about Queen at this point. A lot of that sentiment changed once they moved to Disney (Hollywood Records) and got more promo, especially after Freddie died and Wayne's World happened. It's funny to have to bring it up since it's such a iconic scene, but that movie did a lot for the band's reputation in America. Ask anyone who was around when it came out and they will tell you this is the case. But, for Queen, the 80s were a bit of stagnant period in terms of their popularity here, to such a point where I think The Game being as big as it was was more of a fluke riding on the success of two chart-topping singles and nothing more (personally, it's probably where the cracks seriously begin to show consistency-wise, although News/Jazz are not innocent in this regard as well).



Of course, I am speaking with all of this long past us, although there are more than enough fans from all over the world to give their perspective on just how hot and cold people were on the band in general.

I hate to cap Frippertronics’ last points (I’ve learned more about Queen reading this thread than I did in the whole review), but just in case anyone cares: I didn’t mean to disparage all of Queen’s music, or even this album. “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Don’t Stop Me Now” are 5.0-classic songs in my book. I was just irritable and didn’t hear any swing, or anything “rare,” in that one song.

@Dylann: I left myself pretty vulnerable, and you missed a golden opportunity to score some points in the critical thinking game with my last paragraph, where I said this stuff sounds “cookie cutter”: Only six years separate Night at the Opera from 1969’s Woodstock festival, and I doubt there was anyone at Woodstock who played anything like the music on Queen's 1975 record. If you had glanced at my profile, you could’ve easily assumed my ignorance of Queen and 1960’s-1970’s rock in general (you would be right to make this assumption), and then fired back with something like “They sound cookie-cutter to you because they CREATED the sound you associate with 70’s pop. At the time it was innovative. It just sounds cookie-cutter because it’s been overplayed.” I don’t know if that is true or not, but it definitely would’ve disarmed me for a while and, if you played/worded it right, I might’ve surrendered. Maybe. And it definitely would have bypassed my technical hair-splitting.

So, if you’re still looking to review some more Queen -- hopefully without hogging the space too much on the front page -- I personally would be interested to know how anyone in your generation can value this stuff? Much of it sounds like the dregs to me, but you and I have different backgrounds, and why Queen is still relevant to a younger generation would make a unique theme for a future review. This album already has plenty of reviews, but I doubt any have touched on that angle.

Another interesting angle imo that might bring in some metal fans: What part of Queen’s album carried into Blind Guardian’s own “A Night at the Opera”? Documentaries reveal that Queen was an influence on a number of Power-Metal acts, and in fact the parts of Blind Guardian’s later music that I DON’T like can probably be traced to Queen (but you might have to go through Scorpions and Queensryche to get there). I associate the elements I don’t like in Blind Guardian with the music you might find on a Broadway production and, well, isn’t that what Freddie had in mind on this record? Just some thoughts on the future. If you haven’t bailed yet, that is.

@Anyone who really knows 70's to 80's Rock:

Could someone please listen to the following song by Ghost (Dance Macabre) and tell me what 70's or 80's song this is reminding me of????????! It's been bothering me for years, and totally distracts me every time I hear it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGUwV0yS-L4

About the narrative that Queen weren't embraced in America until after Live Aid. I don't know what embraced means. The hits never left radio. By 1990, "We Will Rock You" was an established stadium anthem. 1989's The Miracle was already reestablishing cred, and Innuendo brought more. Time has healed the 80s run of spotty albums, though, agreed with that. But then, many (most?) of Queen's albums are spotty, tbh.

(The Ghost track sounds like the perfect amalgam of about 5 different 70s/80s tracks. Nothing even particular, although the BOC influence is perhaps the clearest.)

American entertainment industry tried to repel any foreign artists for the longest of time, till their own products had the hegemony in the most of the wolrd. I don't know if it goes any deeper in that sense with the queen than with any other british band. Of course US is also country of religius extremenists, but I don't know if it plays any part in this as the protecrionist sentiment was already so strong with bands conveying more conventional values. Like always the one sided protectionism have been the most importat part of the triuph of the american lead global free trade. This band doesn't seem like anomaly in this global trend.

@trickert: Thanks for taking the time, man. Your analysis of it being an "amalgam" is tight, and I think if it's reminding me of anything specific, it's GOT to be a BOC song. Maybe it's just "Burnin' for You," and the Ghost track is just different enough -- and amalgamated enough -- that it tricks me into thinking it's something more exact. Anyway, I think I can let it go now, and die in peace if fate wills it. Thanks again!

Album Rating: 5.0

I still need to give Ghost a dedicated listen at some point. I always wrote them off as a poor man's BOC, but a lot of that simply came from the narrative that was built around them over the years. I think the negative perception of them from the metal community turned me off their work for quite a long time, but obviously I don't just want to take their word for it. I think I'll check out their discog this week

Yeah, I can't tell if Ghost is totally innovative, or is actually the most derivative of all bands, and sound sort of modern only because they make perfect "amalgamations" of old styles, to use trickert's word. They might be my vote for the most bizarre of all bands at their level of commercial success