Queen Rogue Xxx

Queen were straining at the boundaries of hard rock and heavy metal on Sheer Heart Attack, but they broke down all the barricades on A Night at the Opera, a self-consciously ridiculous and overblown 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 (the lovely, shimmering "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 "Bohemian Rhapsody."

2003 reissue with 4 bonus tracks.
The posthumously released, two-disc Live at Wembley '86 proves once and for all that Queen was a superior live band, and like the Beatles, the Stones, etc., had far too many hits to fit into a two-hour show. Recorded in their native England at the gigantic Wembley Stadium on their A Kind of Magic tour, the group was at their peak of popularity back home. This would, unfortunately, turn out to be the band's last tour, and it showed the group including old rock & roll covers, classics, then-current songs, improv, and overlooked album tracks. Queen opens up the show with the near-heavy-metal roar of "One Vision," and adds lively renditions of the well-known "Tie Your Mother Down," the David Bowie collaboration "Under Pressure," and their very first hit, "Seven Seas of Rhye"…

Jewels has some great material on it. Not all Queen collections include tracks from Innuendo and Made in Heaven, as well as Night at the Opera. It's also nice to see "Radio Ga Ga" on the roster, a song that despite its wince-inducing title is actually one of the most beautiful odes to the medium ever written. The inclusion of so many newer tracks pushes a pretty big chunk of classics out of the job like "Fat Bottomed Girls," "Tie Your Mother Down," and "The Game," but it's a noble attempt. This EMI-licensed Japanese import does a decent job at trying to reign in the many phases of Queen.

Japanese original release. Greatest hits album from Queen contains 12 songs included based on a fan vote. Comes with a booklet with names of 700 people randomly selected from the people who voted. Features SHM-CD format.

In every sense, A Day at the Races is an unapologetic sequel to A Night at the Opera, the 1975 breakthrough that established Queen as rock & roll royalty. The band never attempts to hide that the record is a sequel – the two albums boast the same variation on the same cover art, the titles are both taken from old Marx Brothers films and serve as counterpoints to each other. But even though the two albums look the same, they don't quite sound the same, A Day at the Races is a bit tighter than its predecessor, yet tighter doesn't necessarily mean better for a band as extravagant as Queen.

The Game is the eighth studio album by the British rock band Queen. It was released on 30 June 1980 by EMI Records in the UK and by Elektra Records in the US. The Game features a different sound than its predecessor, Jazz (1978). The Game was the first Queen album to use a synthesizer (an Oberheim OB-X). A critical and commercial success,The Game became the only Queen album to reach No. 1 in the US, and became their best-selling studio album in the US, with four million copies sold to date, tying News of the World's US sales tally. It is estimated to have sold a further 4 million copies in other countries. Notable songs on the album include the bass-driven "Another One Bites the Dust" and the rockabilly "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", both of which reached No. 1 in the US. The Game was the first Queen album to be recorded digitally.

Famously tagged as "fascist" in a Rolling Stone review printed at the time of its 1978 release, Jazz does indeed showcase a band that does thrive upon its power, thrilling upon the hold that it has on its audience. That confidence, that self-intoxication, was hinted at on News of the World but it takes full flower here, and that assurance acts as a cohesive device, turning this into one of Queen's sleekest albums. Like its patchwork predecessor, Jazz also dabbles in a bunch of different sounds – that's a perennial problem with Queen, where the four songwriters were often pulling in different directions – but it sounds bigger, heavier than News, thanks to the mountains of guitars Brian May has layered all over this record.