Queen Classic

The fourth Queen album released in the late 1975 has long been regarded as a classic. The brilliant mix of hard rock, pop, opera, music hall camp and traditional folk, utilising multi layered guitars, crunching riffs, vocal harmonies, piano flourishes, a harp, a ukulele and 'no synthesisers' all combine to make it one of the great albums of the last three decades. Their faultless musicianship, with the 'Sonic Volcano' rhythm section of Roger Taylor and John Deacon, Brian May's guitar virtuosity and the spectacular Freddie Mercury up front, led to Queen being crowned as one of the greatest rock acts of all time.

With Queen officially enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Hollywood Records reintroduces the band yet again with the release of Platinum Collection, Vols. 1-3. While Vols. I & II are full of Queen classics you already know by heart, the third cobbles together odds and sods from the far corners of Queen's canon along with solo cuts from Freddie Mercury and Brian May…

On Air is a compilation album by the British rock band Queen. It was released in November 2016 in a two disc CD format, a six disc deluxe CD format and a 3LP vinyl release. The two disc format features the complete BBC studio sessions; the six disc format adds a disc featuring several songs from three live concerts spanning between 1973 and 1986 and three discs featuring various interviews broadcast on Capital Radio and BBC Radio 1…

Like any patchy but promising debut from a classic rock group, it's often easy to underrate Queen's eponymous 1973 debut, since it has no more than one well-known anthem and plays more like a collection of ideas than a cohesive album. But what ideas! Almost every one of Queen's signatures are already present, from Freddie Mercury's operatic harmonies to Brian May's rich, orchestral guitar overdubs and the suite-like structures of "Great King Rat." That rich, florid feel could be characterized as glam, but even in these early days that appellation didn't quite fit Queen, since they were at once too heavy and arty to be glam and – ironically enough, considering their legendary excess – they were hardly trashy enough to be glam…

In one regard, Queen II does indeed provide more of the same thing as on the band's debut. Certainly, of all the other albums in Queen's catalog it bears the closest resemblance to its immediate predecessor, particularly in its lean, hard attack and in how it has only one song that is well-known to listeners outside of their hardcore cult: in this case, it's "Seven Seas of Rhye," which is itself more elliptical than "Keep Yourself Alive," the big song from the debut…