Queen

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." In short, it's a lot like Queen's own version of Led Zeppelin IV, but where Zep find dark menace in bombast, Queen celebrate their own pomposity.

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.

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.

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…

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…

A Night at the Odeon – Hammersmith 1975 is an upcoming live album by English rock band Queen. The album is the first official release of the band's Christmas Eve performance at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975…

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…