Queen

The bowl in question in the title of Queen's 2004 release On Fire at the Bowl is the MK Bowl in Milton Keynes, England, a venue that Queen performed at on June 5, 1982. That concert is documented on this 25-track double-disc set, one of many double-live albums that Queen have released throughout and after their career…

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…

To open this oddball supergroup's debut, Paul Simonon hints at "Guns of Brixton," and when Tony Allen's flex rhythms come in, there's a shadow of Fela Kuti, too. Then Damon Albarn's slow grit of a voice enters–framed by Simon Tong's flecked guitar. And collectively, The Good, the Bad, & the Queen is quickly sui generis, adamantly different than anything you think you've heard. A band with this much power has at least two options: to cut loose raucously or to mute their overt power for a more covert, dub-inflected atmospheric potency. Smartly, Albarn and his crew opt for the half-light of elastic bass lines, the clouds between the parentheses of drums–the covert. It's not until "Kingdom of Doom," the erstwhile 'single' of the album, that motion expands beyond the languorous. And even then, Tony Allen largely sits out. You get the full flush of Simonon and Allen on "Three Changes" shuffling time even while holding the tempo to a dubbish gait. It's not Blur, the Clash, Fela, the Verve, or Gorillaz. It's more than just names on albums.

Play The Beatles/Abba/Queen/Elton John album by Synthesizer Rock Orchestra was released Feb 23, 1995 on the TRING BOX SETS (UK) label…

1974 was a year of high achievement for Queen. They had their first two hit singles, 'Seven Seas OfRhye' and 'Killer Queen,' released two albums, 'Queen II' and 'Sheer Heart Attack,' and completed major tours across the UK, America and Europe. In the UK, they performed three sold-out shows at the legendary Rainbow Theatre in London's Finsbury Park, one in March on the 'Queen II' tour and two in November following the release of 'Sheer Heart Attack'.