Queen - A Night at the Opera (1975)

Tracklist
1. Death on Two Legs
2. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon
3. I'm in Love with my Car
4. You're My Best Friend
5. '39
6. Sweet Lady
7. Seaside Rendezvous
8. The Prophet's Song
9. Love of my Life
10. Good Company
11. Bohemian Rhapsody
12. God Save the Queen

Easy Come, Easy Go – 7,5/10

And in the year of 1975 it was there: the big album that was their first big hit all over the world. Who does not know this album? It contains two of Queen’s biggest hits ever, which were permanent live tracks back in their touring days. Mostly when I encounter such an album I review it with a rather skeptical approach, planning to break it down piece by piece, but if I’d do that to A Night at the Opera, I would just be lying, for this is truly a great album. Not as great as some others, but certainly one that could possibly deserve all the praise it got.

A Night at the Opera is a very diverse album. Where we have raw rock track like “Death on Two Legs” and “Sweet Lady”, there are these goody-goody happy songs like “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” or “Seaside Rendezvous”; and where there is a “Killer Queen”-equivalent in “You’re My Best Friend”, there are true epics in “The Prophet’s Song” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”, all the way up to sweet and touching ballad “Love of my Life”, and everything in between. Though it doesn’t differ so much from Sheer Heart Attack in terms of musical style, even though it might slightly more varied and polished, the biggest difference is in the balance. Where SHA still contained mostly hard rock tracks with a few poppy tracks and funny things in between, ANATO tends to have less hard rock tracks and more of those poppy and funny tracks. This is not necessarily for the bad, especially since the album is not torn apart near the end now, but is a bit fragile throughout, which, how odd it may sound, fits better as an album. The funny poppy songs are more spread, the rockers are equally distributed and the sing along anthems turn up every now and then, thus making Queen’s most praised album a diverse one.

The quality of the tracks, however, is a bit diminished. If you noticed how I disliked “Bring Back That Leroy Brown” is my Sheer Heart Attack review, you can imagine songs like “Seaside Rendezvous” and “Good Company” won’t do well either. These songs rely on funny atmospheres with often staccato rhythms and these funny lyrics. Songs like these are funny, but I don’t want my music to be funny; that doesn’t make good LISTENING material, which is what music is all about in my opinion. “Lazing On a Sunday Afternoon” is, though short and also funny, also nice to listen to as a nice extra. Strong rock tracks like “Death on Two Legs” or “I’m in Love with my Car” truly make the album shine, especially the latter, which is sung by our dearest Roger Taylor. Brian May also gives a good vocal performance on the anthemic “’39”, a sung driven mostly by acoustic guitar and a great vocal melody. Rocker “Sweet Lady” contains the odd change of rhythms in the chorus, but is a good song itself. Then there’s “The Prophet Song”, a song with a real epic character and one problem. That problem is the overlong break in which Freddie is just singing and chanting and multi-tracking his voice numerous times and lastly dubbing it in numerous of effects, thus stretching the song past the eighth minute. The rest of the song is downright great, great composition, great guitars and stunning, epic melodies, but the break should’ve been a guitar solo, not a voice solo.

Then come the big hits. “Love of my Life” is undeniably a beautiful ballad and worthy a recognition as one of Queen’s greatest songs. Mostly relying on piano, it is a very sensitive song. After the skip-worthy “Good Company” we have Queen’s biggest hit ever: “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Even though I’m mostly not keen on hits, this song is undeniably a brilliant song. A description it would not need, though I can say it begins as a piano ballad, then falls into the opera-ish part, then rocks your socks off, and concludes as the ballad it always was, ending with a gong. I suppose the “God Save the Queen” arrangements by May are very nice, but absolutely not necessary. They’re merely a satisfying ending to the epic “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

In short, A Night at the Opera is a good album, but features a little too much chit-chat to become truly magnificent in my eyes. It’s a very diverse album and I would definitely recommend it to people who are new to Queen, even if it’s only for “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

Strongest tracks: “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “I’m in Love with my Car” and “’39”.
Weakest tracks: “Seaside Rendezvous”, “Good Company” and the middle part of “The Prophet’s Song”.