Queen 8th Album

[Lorrine Hatala]

Sincethe 1970s, Queen has sold 300 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling artists in history.[2][3] Billboard ranked them as the 87th Greatest Artist of All Time.[4] According to RIAA, Queen has sold 97.7 million certified records in the US.[5]

Founded in 1970, Queen released their self-titled debut album in 1973. Despite not being an immediate success, they quickly gained popularity in Britain with their second album Queen II in 1974.[6] Their 1975 single, "Bohemian Rhapsody", was No. 1 in the UK charts for nine weeks (and a further five weeks in 1991 after Mercury's death) and is the third-biggest-selling single of all time in the UK.[7] In the US, "Bohemian Rhapsody" hit the Billboard Top 40 charts in three different decades, reaching No. 9 on its original release in 1975, No. 2 in 1992 after being featured in the film Wayne's World, and hitting the Top 40 once more in 2018 upon the release of the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. The 1981 compilation Greatest Hits is the biggest-selling album in UK history, with 6 million copies sold by 2014. The 1991 compilation Greatest Hits II is also one of the UK's top ten biggest-sellers of all time, with 3.8 million copies sold by 2012.[8]

In 1972, Queen signed a production deal with Trident Studios.[9] Later in their career, Queen signed a record contract with EMI, and Elektra in the United States. The band would remain with EMI for the rest of their career, although in 1983 they terminated their American contract with Elektra and signed with Capitol Records. However, in 1990, they terminated their US contract with Capitol and signed with Disney's Hollywood Records,[10] which has remained the current owner and distributor of Queen's entire music catalogue in North America.[11]

In 1991, Hollywood Records paid tribute to Queen's 20th anniversary and remastered their entire catalogue and released all albums up to 'The Miracle' on compact Disc in the US. Each album contains at least one bonus track.

Subsequently, 14 albums (all studio albums up to The Miracle, as well as Live Killers and Greatest Hits) were remastered at Abbey Road Studios and released on CD and cassette in the United Kingdom between July 1993 and March 1994. Queen's entire album back catalog was remastered and re-released in the UK and the rest of the world (excluding the US) through 2011 to commemorate their 40th anniversary (as well as being the 20th anniversary of Mercury's death). The 2011 remasters were released by Universal's Island Records label, as the band's contract with EMI ended in 2010,[12] and then on SACD by Universal Music Japan, between November 2011 and April 2012. In an interview with BBC Wales, Brian May announced a new compilation album titled Queen Forever, which was later released by Hollywood Records in November 2014.[13]

In 2012, Queen were ranked as the seventh-biggest-selling singles artist in United Kingdom, with 12.6 million singles sold.[14] In a time period stretching from 1991 up to October 1995, Queen sold five million copies in Italy alone.[15]

Queen is the debut studio album by the British rock band Queen. Released on 13 July 1973 by EMI Records in the UK and by Elektra Records in the US, it was recorded at Trident Studios and De Lane Lea Music Centre, London, with production by Roy Thomas Baker, John Anthony and the band members themselves.[4]

The album was influenced by heavy metal and progressive rock.[4] The lyrics are based on a variety of topics, including folklore ("My Fairy King") and religion ("Jesus"). Lead singer Freddie Mercury wrote five of the ten tracks, lead guitarist Brian May wrote four songs (including "Doing All Right", which he co-wrote with Tim Staffell while in the band Smile), and drummer Roger Taylor both wrote and sang "Modern Times Rock and Roll". The final song on the album is a short instrumental version of "Seven Seas of Rhye", the full version of which would appear on the band's second album, Queen II.

Queen, who played their first gig in June 1970, had been playing the club and college circuit in and around London for almost two years when they were asked to test out the new recording facilities at De Lane Lea Studios. The band came away with a polished demo tape of five songs: "Keep Yourself Alive", "The Night Comes Down", "Great King Rat", "Jesus", and "Liar". The group sent their demo to various record labels, but only received one offer: a low bid from Charisma records, which they declined as, according to their friend Ken Testi, they feared they "would always play second fiddle to Genesis and those other bands".[5]

Producers John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker visited De Lane Lea while the band were recording and were impressed by what they saw.[5] They recommended Queen to Barry and Norman Sheffield, who owned Trident Studios. The Sheffield brothers arranged for Queen to record at Trident; however, because the studio was very popular, Queen mainly recorded during studio downtime but were given free use of everything after the paying artists had left, including the latest technologies and production team.[6] Trident also agreed to oversee the group's management, recording and publishing interests while they sought a record deal.[5] One day, while waiting to use the studio, Freddie Mercury was asked to record vocals by producer Robin Geoffrey Cable, who was working on a version of "I Can Hear Music" and "Goin' Back". Mercury enlisted May and Taylor on the tracks, which were released on a single under the name Larry Lurex, a parody of Gary Glitter.[5][nb 1]

Another track that proved problematic was "Mad the Swine", which was to be the fourth track on the album between "Great King Rat" and "My Fairy King". Baker and Queen disagreed over the drum sound and percussion, and it was left off the album. It re-surfaced in 1991, remixed by David Richards, as both the B-side to the "Headlong" CD single in the UK, and on the Hollywood Records re-release of the album.

Other recordings from this period, such as two Smile tracks ("Silver Salmon" and "Polar Bear"), "Rock and Roll Medley" (a live encore staple from the era), and the infamous track "Hangman" (whose existence was long denied officially, beyond live concert recordings), have surfaced in the form of a studio acetate disc.

The music on Queen has been described as hard rock,[8][9] progressive rock[4] and heavy metal.[4][10] The album showcased the influence of contemporary rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull, while the lyrics were reflective of "mystical sword 'n' sorcerers themes" with "medieval landscapes."[8][10] Michael Gallucci of Ultimate Classic Rock noted how "mostly Queen is a product of its time, bringing together prog, metal and even a little bit of folk music" and felt that the album "did little to separate the group from others exploring similar territory in the early '70s."[10] David Chiu of Medium opined that Mercury's songs were similar in style to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, whereas Brian May's songs "were also baroque-sounding at times, albeit more introspective."[5]

Brian May wrote "Keep Yourself Alive" after the band had been formed but before John Deacon joined, as confirmed by former bass player Barry Mitchell (on an unofficial question and answer session held on an online forum). According to May in a radio special about their 1977 album, News of the World, he had penned the lyrics thinking of them as ironic and tongue-in-cheek, but their sense was completely changed when Mercury sang them. Taylor and May sing the vocal bridge of the song.

Former bassists and the band themselves recall that Mercury might have helped on the musical arrangements based on the fact that the band were in a more collaborative period in the pre-studio days, and he usually got his way with structural ideas. While it is highly possible that he contributed ideas to the song (the modulation types and the expanded form are closer to his style than to May's), even in that case Mercury would be more a co-arranger than a co-writer per se (like George Martin on The Beatles' songs).[11]

"Doing All Right" was written by Brian May and Tim Staffell while in Smile, however, it was never released by Smile. This is one of the few Queen songs to feature May on the piano. He also played his old Hallfredh[12] acoustic guitar on this track and on later tracks such as "White Queen (As It Began)" and "Jealousy". The band played this song as early as 1970, and it was notable as the band's first song Freddie Mercury played live on the piano. Staffell sang it when it was a Smile song, and Mercury tried to sing in the same manner when it became a Queen song. This song is not played much at concerts, played at least once at Earls Court's in 1977.

"My Fairy King", written by Freddie Mercury, deals with Rhye, a fantasy world he created with his younger sister and which features in other Queen songs, most notably "Seven Seas of Rhye". Mercury borrowed some lines from Robert Browning's poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin".[13] The song was written while the band were in the studio, and contains many vocal overdubbed harmonies, which Mercury was fond of. Roger Taylor also displays his high vocal range, hitting the highest notes in the composition. The vocal overdubs technique would later be used in many Queen songs, most notably "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Brian May said that after the lyric "Mother Mercury, look what they've done to me" was written, Mercury claimed he was singing about his own mother. Subsequently, Freddie Bulsara took the stage name Freddie Mercury. This was another attempt to separate him from his stage persona. As Mercury once explained, "When I'm performing I'm an extrovert, yet inside I'm a completely different man."[14]

Originally titled "Lover," the rudiments of this song were written by Freddie Mercury and guitarist Mike Bersin from Mercury's earlier group, Ibex. Queen reworked it, and Mercury took full credit since he had written the lyrics.[15] As mentioned on the transcription on EMI Music Publishing's Off the Record sheet music, this is one of the band's few 1970s tracks to feature a Hammond organ. "Liar" was a staple of early concerts, but its inclusion was intermittent in later years, before returning in a shortened form for The Works Tour. For the Magic Tour, it was shortened to just the opening guitar section as a segue into "Tear It Up".

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