Night At The Opera, A (Limited Edition Replica Vinyl) [Remastered] - Queen > Reviews > Extravaganza

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	Great rock pop stuff
Disadvantages:	Sometimes a bit too varied and clever clever

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Scene: A car, peopled with five long haired American friends
Sound: Bohemian Rhapsody
Event: Wayne's World
Result: Headbanging heaven

It was with their fourth album that Queen really showed themselves to be a massive force in music. Their debut had been a disappointment, 'Queen II' had shown potential, 'Sheer Heart Attack' made a concerted fist of things, but it was with 'A Night At The Opera' in 1975 that the four piece really put down their marker.

It was an epic achievement and it was months in the making. They started work on songs in June 1975 and started recording in August, eventually spending three months in various studios around the country, working with regular producer Roy Thomas Baker.

As ever, the band had the legend 'No synthesizers' daubed on the album, but you could have been fooled into thinking there was significantly more on the album than the voice and piano of Freddie Mercury, the bass of John Deacon, the voice and percussion of Roger Taylor and the voice and guitar of Brian May, but the effect was achieved by multi layered overdubs and echo laden parts, giving the impression that there was a massive orchestra and choir in attendance.

They had toyed with such techniques before, most notably on the supreme 'Killer Queen' from 'Sheer Heart Attack', but it was here that a fabulous artistic peak was achieved. It was all conceived as part of an extraordinary vision that had first been mooted by Mercury when he watched Smile, the group in which May and Taylor first stretched their wings. He said to May at the time, " Why are you wasting your time doing this? You should do more original material. You should be more demonstrative in the way that you put the music across. If I was your singer that's what I'd been doing." With 'A Night At The Opera, he finally had the opportunity to realise that conceit and he seized it with both hands.

He was to explain matters thus: "We wanted to experiment with sound. Sometimes we used three studios simultaneously. We have no such thing as a recording budget any more - we're lavish to the bone." The idea of overdubbing again and again to create a great wash of sound came to the fore on 'Sheer Heart Attack'. The band were forced to make that album in a piecemeal fashion because May was disabled through illness for long stretches, meaning that the rest of the band had to record the basic tracks without him, leaving him to build soundscapes over that framework later. The band had clearly revelled in that method of working and saw that they could take the concept even further. They were to reach the very peak of such multilayering and overdubbing on the massive 'Bohemian Rhapsody' single which was to sit atop the charts for an unprecedented nine weeks.

Other tracks on the album didn't go as over the top with the concept, but they certainly created a magical landscape, with Queen becoming one of the first bands to really capitalise on the new found flexibilities that the recording studio could provide. Baker was the perfect architect to help them realise that vision. The Beatles had tried similar tricks with the 'Sergeant Pepper' album, but in the eight years since that masterpiece, the technology had taken massive strides and Mercury and Baker could perfect what Lennon and Martin had only been able to hint at.

A lot of the tracks on the album were quite light and insubstantial, as had been many of those on 'Pepper', but in the context of the album they worked pretty well to create a very satisfying whole.

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'Death On Two Legs(Dedicated to...)'(Mercury)
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Apparently this song was written as a 'trubute' to their erstwhile manager, Jack Nelson, and Mercury was unsparing in his bitter invective. It contains some of the most barbed put downs of a human being ever laid down on vinyl and it's clear that something was amiss between the parties!

"You suck my blood like a leach, You break the law and you breach, Screw my brain till it hurts. You've taken all my money - you want more. Misguided old mule With your pig-headed rules, With your narrow-minded cronies who are fools of the first division. Death on two legs, You're tearing me apart, Death on two legs, You never had a heart of your own. Kill joy, bad guy, Big talking, small fry. You're just an old barrow boy. Have you found a new toy to replace me? Can you face me? But now you can kiss my ass goodbye. Feel good, are you satisfied? Do you feel like suicide? (I think you should) Is your conscience alright? Does it plague you at night? Do you feel good? - Feel good! Talk like a big business tycoon, But you're just a hot air balloon, So no one gives you a damn. You're just an overgrown school-boy, Let me tan your hide. A dog with disease, You're the king of the sleaze. Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Know All. Was the fin on your back part of the deal? (shark!) Insane, you should be put inside. You're a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride. Should be made unemployed, Then make yourself null and void. Make me feel good, I feel good."

Phew, talk about vindictive! The said Mr Nelson had certainly ruffled the Mercury feathers rather more than somewhat. Now, Mercury doesn't normally go quite as overboard as this and clearly subtlety was something he'd dismissed.

In keeping with the lyrical spikiness, the song is a violent hard rock song that races along for the most part.

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'Lazing On A Sunday Afteroon' (Mercury)
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In the company of some of the other stuff here this is a surprisingly fey and insubstantial offering - a very plain pop song which is the sort that Mercury seemed to be able to rattle out very readily. Pleasant enough, but nothing more.

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<br>'I'm In Love With My Car' (Taylor)
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Roger Taylor often only got the chance to contribute a single song, but took that opportunity to provide some wonderful stuff and there's no exception with 'A Night At The Opera' where 'I'm In Love With My Car' is a real gem, an athemic tribute to "boy racers" everywhere. It explains the unhealthy infatuation with "the machine of a dream, such a clean machine With the pistons a pumpin', and the hubcaps all gleam."

Taylor's lyrics are quite unhealthy in their rejection of normal human lust and he drools after his inhuman lover: "Told my girl I had to forget her Rather buy me a new carburettor So she made tracks sayin this is the end now Cars don't talk back, they're just four wheeled friends now When I'm holding your wheel All I hear is your gear When I'm cruisin' in overdrive Don't have to listen to no run of the mill talk jive I'm in love with my car, gotta feel for my automobile I'm in love with my car, string back gloves in my automolove!"

It's a brilliant rock number, though, and Taylor sings it without a trace of irony.

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'You're My Best Friend' (Deacon)
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John Deacon was now starting to stretch his wings on the composing front and contributed this brilliant love song, all electric piano and well timed vocal delivery. It's a straightahead love song, but Queen brought real class to proceedings whenever they did anything like this and it carved a neat little niche for itself in the charts when it was released as a single.

The lyrics are pretty trite but fit the mood perfectly and it's musically extremely pretty: "Ooo, you make me live, whatever this world can give to me. It's you, you're all I see Ooo, you make me live now honey Ooo, you make me live You're the best friend that I ever had, I've been with you such a long time. You're my sunshine And I want you to know that my feelings are true I really love you You're my best friend."

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''39' (May)
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Now this was sheer magic, a slab of folksy rock that Queen used to make a real play of in live performance with all four members seated at the front in 'Unplugged' fashion. It's very atmospheric with May outdoing himself lyrically. This is quite possibly my favourite ever Queen track and is just the perfect combination of music and words:

"In the year of '39 assembled here the volunteers, In the days when lands were few. Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn, The sweetest sight ever seen And the night followed day And the story tellers say That the score brave souls inside For many a lonely day sailed across the milky seas Never looked back, never feared, never cried Don't you hear my call though you're many years away Don't you hear me calling you Write your letters in the sand For the day I take your hand In the land that our grandchildren knew In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue The volunteers came home that day And they bring good news of a world so newly born Thought their hears so heavenly weigh For the earth is old and grey, little darling we'll away But my love this cannot be For so many years have gone though I'm older but a year Your mothers eyes from your eyes cry to me Don't you hear my call though you're many years away Don't you hear me calling you Write your letters in the sand For the day I take your hand In the land that our grandchildren knew Don't you hear my call though your many years away Do you hear me calling you All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand For my life still ahead pity me."

It's a surprisingly melancholic little number yet magnificent for all that. The more I read the words and the more I hear the song the better I feel about it.

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'Sweet Lady' (May)
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May goes misogynist in this nasty little put down of the female sex. It's a hard little rocker though and one should never take these things too seriously. That's not to excuse the sentiments because they're unpleasant.

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'Seaside Rendezvous' (Mercury)
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This is another of Mercury's pop by numbers efforts in the style of 'Bring Back That Leroy Brown' from 'Sheer Heart Attack'. It's just a throwaway little number that didn't take up too much time.

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'The Prophet's Song' (May)
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Among some of Mercury's slight little efforts on this album, May's contributions stand out like a sore thumb for their magnificence, lyrical excellence and substance. 'The Prophet's Song' could have been on the 'Queen II' album and is startling here. It's a moody, ominous song, full of portents and dark forebodings.

It tells the tale in typical sword and sorcery style and is just a major, major stand out track, although it could be easily dismissed by cynics as the poorer cousin of Led Zep's 'Stairway To Heaven':

"Oh Oh people of the earth Listen to the warning The seer he said Beware the storm that gathers here Listen to the wise man I dreamed I saw on a moonlit stair Spreading his hands on the multitude there A man who cried for a love gone stale And ice cold hearts of charity bare I watched as fear took the old men's gaze Hopes of the young in troubled graves I see no day, I heard him say So grey is the face of every mortal ... Take my hand Fly and find the new green bough Return like the white dove He told of death as a bone white haze Taking the lost and the unloved babe Late too late all the wretches run These kings of beasts now counting their days From mother's love is the son estranged Married his own his precious gain The earth will shake, in two will break And death all around will be your dow'ry ... Oh Oh-and two by two my human zoo They'll be running for to come out of the rain Flee for your life Who heed me not, let all your treasure make you Fear for your life Deceive you not the fires of hell will take you Should death await you Aah, people can you hear me God give you trace to purge this place And peace all around may be your fortune Oh Oh children of the land Love is still the answer, take my hand the vision fades, a voice I hear "Listen to the Madman!" But still I fear and still I dare not Laugh at the Madman."

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'Love Of My Life' (Mercury)
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This yearning love ballad from Mercury was similar to many of the beautiful but throwaway little numbers here. Let's quickly pass over it.

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'Good Company' (May)
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Brian May could also pen slight songs at the drop of a hat and this could be Beatles by numbers from 'Sergeant Pepper' days. 'When I'm 64' was clearly a major influence: "My very good friends and me We'd play all day with Sally J The girl from number 4 And very soon I begged her won't you Keep me company."

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'Bohemian Rhapsody' (Mercury)
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Now, you're talking classic and the stuff of a thousand karaoke sessions. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' represents a watershed in rock music, with a nine week stay at the top of the charts and the first ever real promo video. It's amazing stuff with a ballad opening, mini operatic middle section and hard rock finale before winding down to an atmospheric finish. It was all meaningless enough but was an absolutely perfect combination of lyrics and music.

The song was built up in its separate sections over several weeks and was made up of voices and music overdubbed time and time again into a carefully manicured gothic epic. Echo laden and panned vocals exploit the stereo and recording technologies to the optimum and are skilfully deployed by Baker and the band.

It was an evolving process that saw the track put together painstakingly over a lengthy period to create a bona fide piece of classic rock which will forever be the quintessential Queen track. The lyrics are utter and complete pap, but since when has that really mattered?

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'God Save The Queen'(May)
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Brian May arranged this version of the national anthem to create a lavish curtain down closer to the album. Very cornball but totally in keeping with the band's embrace of show business.
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A track by track rundown like this doesn't do true justice to a major piece of rock history. Forget the individual tracks and just let the mood and the Queen ethic wash all over you.

'A Night At The Opera' was a glossy and finely honed amalgam of Mercury's perfect pop sensibilities and May's instinctive mastery of rock dynamics. The sheening pop rock meisterwork was driven along by the percussive assault and battery of Taylor and given resonance and depth by the bass lines of the undemonstrative Deacon, but it was the twin axis of Mercury and May which dominated affairs.

Mercury was a preening glam rock dandy, fey and artistic, but who could nevertheless mix it with the hardest of hard rock vocalists when the need arose. May's mellow lead lines could be adapted to any number of different styles and he was adept at creating atmospheres and sonic landscapes. The duo hit their peak with this album and it was to be more than a decade before Queen matched it with the startling 'Innuendo'.

The band and their work were contemtuously dismissed with a cynical sneer by the leaders of the new wave, but there were still enough followers of their high camp hard rock to make 'A Night At The Opera' a massive seller throughout 1976.