1. Queen - A Night at the Opera

Right, lets get this going shall we?


For some reason, listening to 365 albums and tweeting about all of them over the course of a year wasn't enough. Not only have I decided to do that, but I've stupidly decided to blog on every single one. Now I can't guarantee that every blog will be good, but it will at least exist.


Now that that's out of the way, onto the first album: A Night at the Opera, the fourth studio album by Queen. "Why did you pick this particular album and what are your thoughts?", I don't hear you ask. Well I'm going to tell you them anyway.


The main reason is that today is the date that Freddie Mercury was born in 1946 (21 years before the summer of love). It seemed appropriate that the first album that I revisit should be one from their discography, although I wasn't sure what one to listen to. The first thought was to give the greatest hits a spin, but then I quickly came to the conclusion that doing so would be cheating. I only want to listen to whole albums and not compilations. I then thought of the three Queen albums that I know the best (Meaning the ones my dad had on LP). Those being 'Sheer Heart Attack', 'News of the World' and the aforementioned 'A Night at the Opera'. I went for my favorite of the three.


'A Night at the Opera' has all you'd want from a Queen album, sing along classics (You're my best friend, 39), bitchin' guitar anthems (Death on two legs), some straight-up weirdness (Lazing on a Sunday afternoon, The prophet's song) and of course ,Bohemian Rhapsody, which somehow falls into all three categories.


I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Queen first played Bohemian Rhapsody to the record company.


Freddie: "Listen, it starts off as a ballad about some dude that kills another dude and then some time around the three minute mark, after a face-melting guitar solo from Bri, it turns into a jury scene. Oh, and it's performed as an opera."
Record label: "What?"
Freddie: "Yeah, fucked up ain't it?"
Record label: "Um..."
Freddie: "Then, after about a minute of opera, it turns into rocking motherfucker of a tune, before mellowing out again."
Record label: "Have you still got your advance?"
Freddie: "Just listen to it! Trust me, it works."


And fuck does it. But I don't just want to write about Bohemian Rhapsody, although one could easily write an entire essay about it (I'm sure many have), but now's not the time. The opening song 'Death on two legs' is an in-your-face 'fuck off' to their former manager. Listen to the lyrics, Freddie goes all 2Pac on this bloke a good 20 years before 'pac did  it. This song is an awesome start to the album, it almost seems that the band wanted to get this song out of the way and out of their system so that they could continue with the rest of the album.


Another gem for me is 'Sweet lady' if for nothing other than the bizarre lyrics. I'm not sure what Brian May was thinking when he wrote the line "You call me sweet like I'm some kind of cheese" but in the context of the song, it works. When I was listening to this song earlier I thought there was a moment when Freddie threatens to go down on this 'Sweet lady, but he didn't (I read the lyrics later) and I have now digressed.


'Love of my life' is a beautiful, timeless ballad which always tugs at the heartstrings, 'Best friend'  reminds me of my sisters wedding (albeit through a drunken haze) and '39' is a gem that I had completely forgotten about.


Not all the songs are perfect though, I'm not a big fan of 'The prophet's song' or 'I'm in love with my car', the latter has Roger Taylor creepily singing about how much he wants to bang his old banger. That being said, those are not songs that I'd skip, they're just not my cuppa.


Overall a great album that that I haven't heard in a long time and really enjoyed revisiting.


Until tomorrow.....
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Favorite song: Best Friend