QUEEN

Released in 1973, 'Queen' is the self-titled debut of a band who'd go on to become four of the most famous and beloved Brits in history since the Beatles. With The Beatles having split up just a few years prior, and with Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple laying the foundations of where hard rock and heavy metal were going, Queen's first album slips in flawlessly for that time period, adding theatrical elements and charisma to help carve out their own niche.

Granted, the album itself is still a bit 'meh' for me. This is before the Londoners became known for the absolute mega hits that they'd go on to record, and so as a whole, this release is just kind of there. It could be that they were still adjusting to each other and gelling as a unit, but while the musicianship is solid and you can hear early signs of front man Freddie Mercury's showmanship creeping in, I just don't really find myself getting into these songs.

Opening track 'Keep Yourself Alive' is pretty decent, and 'Great King Rat' is a great example of those early theatrical elements that the band would go on to integrate more and more into their music, but other than these two songs, I'm really finding it hard to maintain interest. There's definitely a lot of energy and youthful enthusiasm in the performances though, and you can hear that this is a band that certainly will go on to much bigger things.

And maybe that's just the problem. I'm not hearing 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'I Want to Break Free' or 'We Are the Champions' here, so maybe I'm just unwillingly dismissing it? I don't mean to, sometimes it's just a matter of taste. I don't think I'll come back to 'Queen' very much, if ever, but I do know that great things will follow.