A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

QUEEN were at their creative peak in the begining of their career, as this and a couple of other albums suggest. The problem is: only TWO albums could stand the challenge of time with me, and those are Queen II and this one, A Night At The Opera. Despite being extremely different from each other, one is bombastic and epic, while the other is more calm, romantic and varied in songs, with a not so strong flow between them, i believe that QUEEN didn't miss the target on any albums on their attempt to vary their music style - both worked perfectly.

This album contains a lot of "fan-favorites" tracks like "Love Of My Life" and "Bohemian Rhapsody", which are truly classics from the band, but i hesitate on listening to them nowadays due to their constant playing, which caused me to get bored of both songs. I do admit that they are beautiful works by the band though, and "Bohemian Rhapsody's" video-clip is one of the most well done music videos ever. The real gems here aren't so known though, and i'm talking about "Death on Two Legs" and "Prophet's Song". The former is an amazing opener with delightful arrangements, and the latter is another glamorous epic, which only fails on the acapella part, which is TOO long for my taste...and a bit annoying. "39" is this album's piece by MAY, and it is much better than "Some Day One Day", it is very moving and nostalgic. The rest of the album may look like a group of fillers, but how i wish all the fillers on prog world were that good - "Lazing on ...." , "You're My Best Friend" , "Seaside Rendezvous" and the closing "God Save the Queen" are short yet very good pieces proving that "size doesn't matter" - therefore those songs shouldn't be ignored. The problem on this album - and one of the reasons it is not a masterpiece - is, of course, "Sweet Lady". This song just destroys the album's flow, making it not so consistent. They tried to make a rocker but failed miserably, producing a mediocre quasi-metal piece which is extremely annoying. Aside from that, the rest of the songs make this album deserving the 4 starred rating.

While not perfect, ANATO is QUEEN's most diverse album, but the problem is that the most diverse an album is the higher is the risk of one or another song end up not pleasing everyone, and this is what happened here. But the great majority of its tracks is top class and it is not one or another bad song that will take off the merits of the band on producing one of the most amazing pieces of art-rock ever. Only QUEEN II can win this seminal work of this extremely creative band from England.