Queen

It's a bit strange to see that discussions about Queen discography are rather scarce here, although it's among the 'biggest' bands on the archives, both commercially (competing with The Beatless, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd) and rating-wise (with two of their albums in Prog-Related top-5). Queen is one of my favourite bands of all time, forming my musical pantheon alongside with King Crimson, Steven Wilson and Peter Hammill.

I find Queen's classic albums one of the most interesting releases of good ol' 70's, with Queen II peaking as one of my all-time favourite LP's. Their first five albums are very progressive (in all senses of that word), with a lot of experimentation and surprising eclectism (from music hall to ballad to opera to heavy metal, sometimes all in one song), and it's even very strange that the commercial success have found that band with Bohemian Rhapsody, one of their weirdest songs. Their first albums are full of sudden emotional and stylistic changes, with technically excellent playing and, starting from late 1974, superior production (the first two albums, unfortunately, are not that perfect in terms of sound quality).

Although they turned very poppy in 80's, they still remained quite eclectic, and, unlike Rainbow or Uriah Heep, who turned into plain AOR bands, Queen still remained rather unpredictable even on their poppiest albums.

My ratings:
Queen I — 8/10
Queen II — 10/10
Sheer Heart Attack — 10/10
A Night at the Opera — 10/10
A Day at the Races — 10/10
News of the World — 7/10
Jazz — 8/10
The Game — 5/10
Flash Gordon — 4/10
Hot Space — 7/10
The Works — 6/10
A Kind of Magic — 6/10
The Miracle — 8/10
Innuendo — 9/10
Made in Heaven — 8/10

I love them since being a little kid! It's my first musical fascination! I own all their albums! 

I can't stand them.

smartpatrol wrote: A Night at the Opera is a masterpiece, the other three I've heard are great, too (Jazz, A Day at the Races, and Sheer Heart Attack). Other than that I know most of their singles and do plan to expand my Queen knowledge in the future

I'v never been a fan of Queen. Too much of mediocre pop.

Edited by Svetonio - December 16 2013 at 06:37

ole-the-first wrote: ^I doubt there was any pop on their first albums, and as for singles, to judge Queen on their pop hits is like to judge Genesis on 'We Can't Dance'.

LOL the Genesis case in even worse - that's the band who were disappointed their entire fan base with that mediocre pop.

They were my favorite band at one point (my teens, in the 80s).  I have a tougher time listening to them now, some of their eclecticism just feels a wee bit gimmicky to me today.  But when they were good, they were great.  I still get a good thrill out of News of the World and Sheer Heart Attack, my two favorite albums.  The debut is pretty awesome too, as is Queen II.  I have mixed feelings about Night at the Opera - it may be their ultimate statement and quintessential album but Freddie seems to go a bit overboard on it, which grates on me a bit nowadays and makes me understand why there are people who don't like the band.

A Kind of Magic is the last album I really paid attention to (and it was pretty good).  I recently checked out Innuendo and frankly I just couldn't stomach it.  My time with Queen has passed, I think.  But I still enjoy the majority of their better albums, and I'm particularly a fan of Roger Taylor's contributions to the band.

I've been meaning to check out more of their stuff since stumbling across I'm Going Slightly Mad on one of our best of Queen CDs.

As for 'News of the World', it has some great tracks, such as 'Sheer heart Attack' (usually hated by fans, but it's my favourite track from that album), 'It's Late' and tongue-in-cheek 'Who Needs You', but I rather hate 'We Will Rock You' and 'We Are the Champions'.

On the other hand, heavy 'fast' version of We Will Rock You is still pretty good (it's a shame that they decided to put the minimalist 'slow' version on the LP instead of the fast one):

^Tracks like 'Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon' or 'Seaside Rendedvouz' are very jokey, with their own humoristic charm. There's no need to take them seriously, but technically they're still very interesting (especially the imitation of string jazz orchetra done by the single guitar overdubs).