Queen - A Night at the Opera
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Free Music Notes for A Night at the Opera
Free Music Review: Please Enter a title for your review
Hit: 5 Stars
As a relatively new fan of Queen, I'm glad this was my first album of theirs that I bought. After being hooked one night by Bohemian Rhapsody, I ran out the next day to buy A Night at the Opera and was pleasantly surprised (upon extended listening). As usual, with every CD I get, I usually hate most of the songs on it the first time I hear them, and I started to regret buying this one almost immediately. Especially after seeing that I could've gotten a Greatest Hits CD at the next store.
But after heavy listening, I finally grew to love this album. Of course, Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the main highlights, but there are many great tracks on this one:
(The song ratings everyone puts on their review):
1. Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to..... - I heard this one before I got the CD and hated it. After several more listens, I began to like it more. Someone really had it in for whoever this song was dedicated to..... 4/5
2. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon - A short-and-sweet jingle. It gets stuck in your head after a while. 5/5
3. I'm In Love with My Car (and 1991 remix)- Good song, but nothing special. 4/5
4. You're My Best Friend (and 1991 remix)- Another catchy, light-hearted track that I first heard in that commercial for something I don't even remember... 5/5
5. '39 - One of the best songs on the CD. Brian sings this one really well and its one of his best, along with The Prophet's Song and Good Company. 5/5
6. Sweet Lady - My least favorite song on the CD. Again, nothing special. 2-3/5
7. Seaside Rendezvous - Another light-hearted tune by Freddie, who hits some high notes in this one. 5/5
8. The Prophet's Song - Brian's 8-minute long epic is in my top 3. It is divided into several stages not unlike Bohemian Rhapsody, the middle portion consisting entirely of Freddie multi-tracking his voice for about 2 minutes. Supposedly, it tells the story of Noah and the flood. Very well written and executed. 5/5
9. Love of My Life - Harps play an important role in Freddie's love ballad, which seems to transition from The Prophet's Song perfectly. 5/5
10. Good Company - This one is really underrated. Brian plays the ukelele as he tells a story of keeping good company all his life, but ending up alone in the end, anyway. 5/5
11. Bohemian Rhapsody - I won't bore you with what everyone has been already saying for 25+ years, so I'll just tell you it's a great multi-layered tune. 5/5
12. God Save the Queen - OK. I don't really see the point of it, other than it having the band's name in it. Just an adaptation of the song by Brian on guitar. 3/5
I'm still getting into Queen, so I can't tell you bored readers of my review if this is their best album, but various sources will tell you it is. In my opinion (which no one cares about anyway), I would highly recommend it. The band did a great job.
Free Music Review: Queen's Meticulous and Operatic Opus!
Hit: 5 Stars
I've owned this cd for nearly 8 years now, And I still find myself listening to it still. This is Queen's best known art rock tour de force featuring: Metal, art rock, pomp rock?, british vaudevillain, opera and other genres. The title says it all, as it is very theatrical. It starts off with the classical/operatic(beginning) metal song "Death On Two Legs", then proceeds into what many people call 'silly', "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon". It's british quirkiness at it's best. "I'm In Love With My Car", is a Roger Taylor sung rocker. "You're My Best Friend", is the only pop song on the disc and was a hit for the band. "39", is acoustic and sung by Brian May, and features romantic and reflective lyrics. Good song. "Sweet Lady", is a great heavy rocker, with an incredible ending. Listen to the great musicianship. "Seaside Rendevouz", is a playful romantic song in typical Freddie Mercury style.
"The Prophet's Song", is arguably the mother epic of the album, or if not just as strong as that other... anyway, this epic is ultra-theatrical, I feel like I'm actually watching a medieval-type movie when I'm listening. Freddie's vocals are top notch and ominous, and Brian May's guitar playing is great as well. "Love of My Life", is unbelievable, I actually played some of it on my guitar. Freddie's heartfelt singing against the backdrop of his elegant classical-like piano playing, and the harp from Brian is fantastic. "Good Company", is another great track. Sounds very classical and european in it's musical approach. "Bohemian Rhapsody", obviously everyone knows that it's an epic featuring pseudo-opera, and metal. But what many people might not know is that when everyone says that Queen are the masters of studio excess, they're right because in an interview, Brian May, or one of the members said that the multi-layered vocals to this track were overdubbed some 100-180 times over, and the tape almost got lost and destroyed because of all the excess recording. WOW! but obviously I, and many other fans took to this excess other wise they wouldn't have been inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in the class of 2001. "God Save the Queen", I believe is the british national anthem played on by Brian May's guitar. It's weird how you can make drum sounds out of a guitar.
Anyway, this is a great album and probably represents what Queen were about: Theatrics, Pomp?, Quirkiness?, and greatness. Queen are actually the only band I think can be called pompous, yet I think the pomposity is what made them Queen, Great!.
Queen is my favorite band for a reason, and I think this cd, Sheer Heart Attack, and the much more artsier and complex Queen II are Queen's finest moments.
Thanks.
Free Music Review: Classic Queen, stuff to be treaured
Hit: 5 Stars
The first time I listened to this I thought it was completely wacky, and so all over the place. I was already a fairly established queen fan having been weaned on to their music since I was but a baby and I thought this stuff was completely different from what I had heard of Queen before (mainly 80s stuff). On the second hearing though, I thought, WOW, this is a masterpiece, the mix of sounds in the different songs is inspired and something which Queen have come to embody. They are often commented upon as having a very wide specturm in the genres they can stretch out into, and unlike some other bands they do it VERY well. There are some good old rocky tracks, like "I'm In Love With My Car", that good old Roger Taylor classic "Sweet Lady", which to be honest I don't like terribly, as many people who have put customer comments here have expressed too and "Death On Two Legs", which I loved immediately, that piano intro is classic. That is also part of the mix of styles, I sometimes think that people who wouldn't have known Queen and had listened to the start of that first track would have thought it was actually an operatic album. Even from the cover, it's not exactly the kind of thing rock bands have on the cover of their albums, is it? And then there's the vaudevillean type tracks, "Good Company", "Seaside Rendezvous" (the vocal orchestartions are so funny) and "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon", which I think are immense fun. And then there are the ones that don't really fit in a group- the weird yet wonderfully sci-fi yet kind of country music sounding "39", "God Save The Queen" which doesn't sound that bad for a national anthem , which aren't often released on a mainstream album, The lovely (pardon the pun) "Love Of My Life" with that lovely harp accompaniment by Brian May (if you've only heard this on live albums etc. you have to hear it on this it is immeasurably different, and some would say better, but that would depend on your tastes)"You're My Best Friend", I love that electric piano bit, "The Prophet's Song", which is nearly beyond description, but is to be celebrated as being a harmonic masterpiece, it sounds great, especially with that Toy Koto and last and most certainly not least "Bohemian Rhapsody" which just proves that you can still put opera bits in a rock song and it can be hailed all over the world as the best song ever, and can go to number one twice, with a massive 16 year interval. In short this is one hell of an album and is a must for all lovers of great music.Sorry to have bored you all with this really long review but once I start talking about something I feel that I have to finish. ByeFree Music Review: One of the Best Queen Albums Ever...
Hit: 5 Stars
This is definetely one of the best Queen albums ever. I would pick these earlier Queen albums (Queen, Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack or A.N.A.T.O.) over any of the later ones anyday.This one, of course, contains the infamous Bohemian Rhapsody. However, other songs on this CD are just as good, maybe even better.
Starting off with Death on Two Legs, a song with very nice arrangements and a very angry, hard-hitting feel. Very nice melodies in this song too. Going on to Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon... well... it's hilarious! It's the campiest, and most ludicrous song ever. It's great, though, and the harmonized solo at the end is amazing.
"I'm In Love with my Car" is a great song, but I must admit, my least favourite of CD. It's good, it just doesn't have that depth that the rest of the album does, but it's still a great rock song.
"You're my Best Friend" - Great follow up hit to Bohemian Rhapsody, nice song by John Deacon. I love the melodies and harmony parts.
" '39 " - Great skiffle (folk) song. I love the melody, and Brian's singing. For those who didn't know, Brian (the guitarist) sings instead of Freddie and his voice suits this song so well. Very sad song, but another contender for best song off this CD
"Sweet Lady" - Pretty much the same deal as "I'm in love with my Car". It just doesn't do much for me, but again, a good rock song.
"Seaside Rendezvous" - A lovely song, again very "silly" if you will, but amazing melody and story-telling feel. Got to love those kazoos.
"Prophet's Song" - Wow. That's all I could say. It's just as impressive as Bohemian Rhapsody in my eyes and often too overlooked. It's a great song, amazing vocals. Especially in that vocal break. I'm blown away over and over again by this song.
"Love of My Life" - Great, sad yet happy song. Again melody and harmony's there. Freddie outdid himself here. Great song.
"Good Company" - A good partner with Seaside Rendezvous, but this one was written by Brian May... great arrangements again, nice song...
Bohemian Rhapsody - One could go on and on about this song. Everyone's heard it. Amazingly complex arrangements and amazing melodies. Impressive vocals, great guitar playing. I wont' dwell too long, everyone knows this song is great.
God Save the Queen - Nice outro song, wonderful harmonized guitar arrangements of the British Nat'l Anthem.
Bottom Line: Go buy this CD. It will blow you away. And look into some earlier Queen CD's too. I've said this before: If you like Queen, but you don't like older Queen, then you don't like Queen. If that makes any sense... Buy IT!!!
Free Music Review: Keep All Good Company
Hit: 5 Stars
During the 70s Queen were one of the biggest bands around. Could you blame them? With their shameless theatrical bombast and equal propensity for blistering hard rock and vaudevillian camp, not to mention their instrumental prowess and Freddy Mercury's otherworldly voice, they were what might be called the Ultimate Rock Band. I'm not saying they were the best of the best (there are half-a-dozen bands or more I'd rate above them); but if you wanted a blueprint for a great rock band, Queen would be it. And 1975's A Night at the Opera is generally considered their magnum opus.
"A Night at the Opera" of course derives from the Marx Brothers' classic madcap comedy, and it's not just a name check. The album's defining characteristic is its lofty operatic pretensions. This is most obvious and comes to a head in that overwrought masterpiece Bohemian Rhapsody, but even in heavier (like Death on Two Legs, the scathing opener) and lighter (such as the short-but-sweet Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon) the operatic aspirations are evident. The title inspiration also shines in the music's overwhelming camp as Freddie and the boys indulge heavily in the British music-hall tradition of the 20s and 30s. Queen were originally a hard rock band!
The songwriting itself is uniformly impressive as well. Freddie Mercury takes the spotlight with his vocal acrobatics and as the prime instigator of A Night at the Opera's bombast, holding the bulk of its song credits. But despite his prevalence Queen is very much an active unit - my two favourite songs on the disc, You're My Best Friend and '39, are by John Deacon and Brian May respectively. Queen are all first-rate musicians, of course: Brian May most obviously, with his guitar buzz as fluid as it is unique, though John Deacon is a bassist on the order of McCartney and Entwistle too. The fact that NO orchestra or choir was involved is all the more impressive - all this grandiloquence is entirely realized through layers and layers of instrumental overdubs and soaring, ornate vocal melodies supported by dense, measure-perfect harmonies.
The bonus tracks are nothing more than more modern remixes of I'm in Love with My Car and You're My Best friend - not significantly different, nothing to write home about.
After Bohemian Rhapsody has faded away the album closes out with a histrionic, tongue-in-cheek, self-aggrandizing performance of the British national anthem God Save the Queen, and that about says it for the album, and for Queen themselves. A Night at the Opera is a masterwork of ostentation and a classic.