“Who can you compare it to?”: The record that made Queen the most unique force in classic rock
Classic rock has always felt like a silly label for Queen.
Sure, it’s classic now with enough decades of time passing and the band becoming so essential to rock music that they’re now foundational, but back when they were first releasing music, there was nothing classic about the band; they were something totally and completely new.
They still feel that way, because if you take the time to go back and listen, revisiting their discography feels like hearing the music world break open. They skirted all expectations of what a rock band should be as Freddie Mercury appeared on the scene with a voice to rival any of the leaders, but a completely fresh and theatrical way of using it. They were unbridled and unafraid, and it led to something thrilling as they had all those same classic rock influences as everyone else, but added on top of that a fearlessness to be flamboyant and dramatic.
There is no better example of that than the record A Night at the Opera, which appeared as the pinnacle they’d been building towards. They were already great before that point in 1975, but this fourth album saw them go all in.
It’s a boring and minimising way to look at it, but it feels like an album that finally throws any sense of stagnant masculinity out of the window, seeing the band fully embrace theatricality at its furthest extent, hence the record’s title. From the tend ballad of ‘Love of My Life’ to the metal-influenced ‘Death on Two Legs’, it’s an album that does it all, and Brian May said that was really the point.
“If we do something that’s harmonised, we’ll be The Beach Boys, and if we do something that’s heavy, we’ll be Led Zeppelin, or whatever,” he said, as they had all those reference points. But the thing that made Queen stand out was the ability to do it all at once, explaining, “the thing is that we have an identity of our own because we combine all those things which mean Queen. That’s what people don’t seem to realise”.
That culminates in one five-minute-long package as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ made that statement once and for all.
“A lot of people have slammed ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but if you listen to that single, who can you compare it to?” May said as they unleashed one of the most original pieces of music the rock world has ever heard, adding, “Tell me one group that’s done an operatic single? I can’t think of one! But we didn’t do an operatic single because we thought we’d be the only group to do it. It just happened!”
From that moment on, as they proved the doubters wrong and the song became a timeless hit, Queen haven’t just been a foundation of classic rock, but its most unique and interesting essential piece.
