Album Title
Queen
Artist Icon A Night at the Opera (1975)
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3:43
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Back Cover
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CD Art
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First Released

Calendar Icon 1975

Genre

Genre Icon Rock

Mood

Mood Icon Rousing

Style

Style Icon Rock/Pop

Theme

Theme Icon ---

Tempo

Speed Icon Fast

Release Format

Release Format Icon Album

Record Label Release

Speed Icon EMI

World Sales Figure

Sales Icon 4,100,000 copies

Album Description
Available in: Country Icon Country Icon Country Icon Country Icon
A Night at the Opera is the fourth studio album by British rock group Queen, released in November 1975. Co-produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen, it was, at the time of its release, the most expensive album ever recorded. A commercial success, A Night at the Opera has been voted by the public and cited by music publications as one of Queen's finest works.

The album takes its name from the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera, which the band watched one night at the studio complex when recording. It was originally released by EMI in the UK, where it topped the charts for four non-consecutive weeks, and Elektra Records in the US, where it peaked at number 4 and became the band's first Platinum selling album there.
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User Album Review
Although Queen’s, previous album, Sheer Heart Attack, had yielded two hits, reached number one in the UK and even gone gold in the US it’s a testament that EMI were prepared to let them then create what was, at the time, the most expensive album ever made. A Night At The Opera, borrowing its title from the Marx Brothers’ film could so easily have been an enormous folly.
The aforementioned Sheer Heart Attack had seen their patent methodology of multi-layered recording producing a lush and yes, operatic, ambience produce something that had never been heard before. Combining these swathes of Freddie Mercury and the band’s vocals (both Brian May and Roger Taylor were also perfectly adequate singers) with a thousand guitar lines and Taylor’s Zeppelinesque drums had crossed the pop/rock divide with ease. But this was a band with ambition in spades. ”¦Heart Attack had hinted at a working knowledge of 19th century parlour balladry, 20s ragtime and Jimi Hendrix. A Night At The Opera was to add opera, trad jazz, heavy metal and more to the mix.
Opening with a thinly veiled attack on their previous manager, “Death On Two Legs” the album then careens through a gamut of styles. With the writing divided fairly equally between Mercury and May (with John Deacon and Roger Taylor getting one number apiece as well) it veers between high camp and west coast rock with aplomb. May’s “The Prophet’s Song” serves up a slice of high concept sci fi, while his “39” is amiable country hoke. Mercury, of course, is far more in-yer-face with the frippery of “Seaside Rendezvous” and “Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon”.
Deacon, always the underrated member, may have had only one number, but it was a doozy. “You’re My Best Friend” was the second hit from the album and remains a pop classic; frothy but enduring. Naturally, no coversation about the album is complete without mentioning Mercury’s crowning moment. The multi-part epic, “Bohemian Rhapsody” took months to construct. Beginning as piano ballad, morphing into cod-Mozart and then stomping monster rocker and back to ballad, goodness knows how the band must have felt when he first unveiled it at the keyboard. Hats must also ome off for the executive at EMI who had the faith to release it as a single, following Kenny Everett’s championing of it on Capital Radio. As history records, it went to number one”¦for ever. Christmas 1975 was to be forever remembered as Queen’s. And A Night At The Opera remains their finest hour.


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