Queen Queen II

Queen was the first band with which I really fell in love, back in my early adolescence. As my tastes in music matured and I developed greater respect for other artists, I looked back on Queen as a great singles band and nothing more… That was, until I delved deeper into their discography and discovered a quality and versatility in songwriting, musicianship and performance with which few rock groups could contend. These are fully evident on Queen’s albums from the mid-1970s – their second, eponymously-titled album in particular.

On the original 1974 vinyl release, the album’s songs were divided between a White side (Side 1) and a Black side (Side 2), the first comprising five tracks written by guitarist Brian May and one by drummer Roger Taylor and the second embraces six Freddie Mercury compositions. Bassist John Deacon, who wrote such Queen classics as Another One Bites the Dust and I Want to Break Free, would only come into his own as a songwriter on the band’s next album, Sheer Heart Attack.

Queen shunned synthesisers for much of their early career – a move which set them apart from other artists in the progressive rock subgenre. All those exotic sounds you hear on Queen II: the horn on the intro Procession, the harp on the soaring Father and Son and the cello on Some Day One Day are in fact Brain May on his home-made “Red Special” electric guitar (he gets a nifty sitar-like sound out of a beat-up old acoustic on the lovely White Queen). In addition, luxuriantly-layered vocal tracks (which would become recognised as a Queen trademark) by Mercury, May and Taylor flesh out the arrangements as fully as any orchestra or synthesiser otherwise would.

There is a light fantasy theme on Queen II which situates the album within the prog-rock movement of the early to mid-1970s. On paper the lyrics look silly with their over-the-top poetic flourishes and mock-archaisms, but Freddie sings them with such power and expression, one cannot help being moved. May and Taylor sing lead on a song each, and though neither matches Mercury’s proficiency as a vocalist, May’s soft tenor on Some Day One Day and Taylor’s throaty howl on his Zeppelin-esque The Loser in the End (probably the closest thing to a by-the-books rock song on the album) add welcome variety.

May contributes some excellent, haunting songs on Side White, but Freddie Mercury’s song sequence on Side Black is a dark, heady stew that holds the real meat of Queen II. When one thinks of the late Queen vocalist, certain images come to mind: those of the long-haired glam-rocker, the moustachioed stage-man, the HIV/AIDS martyr. Given his larger-than-life persona (or personae), it is easy to overlook what a gifted musician, arranger, pianist and songwriter he was. Here, he provides a wacky heavy-metal number (Ogre Battle), an ingenious Elizabethan court-music/hard-rock hybrid (The Fairy-Feller’s Master Stroke, which features some manic harpsichord noodlings and voice-acting from the man himself), a torch song (Nevermore), a mini-rock opera (March of the Black Queen, which is very much a precursor to Bohemian Rhapsody), a lush, sweeping pop song to do Phil Spector or Brian Wilson proud (Funny How Love Is) and the album’s sole (and Queen’s first) hit single, the baroque-and-roll of Seven Seas of Rye.

If you are only familiar with Queen through the Greatest Hits releases (especially the second one), this album will be a revelation. Though his flair for showmanship would continue unabated into the 1980s, Freddie would put his true talents on the back burner as the band reached the height of its stadium-conquering fame. Queen II is evidence that Mr Mercury’s powers were far more considerable than some would believe. On a trivial note, it is also one of Beck’s, Thurston Moore’s and Billy Corgan’s favourite albums.

This review was published, with minor alterations, in Craccum, Issue 17, 2006.