Queen - Rhapsody in Rock

The concept behind Queen is to be regal and majestic. Glamour is part of us, and we want to be dandies

Freddie Mercury

We're pretty over the top, but in a way that's not dangerous at all. I don't think we've ever done anyone any real harm

Brian May

I don't think at all about what will happen when I'm dead, or whether I'll be remembered... I really don't think about it at all... that's their business. When I'm dead, who's going to care? Not me, that's for sure..."

Freddie Mercury 

We will all miss him greatly. Together with Queen, he made a huge contribution to pop music

David Bowie

Intro

Time Behind the Scenes

It can be amusing, at times, to watch time change its course.

In the early '70s, a great many people seem to take a particular pleasure in mocking a band called Queen.

Some, to be fair, spot a real, genuine talent, but the majority sides with a rather simple idea: Queen are full of promise, but will never live up to it.

Two albums, however, keep climbing the charts, and a third one (Sheer Heart Attack) announces itself as combative from the title alone.

Freddie Mercury, the flamboyant and talented singer, always believed in his band's real chances of success. The results of Queen II ultimately seem to prove him right, but it's not just a matter of sales and chart positions.

In 1974, a turning point comes full circle, and a new single with two A-sides steps onto the rock stage.

“Killer Queen” abandons the heavy-metal blueprint that had marked the band's early path, twisting it into an irreverent blend of Beach Boys, a new kind of Beatles, and post-WWI music-hall. As entertaining and refined as it is irritating and pretentious. The magic formula has thus been found. The band can therefore afford to smile, cocking a snook at all the verbal efforts of their many detractors. And it is precisely from a “smile” — life's irony — that the story of Queen begins.

A Smile, First of All…

Unwrapping his presents for his seventh birthday, Brian Harold May (Hampton, 19/07/1947) can't believe his eyes: a six-string Spanish guitar, his first guitar.

Eight years go by, but the boy's urge to dream remains intact. At fifteen, Brian wants to carry on his studies to become an astronomer, and so he enrolls at Hampton Grammar School. Between one textbook and another, though, there's still time to listen to the Crickets and the Everly Brothers, because, deep down, his passion for music has never faded.

Brian is a very gifted teenager, and since he doesn't have the money to buy an electric guitar, he decides to build one to his own specifications. Eighteen months later, almost every musician at school watches in amazement a gleaming guitar named Red Special, which, when played with a sixpence coin, produces a sound unlike any other.

Electrified, seventeen-year-old Brian May feels the time has come to start a band, and together with singer/harmonica player Tim Staffell, he founds 1984. The group plays its r&b around small venues, but Brian's skilled technique causes quite a stir. In May 1967, at Imperial College, 1984 open for Jimi Hendrix, and in December they take part in the event "Christmas On Earth", alongside Traffic, Pink Floyd and T-Rex.

These are modest satisfactions, though, because the band breaks up at the dawn of the new year due to artistic differences among its young members.

Brian May therefore decides to throw himself back into astronomy, having in the meantime been accepted at Imperial College London.

Tim Staffell, however, won't have it and convinces the guitarist to give it another go. On the college notice board one can read this ad: "Drummer wanted, Ginger Baker/Mitch Mitchell style".

When Roger Meddows Taylor (King's Lynn, 26/07/1949) moves to Cornwall with his whole family, he starts, for the first time, developing a passion for music.

A boy of just eight, Roger strums a rudimentary ukulele, playing typical skiffle tunes with some friends and developing an angelic vocal tone that later earns him a scholarship as a chorister at Truro Cathedral School.

In 1965 Taylor - who has in the meantime developed a passion for percussion - becomes the drummer/singer of the Reaction, who, somewhere between Dylan and Cream, are a fixture at various venues in the area. In the summer of 1967, however, Roger is admitted to the London Hospital Medical School and decides to leave the old band to its fate, firmly intent on forming another one.

"Drummer wanted, Ginger Baker style...".

When Brian May and Tim Staffell show up for the meeting in Shepherd's Bush and play a few songs backed by Taylor's bongos, they're immediately convinced that the lanky blond is the man they're looking for.

The first public appearance of the newborn Smile is already a notable one: on 26 October 1968 the "progressive-rock band" of May, Taylor and Staffell opens for Pink Floyd, once again at Imperial College.

The band takes itself very seriously and, in May 1969, signs a contract with Mercury Records for the release of a single.

"Earth/Step On Me" is released in August only in the United States, but fails to achieve the success everyone had hoped for, discouraging the label, which will invest no further in the group's future. The dreams of glory of Smile thus go up in smoke, and Tim Staffell, tired and depressed, decides to leave his two bandmates. The only comfort left for Brian and Roger is a new friend, an art student, who loves their music and keeps spurring them on with spectacular, extravagant ideas.

At just eight years old, Farookh Bulsara (Zanzibar, 5/09/1946) has to leave behind the tranquility of the island of Zanzibar, following his father's relocations, and ends up seventy kilometres from Bombay, where he begins attending classes at the English St. Peter's boarding school.

The boy shows an early artistic talent and develops a particular passion for visual arts and music, singing in a band that is only active within the school. Once his studies are over, Farookh decides to leave the boarding school to go back to living with his parents in Zanzibar, but after the African revolution on the island, the Bulsaras are forced to relocate once again, this time to Britain.

In September 1966, twenty-year-old Freddie (as his friends call him) is admitted to Ealing College of Art and strikes up a friendship with Tim Staffell, who brings him into the Smile circle. Intrigued, the young man buys a second-hand electric guitar and starts writing his own songs, which from the summer of 1969 he brings to his new band, Ibex.

While the band mixes the Beatles with Yes, Freddie studies increasingly theatrical and provocative poses every day, firmly convinced that he wants to become a rock and roll star. Ibex, however, do nothing but play up and down Great Britain in small clubs and pubs and, in the end, decide to move to Liverpool. Freddie disagrees, but tries his luck along the banks of the Mersey anyway. Disillusioned, he returns to London in September. All he has left now is the clothing stall he runs with Roger Taylor at Kensington Market and his talent as a designer. Nothing, really, since the only thing Freddie wants is to make his mark as a man of the stage.

At the start of 1970, Freddie Bulsara, Brian May and Roger Taylor decide to join forces and put together a brand-new band.

It's June 27th: joined by bassist Mike Grose, Queen take to the small stage of Truro Town Hall together for the first time, for a Red Cross charity concert.

Freddie, confident in his radiant future, introduces himself to the audience no longer as Bulsara, but as Mercury, messenger of the gods.

Queen, performing at the Imperial College conference hall, have a distinctive visual style, with flashy black-and-white silk outfits, bracelets, rings and chokers.

The band, however, has to deal with the departure of Grose and, later, of Barry Mitchell, who, despite the show at the rock temple that is the Marquee Club, doesn't believe the band will take off artistically or commercially. Discouraged, the three set out to find a bassist to establish a solid, definitive line-up.

John Richard Deacon (Leicester, 19/08/1951) grows up shy and quiet, with a great passion for small electronics projects.

A Beatles admirer, he decides to learn guitar and, at fourteen, founds his first band, Opposition, playing a mix of pop and Motown soul. The band tours England, but breaks up when, at the end of 1969, John enrolls at Chelsea College in London, abandoning music in favor of more "profitable" studies.

One evening, in early 1971, Deacon is at a club with friends when he meets Taylor and May, who offer him an audition for the permanent bassist spot. The meeting takes place a few days later in a conference hall at Imperial College.

It's the end of February: John Deacon is officially the fourth and final member of Queen.

The black and white queen marches on…

In the spring of 1971, Queen, having solved the bassist problem, start getting serious, throwing themselves body and soul into intense rehearsal sessions.

The band is hungry for the stage, and so Roger Taylor organizes a short tour of his native Cornwall, in an attempt to further spur the long-awaited leap in quality. The hoped-for bookings, however, don't come, and the four begin to despair: for the moment, fame remains an elusive creature.

In September, an old friend of May's, Terry Yeadon, offers Queen the chance to record for free at the new De Lane Lea studios, which, still under construction, need musicians to test out the installed equipment.

The band doesn't need to be asked twice and takes the opportunity to record some original tracks, catching the attention of producer John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker, who worked with Trident Audio Productions, the management agency run by Norman and Barry Sheffield.

John and Roy are thrilled by the tapes and convince Trident to sign Queen, under the supervision of American manager Jack Nelson.

The band is now surrounded by capable people who believe in them. Although the group still has no record label, Trident decides, in the summer of 1972, to send them into its recording studios to start work on their debut album.

By January 1973 the work is finished, but no label has yet come forward to press and distribute it. The gamble doesn't seem to be paying off as hoped.

In the end, it's Emi who takes the plunge, signing Queen's first recording contract for the British and European market in March.

May and his bandmates can only smile, and without wasting time they choose "Keep Yourself Alive" as the first single, released in July to favourable reviews but very little radio airplay.

Produced by John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker, Queen (Emi, 1973) is a rough-edged debut, a hazy snapshot of the band's slow climb toward success. Queen try to forge a vigorous, dynamic, hard-edged sound, and above all make clear that it's the product of sheer instrumental skill alone: "No synthesizers", reads the back cover.

The single "Keep Yourself Alive" and the whirlwind of "Liar" are thus manifesto songs that clamber up a melodic hard-rock scaffold, steeped in guitar effects and operetta-like choral progressions. It's the glam sensibility, mindful of the alien lesson of David Bowie and the enchanted world of Marc Bolan, that colours the record's musical tone, as in the architecture of voices soaring above "May Fairy King".

Queen is at times a baroque record, as overblown as a TV preacher. The rough-hewn hard-rock crystal of Deep Purple is thus polished to excess: "Great King Rat" unloads an industrial quantity of effects to express a handful of elementary ideas. Brian May hams it up with the flamenco guitar of the ballad "The Night Comes Down", but his most coherent results come when he lowers the stakes and keeps things simple. The Sabbath-derived drive of "Modern Times Rock And Roll" and the pachydermic riff of "Son And Daughter", however unoriginal, are at least a welcome jolt of sonic adrenaline.

Better still is when Mercury takes his bandmates by the hand and sets up the martial choral recital of "Jesus". Queen's sound turns genuinely interesting the moment it abandons the worn-out clichés of "tough" music for a more airy openness. The ideas, admittedly, are still a bit muddled, but the bittersweet ballad "Doin' Alright" and the brief instrumental excursion "Seven Seas of Rhye" prove the band has intriguing compositional potential.

With one album now behind them, Queen give in to predictable enthusiasm and, in August, return to Trident Studios to start shaping new musical ideas.

The band's fame grows slowly, taking root in the United States in September when Elektra Records releases Queen, which enters the Billboard charts and climbs to an unexpected number eighty-three.

Euphoria, as everyone knows, must be seized at once: on 12 November, on the stage of Leeds Town Hall, May and company kick off a long run as the permanent support act on Mott The Hoople's British tour. Ian Hunter's fans applaud, night after night, an increasingly confident band that ends up winning over a growing number of new fans.

Audience success is therefore considerable, but it isn't enough to curb the hostility of the trade press, which continues to ignore Queen's music, dismissing it as "bland supermarket rock".

In January 1974, Queen — "Britain's best unknowns" according to Sounds — organise a brief trip to Australia.

The band plays two consecutive nights at the Sunbury Festival, but Mercury is suffering from hearing problems and May can't play guitar properly because of severe arm pain. The Australian audience shows them no mercy at all, venting a kind of anti-English rage on the four musicians that dooms the small venture to failure, forcing the band to go home with their tail between their legs.

A great redemption, however, is just around the corner: on February 21st, on Top Of The Pops, Queen perform live a still-unreleased track, "Seven Seas Of Rhye".

A second single – an expanded version of the short instrumental featured on Queen – is thus released, and this time the long-awaited breakthrough arrives.

The track gets heavy radio airplay, climbing to number forty-five on the UK charts in March.

NME writes: “The single shows the band's great power and brilliance, their compositional skill and all those other qualities so distinctly their own.”

General enthusiasm is sky-high: after a long wait, the new album is also ready for release.

Split into a “white side” and a “black side”, Queen II (EMI, 1974) further develops Queen's ambitious ideas, strengthening an identity that is both visual and musical.

The pompous entrance of the regal guitar march on “Procession” clearly betrays May's inclination toward instrumental indulgence, skillful and overblown at once. The quartet's music dances right on the edge of this delicate balance, expressed here through a sort of chromatic dualism, where the queen's two faces are embodied by two different sonic approaches.

On one side, there's a strong white light radiating from the tender, hypnotic ballad “White Queen (As It Began)” and the electro-acoustic folk tune of “Someday One Day”. It's essentially Brian May's guitar work that weaves, effect after effect, a more assured sound: the hard-melodic progression of “Father To Son” is, this time, grittier and less muddled. On the other side, instead, Mercury's eccentric and tragic personality casts a kind of shadow over the band's musical architecture. “The March Of The Black Queen” is the choral procession that best fuses the various pieces of the mosaic, between hard-rock forays and an unsettling pop tinged with glam, giving the album a grandiose, baroque tone. “The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke” is an experimental-progressive melodrama complete with harpsichord, chaotic and fascinating at once, especially when it flows into the more restrained, sweet one-minute piano piece “Nevermore”.

Queen are essentially forging a recognizable trademark, yet they still manage to lose themselves in a whirlwind of ideas, as in the hiccuping rock and roll of “The Loser In The End” or the pop drumming of “Funny How Love Is”. And yet Mercury's feral voice carries the epic roar of “Ogre Battle” and locks in perfectly with the cutting riff and piano of the hit “Seven Seas Of Rhye”.

Schizophrenic and shadowy, Queen II is the step forward of a band finding itself.

While Queen are triumphantly welcomed at the Palace Lido on the Isle of Man, the second album quickly climbs the UK charts, surprisingly landing at number seven. The band's reputation thus begins to spread around the world: in March, Elektra releases Queen in Japan, where it sparks such enthusiasm that it enters the charts within a matter of days.

The UK tour closes with a prestigious sold-out show at London's Rainbow Theatre, sending an audience demanding two encores into raptures.

Mercury and co. know they can't stop now and, without a break, prepare for the upcoming American tour supporting Mott The Hoople.

The opening show is in April at Regis College in Denver, but a serious case of hepatitis strikes Brian May and forces the band to cancel the remaining dates.

The guitarist has to rest for quite a while, but he takes the opportunity to work calmly on some new songs destined for the next album, whose recording sessions will begin in July at Rockfield Studios in Wales and, later, at the usual Trident Studios in London.

In September, Queen II tops one hundred thousand copies sold, turning silver. Despite the forced halt to live shows, the band enjoys ever-growing acclaim, firmly disproving the gloomy predictions of the music press.

With two A-sides, the third single “Killer Queen/Flick Of The Wrist” becomes a massive success, turning into Queen's first true hit.

The reviews are enthusiastic and push the group to speed up preparations for a new UK tour, recording, for the occasion, an electric version of the national anthem to use as an emphatic closer for every show.

After this latest touch-up to their regal identity, the four are now ready to conquer the summit of rock's Olympus, starting with the release, in November, of their third official album.

On Sheer Heart Attack (EMI, 1974), Queen's fusion of beloved genres becomes more concise, winking toward greater catchiness. The band's musical style is now more defined and daring, and their initial hybrid formula seems to find a more deeply felt, personal identity.

Emblematic in this sense is the single “Killer Queen”, which, between vaudeville choruses and a guitar riding the edge of tackiness, betrays the sonic direction that could bring the group commercial glory. It's a delicious artistic gamble that runs through the progressive ascent of the shrill angelic voices of “In The Lap Of The Gods” or through the melodramatic finale of “In The Lap Of The Gods… Revisited”, which rises, pyrotechnic, amid stadium choruses and solemn guitars. It's true, however, that Queen can't resist their furious bursts of speed, driven by the heavy-metal monster riff of “Stone Cold Crazy” and the high-speed boogie of “Now I’m Here”. Brian May, in fact, continues his transformation into a “guitar hero”, steering the hard-rock melody of the mini echoplex tour de force that is “Brighton Rock”.

The “white side of the queen” veers toward the martial ballad of “Tenement Funster”, playing with electro-acoustic reverbs à-la “Tommy” that echo through the symphonic “She Makes Me”. On Sheer Heart Attack, too, then, one can spot a sort of Manichean approach, with the dark side of Mercury hurling the listener into a tender nightmarish dimension. Theatrical excess loves to make its grand entrance, as in the build of “Flick Of The Wrist”, which dances on the balance between pop softness and rock unease.

It's the sensitive soul of a monster rejected by everyone who, as in a 19th-century novel, speaks with the chanting voice of tenderness on the piano piece “Lily Of The Valley” and weeps, alone, the gospel tear of “Dear Friends”. As in life, drama can suddenly turn into joy, and so “Misfire” brings its gypsy, beach-party cheer, followed by the 1930s deja-vu of “Bring Back That Leroy Brown”.

The point of all this, admittedly, once again feels redundant and, at times, out of place, but the album is well crafted and clearly shows that Queen intend to stick around on the stage of their musical theatre for a long time.

After the release of Sheer Heart Attack, Queen embark on a sensational European tour, racking up an unbroken string of sold-out shows.

Their audiences are ecstatic and record sales keep climbing: at the end of December, Music Week runs an article titled “Queen Conquer Europe”.

The four, in fact, have also firmly established themselves in the United States, where both the single “Killer Queen” and the third album reached the top ten of the charts.

It's January 31, 1975, when the band sets off on a new American trip, this time as the sole headliner. The overseas adventure, however, is once again spoiled, as Mercury suffers throat problems that force him to cancel many of the scheduled dates.

Queen thus fall back on Japan, where in April they are welcomed as genuine rock stars at Tokyo's Budokan, amid a collective hysteria not seen since the days of the Beatles. The screams of Japanese teenage girls completely drowning out the music onstage are the final sign: the march of the black-and-white queen has won the battle for the throne.

Racing by day, opera by night

Mercury's being awarded the prestigious Ivor Novello Award spurs Queen back to work on preparations for their fourth album.

Brian May continues his sonic experiments with his Red Special, shaping brand new songs over the summer of 1975.

Meanwhile, the band leaves Trident after some financial friction, becoming free to deal directly with EMI and Elektra, with John Reid overseeing matters. The new manager is left stunned when, in October, the group presents him with the track they intend to use as their new single: almost six minutes of quasi-operatic music titled "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Reid explains that it's not possible to release such a long song on a 7-inch, but the four of them refuse to budge and reject any proposal to cut it down.

Taylor is friends with DJ Kenny Everett and, on his own initiative, slips him a promotional copy of the vinyl, explicitly asking him not to play it on air. Everett, of course, can't resist the temptation to play it for his listeners, and literally sends the station's phone lines into meltdown.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is released on 31 October 1975, and it sends a massive shockwave through the English music world.

A melancholy, ballad-style opening gives way to a riot of operatic overdubs before closing on thunderous hard-rock cadences: extraordinary to some, utterly repellent to others. The press is divided, but generally agrees that the track is too long and will never become a hit. English radio stations think otherwise, playing the song over and over from start to finish. Sensing the enormous potential of the new single, Queen get in touch with director Bruce Gowers to pair the song with a promotional film to broadcast on television. The costly idea is swiftly brought to life, and on 20 November, Top Of The Pops airs the premiere of the "Bo Rap" film, which some consider the big bang of all future music videos. The effect: within two weeks the single sells more than 150,000 copies, handing the band their first UK number one and triumphantly paving the way for the new album's release.

The fruit of an obsessively meticulous production, A Night At The Opera (EMI, 1975) boldly goes beyond the ambitious sonic blueprint of Sheer Heart Attack and establishes itself as Queen's most accomplished creation.

The bittersweet flavour of "Killer Queen" is thus spread across an entire album, which follows a mongrel path born of a rock father and an opera mother.

Twelve unconnected tracks chase one another to shape something unique of its kind, a staging that echoes, right up to the edge of outrage, the old musical theatre of operetta. Where "Tommy" pursues a masterly symphonic airiness and Brian Wilson conducts his mental orchestra, A Night At The Opera seems to accept the impossibility of comparison and devotes itself chiefly to irony and parody. Only this way does the album become the quartet's masterpiece, managing to make bloated arrangements saturated with musically contradictory signs actually work. Vices and virtues converge in the band's ultimate pastiche, bringing together four heads and four kinds of inspiration.

And the hybrid formula works thanks to an overall softening of tone, in the name of what can now truly be called "Queen style". The acidic hard-rock thunder of "Death On Two Legs", in fact, only serves to kick off the show in the loudest, most imposing way possible. Mercury is ever more the queen of the castle, and his sweet-and-bitter voice demands increasingly complex sonic architecture. Some of the credit goes to the shrewd Roy Baker, who continually plays with effects and choirs, accompanied by May's chromatic, clownish guitar on the vaudeville number "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon". The fame of the Marx Brothers turns here into a series of sketches somewhere between farce and tragedy, with the almost childlike approach of the jazzy ukulele nursery rhyme "Good Company" flipped into the epic march of the mini-suite "The Prophet's Song", which sends hard-rock rhythms and Gregorian chants swirling as if it were an even more theatrical "My God".

The catchiness of "Sheer Heart Attack" undergoes a fresh metamorphosis in the pop vignettes of "I'm In Love With My Car" and "You're My Best Friend", where piano and guitar cradle voice and harmonies at their very best. The hard, glam-and-roll路 of "Sweet Lady" then gradually gives way to the tear-jerking lyrical tenderness of "Love Of My Life" or the acoustic choral watercolour of "39".

A Night At The Opera is all the deliciously irritating parody of "Seaside Rendezvous", which creates a new, questionable art form crowned by the riotous "Bohemian Rhapsody", a thunderous Zappa-esque collage of fragments of old and new music.

The show ends, and "God save the queen". As Jimi Hendrix said.

A Night At The Opera fulfils Queen's melodramatic musical dream, and the band consequently rides a wave of tremendous euphoria. The album marches on unstoppably, going platinum and spending a full fifty-six weeks on the US charts. Between 29 November and 2 December, four sold-out nights at London's Hammersmith Odeon put the four of them firmly on top of the world.

At the start of 1976 Queen set off on a new American tour, and this time everything goes smoothly, from the triumphant welcome in Connecticut to five packed houses at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles. The theatrical grandeur of the new album is showcased on stages across Japan and Australia, underlined by the release, in June, of the sixth single, "You're My Best Friend".

The band then decides to ride the wave of their resounding success, gearing up for more long hours of studio work to put together the next album.

May and co., however, feel the need to thank all their devoted fans and, on September 18th, put on a monumental free show in Hyde Park attended by over two hundred thousand people.

By mid-October the new album is ready, and the ballad "Somebody To Love" is chosen as the first single, which, once again, gets played on constant rotation by dj Kenny Everett. The result is not unlike that of "Bohemian Rhapsody": the phone lines go wild and the song reaches the top of the charts despite still being unavailable on vinyl. "Somebody To Love" hits stores on November 12th — accompanied by a new promotional video by Bruce Gowers — setting up the band's Christmas celebration with another chart-devouring album.

A Day At The Races (Emi, 1976), meticulously produced and arranged, settles comfortably onto the soft sonic sofa of its prestigious predecessor.

The nearly identical cover and the title "stolen" from the Marx Brothers are the first visual signs of a twin-like mirroring, solemnly ushered in by a pompous Japanese-temple intro. The queen needs a new stage and, consequently, a new story to tell with the usual bittersweet script.

The riff-heavy hard-metal verb of "Tie Your Mother Down" thus steps forward to astonish and energize a clearly devoted audience. Mercury is by now an overwhelming showman, and his voice seems perfectly aware of its power to make you laugh or cry, backed by the liturgical piano of "You Take My Breath Away". The Queen style once again treads the path of lyrical drama and the reworked pop ditty, but the feeling is that the band is coasting slightly on their very recent past. The sensational irony of A Night At The Opera fails to resurface on this record, which chases a unified vision but ends up delivering a mere collection of songs. This is confirmed by the Californian-pop postcard of "Long Away" and the same self-satisfied choruses of the hammering pop-boogie of "You And I". The parodic effect fades, and the manic music-hall verve survives only in the vaudeville carousel of "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy".

This isn't about bland or sloppy tracks, but about the fact that, while A Night At The Opera cleverly concealed its shameless vanity, A Day At The Races crosses the line of indecency, as in the nostalgic whirl for piano and baroque guitar of "The Millionaire Waltz". The pseudo-epic heavy formula of "White Man" feels very much like déjà entendu, so Queen have no choice but to unsheathe their secret weapon: the shimmering ballad. "Somebody To Love" is, in fact, a masterpiece, a melodic ascent of perfect gospel architecture with Mercury's voice literally soaring into the sky of pop-rock music. Here the album finds its whole reason for being, rounded off by the effective choral saraband of "Teo Torriatte". The solemn intro returns, full circle, and the queen once again exits the stage. The show has been enjoyable, but one wonders (?) about the stylistic devices Queen are getting bogged down in.

Rock champions

1977 is the blazing year of punk, which, completely rewriting the old concept of pop sound, revolutionizes the English music scene. Hundreds of angry young people start following bands like the Sex Pistols, mimicking their image made of chains, ripped jackets, spiked hair and Doc Marten's boots.

Ever harsher, more desperate sounds are fired off at breakneck speed, burying under a shroud of vomit the dying seventies-brand rock embodied by veritable relics such as Led Zeppelin, the Who and, of course, Queen.

London is burning, and when Emi decides to release an Ep featuring "Death On Two Legs" and three other already-familiar tracks, the music magazine Sounds writes: "It really makes you want to put on one of those t-shirts that says Art Rock Sucks. Burn it, burn it!".

The sky above the four of them, in short, is far from clear, but an ever more disproportionate number of fans seem not to care at all.

Queen have on their side the unconditional love of the public, which, in 1977 of all years, finally wins over the United States as well.

A new, long North American tour kicks off in January from the Milwaukee Auditorium and triumphs before a packed Madison Square Garden, sold out in every section.

The band's shows grow ever longer and more theatrical, with dry ice and light effects dominating the overdubbed operatic section of "Bohemian Rhapsody". It's the triumph of art-rock amid the very flames of punk.

The sold-out shows keep coming one after another without a break, moving on to Europe in May. Queen wrap things up in grand style with two consecutive concerts at London's Earls Court, where a huge illuminated crown is raised above the stage to the opening notes of "Procession".

The band is living through its golden age, so in the following months they shut themselves away in the studio again to work hard on the new album.

On 7 October the new single "We Are The Champions" is released, paired with the muscular "We Will Rock You". The two anthems complement each other perfectly – both hugely radio-friendly – convincing Elektra to release the single in the United States as a double A-side.

Despite disgusted reviews from the press, the single reaches number two on both the UK and the American Billboard charts, becoming the best-selling 45 in Elektra Records' history, with over two million copies sold and 27 weeks on the chart.

By now the four of them seem to be having a ball smashing every record in sight, inflating their collective ego starting with the release of the new album itself.

If A Day At The Races leaned on the successful work of its predecessor, News Of The World (Emi, 1977) speculates on the very image of the band.

After selling out Madison Square Garden, Queen have claimed their throne among the clouds of rock and roll Olympus and, well shielded by public acclaim, savour a pleasant sense of power. Ignoring all the scathing reviews, the four press on with a self-celebration of dubious taste that, nevertheless, pulls out of the hat the two songs that will secure them a place in history.

The tribal national anthem of "We Will Rock You" merges with "We Are The Champions", a bittersweet ballad that lets loose with an epic chorus over a melodic hard-rock guitar. If you're going to go over the top, you might as well go all the way, and Queen do exactly that, raising the crown to the sky in a gesture of defiance.

Too bad that, in 1977, many are looking the other way entirely, and that we're talking about a relic fit for a wax museum.

And here, wounded in their regal pride, May and co. overdo it twice over: the blasting rock and roll of "Sheer Heart Attack" is supposed to be a kind of answer to the new punk audience, but in reality it sounds like little more than a deluxe version of the Sex Pistols. Defeat looms around the corner, so it's better to fall back on the most classic Queen style. The pompous, melodramatic streak thus returns in the classical-tinged piano sonata "All Dead All Dead" and, above all, in the airy pop sweep of Mercury's voice on "Spread Your Wings".

The album, however, doesn't seem entirely convinced of itself. The danceable, pseudo-funk groove of "Fight From The Inside" hints at a new direction that we hope isn't the one pointed to by "Get Down Make Love", an irritating stammer stuffed with pointless electronic effects.

The truth, perhaps, is that these new "champions of rock" are struggling to find genuinely original ideas, clinging instead to the calypso-flamenco melody of "Who Needs You" and the usual hard-pop riff of "It's Late".

Freddie Mercury, a moustachioed Liza Minnelli, closes out the sad sweetness of "My Melancholy Blues", though this rat-pack jazz number would be better suited to a theatre stage than to this self-absorbed album.

In November – a genuinely unusual move – Queen head back to the United States for a second tour of the year. It is indeed on North American soil that News Of The World sails smoothly toward platinum status. The first show is in Portland, opened by the aggressive anthem "We Will Rock You", with Roger Taylor making his debut as lead vocalist on "I'm In Love With My Car" and Mercury singing the sweet ballad "Love Of My Life" together with the crowd.

The band, in short, keeps stitching together an increasingly majestic identity, show after show.

1978 opens quietly for the four, who, on their management's advice, decide to take their first year of financial exile outside British legal territory.

On April 9th, a new European tour kicks off from Stockholm, ending triumphantly on home turf with a poll among "Daily Mail" readers that crowns Queen "best rock band".

Galvanized, as usual, by public enthusiasm, May and co. relocate to Switzerland and France to work on what has by now become an inevitable yearly ritual: the album of the year.

In those days Nice is crossed by the Tour de France, and the passing cyclists give Mercury the idea for "Bicycle Race", released in October alongside the second A-side "Fat Bottomed Girls".

The press is predictably harsh, but, just as predictably, the single earns a solid number eleven on the British charts.

Queen seem an unstoppable machine, flying off yet again to the United States to kick off yet another tour at the Dallas Convention Centre.

With Jazz (EMI, 1978) the band goes back to work with Roy Thomas Baker, producer of the grandiose success of their "night at the opera".

The ironic, parodic streak of that album, however, now finds only a timid outlet among the frenzied bells of the daffy sketch that is "Bicycle Race".

Having crowned themselves "champions", Queen keep marching along a now well-established style, veering dangerously close to a far less exciting parody of themselves.

A guitar bordering on hard-blues drives "Fat Bottomed Girls", which, stuffed with the usual a cappella choruses, only manages to lodge itself in the listener's head.

In other words, the element of surprise begins to fade, and the four seem more driven by the compulsion to force out an album a year than by any shrewd judgement in picking their songs. Some things work as usual, and some things start to fall short.

There's the classic weeping piano ballad in "Jealousy" and the wicked music-hall vaudeville of "Dreamers Ball". There's the irresistible supersonic pop of "Don't Stop Me Now". So far, this is the band, this is Queen's musical aesthetic.

Suddenly, though, the egocentric queen takes the stage, counting each day how many new rock kids have bowed to her will. Mercury, a latter-day muezzin, calls the faithful to prayer in "Mustapha", over a dubious-taste oriental guitar that spreads its echo into a horrendous danceable pop. It's not yet clear whether this will be Queen's future path, because Jazz also seems to enjoy sticking its fingers back into the socket.

The old electric verve resurfaces in the hard-pop-rock-and-roll twists of "Let Me Entertain You" and "Dead On Time", but the closing thunder and lightning find no match either in the syrupy acoustic romanticism of "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" or in the bland synthetic funk of "Fun It".

The queen's march, in short, is starting to limp just a little.

Jazz isn't exactly met with enthusiasm by the specialist press, which spares no brutal criticism. NME goes so far as to write: "Let's forget these third-rate Gilbert & Sullivan as soon as possible. A perfect record to give some deaf relative for Christmas."

The public, on the other hand, gives the album its usual rapturous welcome, immediately sending it to number two on the charts, where it remains for a full twenty-seven consecutive weeks. Once again it's their immense popularity that saves the day, sparing Queen from the general sniping.

On 12 January 1979, May and co. are back "on the road", taking on the most important European tour of their career, twenty-seven shows starting in Hamburg.

The commercial rise of the new single "Don't Stop Me Now" amplifies the echo of the tour and convinces the label to invest in new equipment with the aim of releasing a live album.

It's another magical moment for the four of them, crowned by Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's hypothetical offer for them to compose the music for an upcoming film based on comic-strip hero Flash Gordon.

Queen, however, stay focused on their lavish shows, landing at the Budokan in Tokyo in April, where a hysterical crowd goes wild to the Japanese strains of "Teo Torriatte". It's sheer delirium, proof to the world that the band's concerts are now genuine events, with millions of fans queuing up just to get a single ticket.

The band's first live double album, Live Killers (EMI, 1979), isn't just the thunderous audio guide to the relentless 1979 European tour, but also the final testament to their entire output of the 1970s. The twenty-two tracks are carefully chosen and succeed, not that it's a hard task, in capturing the band's majestic, regal presence onstage at supersonic volume.

Freddie Mercury, one of the most brilliant and electrifying showmen around, is the voice and heart of Queen's pop empire, and his subjects seem more loyal than ever when "Love Of My Life" is sung in unison, a sweet collective declaration of love. It's the kitsch, deformed side of the "operatic" monster that snaps its fingers on "Killer Queen" before losing its mind in the triumphant madness of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and vanishing behind the over-the-top curtain of "God Save The Queen".

And then there's the old electric current, the adrenaline jolts led by the clownish sprite Brian May, who hurls his red guitar into the atomic version of "We Will Rock You" and the torrential sprawl of "Brighton Rock" and "Tie Your Mother Down".

Between the hard-rock fervour of "Keep Yourself Alive" and the pop spirit of "Don't Stop Me Now", Live Killers is a handy refresher course in the hits, the pinnacle of Queen's irresistible bad taste. New games and great classics Live Killers gets — surprisingly — some praise from critics, landing — less surprisingly — at number three on the UK charts.

Queen spend nearly the whole summer of 1979 at the studios in Munich recording material for the new album. This time there are no finished songs, just vague instrumental ideas nursed along by new producer Reinhold Mack. The workload is considerable, since the band also has to handle the soundtrack for "Flash Gordon".

To let off some steam, Queen take part, on 17 July, in the mega-concert at Saarbrücken (alongside Ten Years After and Rory Gallagher), where they're greeted by a record crowd of thirty thousand people. The show, naturally, is a smashing success and gives a further boost to European sales of the new autumn single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", a pop-flavoured taster for the band's new album.

The band's march, in short, continues unstoppably, and it's precisely this that pushes them to take a kind of step back, as if to honour an unforgettable past. In Brian May's words: "We'd played huge places and we liked it. We thought it was right that as many people as possible should come and see us, but we felt that the contact with the audience was being lost. Our show was built on that: we felt close to them and they felt close to us. But in places that big, people were miles away, so we got Gerry Stickells to find smaller, friendlier venues. We didn't want little theatres, we wanted something different. We started with medium-sized places and then moved on to the really weird ones. We called it 'the crazy tour' and we enjoyed every minute of it from start to finish."

The "Crazy Tour" opens its doors at the Simmons Hall in Dublin (where the audience gets a preview of Brian's upcoming new single "Save Me") and continues in December, turning into the "Crazy Tour Of London", at venues like the Lyceum Ballroom and the historic Rainbow Theatre. Its fireworks-laden finale comes courtesy of several Christmas shows at the Hammersmith Odeon, where, alongside Who, Wings and Clash, they take part in a charity effort to help the people of Cambodia.

As 1980 dawns, despite NME dismissing it as "frivolous music for a frivolous band", the brooding single "Save Me" is set to storm up the British charts, closely followed by the "other three minutes of overproduced, presumptuous banality" that is "Play The Game".

Meanwhile the band seems too busy to pay attention to the heavy criticism: there's a new American tour to prepare and, above all, a new album that's already number one.

With The Game (Emi, 1980), the old "no synthesizers" era officially comes to an end.

Queen, aided by new producer Mack, try to breathe fresh life into their sound, winking at the calculated, studio-crafted effect. The smoke from this new trick, however, evaporates too easily, leaving the album isolated in its hybrid nakedness: the queen no longer knows how to legitimize her scepter in the realm of rock and roll.

On one hand, there's a track like "Save Me" which, between choral lyricism and melodramatic tones, seems to be desperately chasing after the kite of a bygone era as it flies away. On the other, the four try to dress up as seasoned disco clubbers, with the pulsing, magnetic bass of "Another One Bites The Dust" and the bland funk of "Dragon Attack". The bartender, in short, serves a wishy-washy cocktail whose various ingredients cancel each other out.

A case in point is "Play The Game", which sounds like a classic pop ballad from the band, but is then stuffed with electronic effects that make no sense whatsoever. It's hard to tell whether Queen are aware of this, since the melodic refrain of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" carries their irritating-yet-irresistible trademark, while the robotic "Rock It (Prime Jive)" remains simply irritating, buried up to its neck in production tricks.

The old, honest pop-rock turns into stuff for dim-witted high-schoolers in the riff of "Need Your Loving Tonight", and the barrelhouse of "Don't Try Suicide" isn't enough to revive the old glories of demented operetta. May's clownish guitar, this time, fails to make a difference, and his baroque mannerism certainly doesn't raise a smile on "Sail Away Sweet Sister".

The Game, then, remains a fairly flavorless record, the hidden face of a band that, at the dawn of a new decade, is trying to figure out a way to keep living it as the protagonist.

The new sound achieved on The Game stuns many longtime fans, who find their idols immersed in a tub of electronic music, but it also wins the band fresh admirers, who send the album straight to number one on the British charts.

The new American single, "Another One Bites The Dust", is released in August, achieving extraordinary commercial success, spending a full five weeks at number one on the US charts. The track's pulsing bassline earns a platinum disc, wins a Billboard award for best crossover single, and ultimately becomes the quartet's best-selling 45 of all time.

The triumph of "Another One Bites The Dust" throws open the doors to Queen's new tour across the States, which kicks off at the Pne Coliseum in Vancouver and wraps up with four majestic nights at Madison Square Garden, an astonishing scoreboard of forty-six dates and forty-six sellouts. In October, May and co. return home for the final touches on the material destined for the soundtrack of the film "Flash Gordon", and to prepare, in Zurich, a subsequent European tour alongside England's Straight Fight.

On November 24th, the only single taken from the forthcoming new album is released, "Flash", which nevertheless gets no further than tenth place on the charts. The pseudo-epic sonic charge of Flash Gordon (Emi, 1980) manages to succeed at the very difficult task of surpassing some of the nonsensical arrangements of The Game. The tremendous space-age futurism of Mike Hodges' film puts Queen in the equally tremendous position of soaring freely through melodies that are all too emphatic and pompous. And Queen are already, by nature, emphatic and pompous. The passable originality of inserting film dialogue fragments into the record is shipwrecked, drowned by an ionic storm of synthesizers that have never sounded so artificial.

This time the success of "Flash's Theme" or the usual harsh, tough streak of "The Hero" isn't enough, because Flash Gordon is like a cake stuffed well beyond the limits of good culinary taste. Hypnotic melodies, orchestral layers, cheesy choirs and guitar pathos crowd together with no order, jostling one another, dazed by an electronic chaos that is, perhaps, too much even for the most devoted and patient fans.

Paradoxically, Record Mirror writes: "Not since Charlton Heston's chariot race in 'Ben Hur' have I felt anything quite like this. A truly epic-sized album that earns five equally epic stars of merit". And Sounds: "Come colonna sonora, 'Flash Gordon' è realmente straordinario". And yet, after nearly forty minutes of sound, one is tempted to quote what Frank Zappa thinks of music critics.

In December, the band returns to Brussels for the final dates of the European tour, marking yet another Christmas triumph: by the end of 1980 Queen have sold 45 million albums and 25 million singles worldwide. Increasingly energized by their success, the four ponder the possibility of performing in new countries such as South America, with the clear intent of finally conquering every corner of the globe.

After numerous organizational difficulties, in late February the band takes its place on the giant stage of Velez Sarsfield Stadium, in front of an audience of over fifty thousand delirious fans. The numbers alone make the difference: the following evening, the show is broadcast on TV, watched by more than thirty million viewers across Argentina and Brazil. The true apotheosis, however, comes on the stage of Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo, where, on March 20th, Queen are greeted by the thunderous applause of one hundred thirty-one thousand spectators, an absolute record for paid attendance at a rock concert.

Emi is thrilled and, the following month, buys two pages in Music Week to congratulate its favourite golden goose on the magnificent success of the South American tour. Headline: "South America bites the dust." Meanwhile, May and co. find themselves in the recording studios in Montreux to begin work on a new LP.

During the rehearsal sessions, Roger and Freddie strike up a friendship with another illustrious guest at the Mountain Studios, David Bowie. An unplanned jam session with the Thin White Duke grows into the embryo of another great Queen hit, "Under Pressure".

The first stage of the work ends here because, in mid-September, the band flies to New Orleans for rehearsals ahead of their second South American tour. The new run of dates - which kicks off at the Poliedro de Caracas on 25 September - runs into bigger organisational problems and, during the Mexican date at the huge Cuauhtémoc stadium in Puebla, Mexico City, security issues too, and ends early by Queen's own decision.

No great loss for the quartet, though, because at the end of 1981 their first compilation is released, simply titled Greatest Hits (Emi, 1981), accompanied by its visual sibling "Greatest Flix", which includes all the videos made by the band.

The album gathers seventeen tracks that were all chart-smashing singles, starting from the primal hard rock of "Keep Yourself Alive" and reaching the pseudo-dance turn of "Another One Bites The Dust". Heard all together, these manifesto tracks of the Queen style come thick and fast, fully aware of their own monstrous pop appeal. The very idea of putting together different national versions with different single choices shows how the band had by then achieved truly planetary fame. Unsurprisingly, the chart response is more than kind: in November the album enters the charts straight at number two and, with three hundred thousand copies sold, immediately earns a platinum disc.

It's a Hard Life

In December Queen move to Musicland Studios in Munich, ready to record the new LP. As an appetiser, the single "Body Language" is served up, which, oddly enough, wins over part of the British press. Sounds: "A fine slice of smooth, shimmering white disco, well backed by electronics. Strong stuff." The band's faithful, however, don't agree, and the song fails to climb higher than number twenty-five on the charts, hurt by the newborn MTV's decision not to air the accompanying video, deemed too explicit for family audiences.

Meanwhile the four fly to Gothenburg where, on 8 April, a new European tour kicks off, featuring the surprising addition of a fifth member on keyboards.

Queen realise that electronics has, by now, become an integral part of their music, and hire former Mott The Hoople man Morgan Fisher, who begins his live adventure with the band right from the Gothenburg show.

With the European tour in full swing, the queen's twelfth album makes its appearance on 21 May. Hot Space (Emi, 1982) doggedly carries on down the dancefloor path partly charted by The Game, marking a sharp break from the band's typical hard sound.

Mercury and co.'s intent is to explore this new sonic direction to its extreme consequences, but the "hot spaces" thus opened up feel more like flimsy matchsticks than scorching rock songs. Brian May's clownish guitar is sacrificed almost entirely, lost in the folds of "Dancer", the only real attempt to blend old-school hard rock with the new danceable funk. Everything else is one continuous pulse, somewhere between the horn arrangements of "Staying Power" and the white-hot hypnosis of "Body Language".

The four try to dip themselves in the sensual river of black music, but the R&B of "Back Chat" and the falsetto soul of "Cool Cat" only make you want to switch them off and go buy an Aretha Franklin record instead. The use-and-abuse of synthesisers that already made Flash Gordon so dreadful finds its dear, precise uselessness again in the hammering of "Action This Day".

Queen are adrift, out of ideas, as proven by the second half of the record which, rather than a collection of songs, feels like a jumble of sounds thrown together at random. The pop riff of "Put Out The Fire" lacks any real bite, just as the piano waltz of "Life Is Real" is mawkish. The Cajun shuffle of "Calling All Girls" is baffling, and the electro-acoustic ballad "Las Palabras De Amor" is absolutely dreadful.

Then, at last, a flower blooms from the dung: the alien voices of Freddie and David Bowie return to planet earth for a moment and sign off on the jittery pulse of "Under Pressure", the one and only reason this unlistenable record will be remembered in rock history.

For many die-hard fans, the transition marked by Hot Space is too radical: the album enjoys modest success, reaching number four on the British charts, but it alienates the sympathies of those who prefer old-school rock to the new disco sound. Paradoxically, the album boosts the press's esteem for the never-quite-loved-enough quartet. NME: "Delightful production from start to finish." Sounds: "Queen have never made a truly stunning album, but it must be said that 'Hot Space' shows far more restraint and imagination than rubbish like 'Jazz'." Restrained and imaginative as it may be, the new album is practically ignored by American rock radio stations and disappears almost immediately from the Billboard charts, causing Queen's fame in the US to collapse.

The domestic leg of the new tour kicks off on May 29 at Elland Road stadium in Leeds, continuing on to the enormous Milton Keynes Bowl, where Tyne Tees Television films the event for a future live video. The umpteenth North American run, meanwhile, starts in July at the Montreal Forum before wrapping up with the usual collective delirium at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The success of the shows, however, isn't matched by that of the recent album: the twenty-second single, "Back Chat", only reaches number forty before vanishing without a trace. At the end of 1982 the four members of Queen mutually agree on a temporary period of separation. Relations within the band have indeed been deteriorating, and friction is becoming more and more frequent. After twelve unbroken years of records and tours, the decision is unanimous: there will be no releases or tours throughout the whole of 1983. None of those directly involved actually sees it as a split – even though the press starts using precisely that term – but simply as a long pause for reflection.

While May and co. busy themselves with solo projects, the royal aura returns to the spotlight at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film "We Will Rock" is presented in May. The live documentary receives a mixed reception: some appreciate it for what it is, namely a realistic portrait of Queen on stage, while many others criticize it for its poor technical quality and, above all, for its failure to capture the overheated atmosphere of the band's concerts.

Criticism aside, in August 1983 the band feels the need to reunite, meeting up in Los Angeles where, at Record Plant studios, they begin recording a new collection of original material. The four set to work with renewed vigour and creative passion, and towards the end of the year they pick a Roger Taylor track as the new chart-devouring single. "Radio Ga Ga", accompanied by an extremely expensive, futuristic David Mallet video inspired by the old film "Metropolis", comes out in January 1984 and immediately climbs to number four on the charts.

The British press doesn't bat an eyelid at the new track, but is ready to change its mind just a month later when the album marking Queen's (utterly predictable) comeback is released. Aware (?) of the tremendous nonsense of Hot Space, the Queen of The Works (Emi, 1984) attempt to reverse course, returning to more familiar, well-trodden sonic standards. The synthesizer's strobe light continues to bathe the band's sonic wallpaper, but the urge to let loose on the dancefloor gives way to a more comfortable pop dressing gown.

The robotic mechanics of "Radio Ga Ga" are indeed enriched by the now-customary choral lyricism of its obsessive chorus, while May's guitar goes back to playing with its favourite effects in the limping synth-pop of "I Want To Break Free".

The album, in truth, seems like a mere pretext for winning back the trust of betrayed fans, aiming straight at the old hard-rock march style, with the blustering "Tear It Up" or a taste for mischief as in the vintage barrelhouse of "Man On The Prowl".

The mid-tempo imperative seems, in short, to stick its fingers back into the socket: the first commandment is the enticing hard-pop saraband of "Hammer To Fall". The flavour, however, is that of chewing gum that has lost its pink colour. The operatic intro of "It's A Hard Life" spills into melodrama for a ballad, and Freddie's voice tries to save the day in the acoustic tenderness of "Is This The World We Created".

Old Queen for new problems: the four seem like a band adrift, unable to reinvent themselves beyond a shower-singalong pop style. Certainly better this than pointless attempts like their last two albums, but "Machines Back To Humans" and "Keep Passing The Open Windows" ramble on with overloaded, pseudo-intellectual arrangements that, at this point, the band simply cannot afford.

Pop Magic

In May 1984 Queen announce the dates of their now-imminent new tour, which will for the first time include South Africa.

The Works has succeeded in its precise aim of redeeming the band's image in the eyes of the many fans it had betrayed: tickets for the UK shows sell out in record time, with box offices reporting sensational takings just hours after opening.

On the back of the success of the massive single "Hammer To Fall", the European shows (complete with a "Metropolis"-style stage set) register a genuine triumph, sealed by a deal for twelve consecutive dates at the Sun City Superbowl in Bophuthatswana, South Africa.

After the exhausting run, the four reunite at Sarm Studios in London to record a single track that will be released as a Christmas single. The tacky "Thank God It's Christmas" comes out on November 26 and, failing to chart, is soon forgotten by the band itself and by its fans. At the start of 1985 Gerry Stickells, the band's tour manager, organizes a huge festival to be held in Rio De Janeiro. "Rock In Rio" takes place in January over the course of eight days (featuring, among others, Ac/Dc, Iron Maiden and Yes) and, thanks to their two triumphant South American tours, Queen are given top billing. May and co. open and close the great rock event, entering into negotiations with Globo Tv to buy the rights to their pompous performance with a view to turning it into a successful video.

The Queen increasingly loves showing off and being adored live, and so decides to set off again in April to play, for the first time, in New Zealand. The opening show is at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland, continuing on to Australia with Melbourne and Sydney. The world tour is now complete.

On April 29, after an exhausting, almost obsessive production process, CBS releases Freddie Mercury's first solo album, Mr. Bad Guy (CBS, 1985). The record leaves the British press rather doubtful, as critics harshly attack its (genuinely) bland mix of love songs and funky ballads. Things look up, certainly, when the singer reunites with his bandmates for a series of Japanese concerts, and when Picture Music releases Live In Rio, a visual document of the quartet's golden era. A golden era that seems to have no end: on July 13, at Wembley Stadium in London, Bob Geldof's gigantic charity event "Live Aid" takes place, and Queen take the stage to deliver their usual great classics, including "We Are The Champions", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and the more recent "Radio Ga Ga".

The Live Aid appearance rekindles the band's strong desire to record new material. In September, Queen are approached by video director Russell Mulcahy, who asks them to write and record part of the soundtrack for his first feature film, "Highlander". The four immediately head into the studio and, in a short time, complete a track they want to release right away as a single, even though it has little to do with the film's themes. Inspired by Martin Luther King's famous speech, "One Vision" is released in November, criticized by the press as a simple, opportunistic byproduct of Live Aid. Work on the material for "Highlander", however, continues unabated into early 1986, since the band has taken on the task of composing the entire soundtrack and releasing it as an album.

In March, the new single "A Kind Of Magic" fares better than its predecessor, reaching number three on the British charts and racking up an impressive thirty-five number-one spots around the world. In reality, the band further reworks the film material, turning it into a new collection of proper songs. A Kind Of Magic (EMI, 1986) continues along the commercial path set by The Works, steering firmly toward ever more arid and banal sonic territory.

Fresh off triumphant shows all over the globe, Queen trade on their well-established crown imagery, unable to renew a stylistic device that is by now old and toothless. The epic, pop-flavored riff of "One Vision" and the catchy theatrical verve of "A Kind Of Magic" thus act as passes into something close to artistic early retirement.

The ingredients for this new potion are the usual pompous, melodramatic arrangements, which in fact fail to conjure the promised magic. The orchestral romanticism of "Who Wants To Live Forever" wallows in its own mawkishness, cosseted by the fake pathos of "Princes Of The Universe" and the sax ballad "One Year Of Love". All of this may well please the quartet's fans, but it clearly betrays a bland, muddled creativity.

The album revisits the choral-anthem formula with "Friends Will Be Friends" and even dares a Spector-esque homage to old girl groups with "Pain Is So Close To Pleasure". Yet May's guitar never rises above the delirious racket of "Gimme The Prize", while the synthesizer spews out the dreadful sludge of "Don't Lose Your Head".

If this is Queen's idea of magic, they'd be better off using their heads and deciding to make smarter records. The new album shoots straight to number one on the British charts, though it's met, as usual, with mixed reviews. Record Mirror: "The only real emotion I can muster is an intense desire for Brian May to cut his hair".

In June, Queen fly to Stockholm, where the so-called "Magic Tour" kicks off. The new European run looks more lavish than ever, with the biggest stage they've ever used and a computerized lighting rig designed to properly illuminate a jewel-encrusted crown that Freddie shows off to his subjects in full (and gaudy) regal style.

The tour is yet another live triumph for the four, who on July 11 and 12 play to a packed Wembley Stadium in London, with all of its roughly seventy thousand spectators.

The "Queen Tornado" (as Freddie calls it) doesn't stop, and in August it tears through the English estate of Knebworth, where the "Night Of Summer Magic" draws more than two hundred thousand people. At the end of 1986, the band decides to take a second break to plan their next moves more calmly. The strain of constant touring wears down John Deacon's mind, pushing him to the verge of a nervous breakdown. The most sensible idea, then, is to stop for almost all of 1987.

The world, however, seems unable to get enough: on October 25, British broadcaster Channel 4 airs the Wembley "Real Magic Show", drawing over three and a half million viewers.

EMI takes advantage of the band's sabbatical year to select and re-edit various moments from the last tour. Live Magic (EMI, 1987) is the official audio guide to the triumphant "Magic Tour", but the stage's live energy seems to vanish completely within the album's grooves. If Live Killers is the fitting conclusion to a period of original creativity and style, Live Magic is a record made for purely commercial reasons. The old, lavish queen has by now become little more than a living jukebox, spitting out hit after hit to thrill its obsessive subjects. What dominates, then, is the urge to sing along with Freddie, clapping hands and shouting in unison. The tracks are trimmed to recreate the effect of an entire show on a single album, but when "I Want To Break Free" sounds like a mess and "Bohemian Rhapsody" is horribly butchered, this can hardly be called a good record.

What's left, then, is a parade of classics and the usual pomp and circumstance, which by now amounts to little more than self-quotation delivered with excessive swagger.

The start of 1987 is a quiet affair, and the four are free to pursue separate activities. Mercury returns to the studio and records a cover of the famous Platters classic "The Great Pretender", which, accompanied by an eccentric David Mallet video, is released as a single in February.

On April 15, Queen receive the Ivor Novello Award for their "outstanding contribution to British music".

The singer never stops: in September, in Spain, "Barcelona" is released, a single featuring his duet with opera singer Montserrat Caballé. In Britain, however, the record comes as a shock to many. For the first time, a rock singer forces his way into the world of opera, and Freddie is, depending on who you ask, hailed as a genius or dismissed as a full-blown rock disaster.

The year apart, however, bears fruit. The four of them have given free rein to their own creativity and are now able to think calmly again about the band's future. The most immediate decision is to get back to work in the studio, and for the occasion a new songwriting rule is introduced: every future track will carry the credit "written by Queen".

Preceded by the single "I Want It All", the band's new album is ready for May 1989 and, on pre-orders alone, secures platinum status within a week of release. The Miracle (Parlophone, 1989), however, is yet another testament to a band adrift, unable in any way to be reborn creatively. "I Want It All", for instance, tries to recapture the epic anthem that's now lost for good, but is inevitably let down by the bland tribal pop of "Party" or the harmless hard-pop riff of "Khashoggis Ship".

The whole album comes across as a collage of sounds with no unifying logic, lurching from a soul ballad ("My Baby Does Me") to a dreadful calypso number ("Rain Must Fall"). Even the old, quirky theatrical vaudeville is gone, transformed into the Disney-musical spirit of "The Miracle". In its place comes back the urge for the dancefloor that already made Hot Space so dreadful. The robotic funk of "Invisible Man" – which sounds like a loose reinterpretation of the "Ghostbusters" soundtrack – and "Breakthru" give the album that extra push toward a complete lack of direction.

The Miracle, in short, is the fitting conclusion to a bland decade devoid of great ideas.

The queen may still have millions of subjects ready to worship her on stage, but her sonic exploits have long since come to an end.

Who wants to live forever?

At the end of November, Queen tell the press that they're ready once again to head back into the studio to record what will be one of their best albums. The band seems energized by the huge success of The Miracle, which has suddenly revived their fortunes in the United States after several years of general decline.

On December 4th, a record titled Queen At The Beeb is released on the Strange Fruit/Band Of Joy label, featuring the first eight songs recorded by the quartet in 1973 for the famous BBC radio sessions. Die-hard fans rejoice: for them, it's a great album that lets them revisit the rare early-period Queen without resorting to poor-quality bootlegs.

A mere curiosity: on December 31st, the TV programme "Goodbye To The Eighties" airs, announcing that Greatest Hits is the fourth best-selling album in rock history after "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits and "Bad" and "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Queen's twentieth anniversary, in 1990, is celebrated with a monumental party. The occasion, however, reveals a clearly worn-out and unusually gloomy Freddie Mercury. The singer tells everyone he's doing just fine, silencing those who had been talking about AIDS, but oddly adds that he has no wish to commit to any live tours.

At the start of the year, the four of them instead meet to discuss the thorny issue of their popularity in the United States, ultimately deciding to change record labels.

Offers are not in short supply, but the most interesting proposal comes from the newly founded Hollywood Records, whose main goal is to restore the band's lost fame and bring them back to the top of the charts.

Work on the new album wraps up around Christmas, and it's decided that "Innuendo" will be the first single taken from the LP. Hollywood objects, however, that a track running over six minutes will never get airplay on American radio, and asks for "Headlong" instead. Unlike what happened with "Bohemian Rhapsody", the band has no objections this time. Those were definitely different times.

The choices, in any case, prove spot-on: the single "Innuendo" is released in January 1991 and, within a week, sells over a hundred thousand copies, entering the charts straight at number one; in the United States, "Headlong" is instantly in high demand on all the major radio stations.

More than an album, Innuendo (Parlophone, 1991) is a premonition of death, suffused with an anguished, existential pop aura. Freddie Mercury's voice senses its last breath approaching, and so decides to exult one final time, gathering the other three around him for the final show. The guiding theme of this sonic testament is the unbridled fantasy of "Innuendo", a small, updated echo of the old, beloved rhapsody.

Mercury essentially steers Queen toward a definitive return to their roots, one that ideally closes the artistic circle of the band. The sonic pomp explodes on the title track and resurfaces, melodramatic, in the opera-house waltz of "I'm Going Slightly Mad".

The album, in certain respects, tries to leave behind the bland mediocrity of the 80s and recover something of its old electric bite. "Headlong" and "The Hitman" are the leftover metal-hard-pop scraps from Brian May's celebrated attic. Freddie really does look like the clown on the cover as he juggles all the magic elements of a style that is, for better or worse, unmistakable. Here's the choral super-pop of "I Can't Live With You", and here too the percussive tenderness of the ballad "These Are The Days Of Our Lives". And yet you can't shake the sense that Queen are a band completely spent, worn down by years of failed attempts and bland commercial hits. Treacle swamps the melody of "Don't Try So Hard" and drips everywhere from the guitar on "Bijou". The synthesized build of "Ride The Wild Wind" falls into the same recent lack of originality as the squealing, cooing nursery rhyme of "Delilah".

Things work better, then, when the singer takes the reins himself, giving voice to his own conscious end in the tragic epitaph of "The Show Must Go On".

It would seem, then, that Queen intend to stick around on this earth a while longer, but the song (and part of this album) reads only as the final celebration of a musical fairy tale. Innuendo is a massive success worldwide, reaching number one across most of the continent and landing in the US Top 30.

In early May, Queen fly to Switzerland to get straight back to work on a handful of songs destined for an imminent follow-up album.

Brian May begins a North American radio tour with the explicit aim of promoting his band's new music: the reception he receives proves that the queen still has plenty of subjects across the Stars and Stripes. Hollywood Records' commercial restoration effort is, in practice, paying off.

The same label entrusts directors Rossacher and Dolezal with making a documentary on the band's career. "Days Of Our Lives" is introduced by Axl Rose (a longtime fan) and broadcast on nearly every television station in the United States.

In October, Emi releases the album Greatest Hits II (Emi, 1991), again paired with its twin companion "Greatest Flix II". The seventeen new tracks retrace the band's musical path through the 80s, between danceable detours and chart-friendly pop-rock.

Predictably, the compilation is a hit with fans, who within a week send the record straight to number one.

Over the final months of 1991, the press gives Freddie Mercury no peace, and journalists from around the world begin tailing him almost everywhere. Rumours about a serious illness grow ever more widespread, seemingly confirmed by the singer's frail, gaunt appearance on the rare occasions he appears in public.

On 23 November, Freddie announces to the hordes of reporters that he has tested positive for HIV and has therefore contracted the AIDS virus. The following day, the frontman's battle comes to an end due to sudden bronchopneumonia brought on by the virus itself.

As the news spreads, tributes and messages of condolence begin pouring in from all over the world, plunging the other three members into deep despair. In his final wishes, Mercury states his desire to support the Terence Higgins Trust, perhaps the most prominent of the organizations fighting AIDS. As a fitting epitaph, May chooses to release a double A-side single featuring "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "These Are The Days Of Our Lives", with proceeds donated to the charity. Pressed in record time within a week, the single sells over a hundred thousand copies in just seven days, shooting straight to number one on the British charts.

The singer's death fuels, in effect, a fresh wave of Queen-mania: Greatest Hits II ends up as the third best-selling album of 1991. Between the end of the year and the start of 1992, the remaining members of Queen choose to vanish from the public eye to reflect on what has happened and consider an uncertain future.

An announcement is made, however, that a huge concert in memory of Freddie will be held in April at Wembley Stadium. Tickets for the event sell out within six hours, with a lineup reading like a true rock encyclopedia. David Bowie, Elton John, Robert Plant, Metallica and many others come together for a final farewell to the singer, in a mega-concert of thoroughly regal, pompous style. Over a billion people will watch the show on television.

The Show Must Go On

With the tears dried, Queen decide to carry on and, over the summer, consider the possibility of reissuing Freddie's solo material alongside some remixed tracks. Meanwhile, Emi confidently rides its own prized corpse and releases the full edition of the 1986 Wembley concert on double LP. Live At Wembley (Parlophone, 1992) is a celebration of the excesses of the "Magic Tour" that closes, with the usual home-turf triumph, Queen's live activity.

The raw theatricality of Live Killers is, by now, a pale memory, but at least the London show isn't butchered the way it was on Live Magic.

The juke-box band exalts its most spectacular side and, across twenty-eight tracks, drags along its stadium-empire. Two discs thus concentrate the band's usual strengths and weaknesses, somewhere between the vibrant guitar of "Brighton Rock" and "Now I'm Here" and the quick-consumption pop-rock of "Break Free" and "A Kind Of Magic".

May and co., at least, seem to be enjoying themselves, going back to the dawn of rock and roll with freak versions of "Tutti Frutti", "Hello Mary Lou" and "Gimme Some Loving".

In the end, though, the album is just a pretext to let one particular voice echo once more. There was no need for it, but that's fine as it is. After Mercury's death, the band makes the final decision to go back into the studio to record what will be the last album released under the Queen name.

In 1993 May, Taylor and Deacon start working with some vocal parts Freddie had already recorded, combining them with new sonic ideas. Made In Heaven (Parlophone, 1995) is a macabre record in the least fascinating sense of the word. Three musicians and the voice of a ghost, for a collection of songs that certainly doesn't make the world of rock a better place.

The logic of business, paired with a total lack of humility, thus chips away at the legend of a singer who needs no further underlining. Queen essentially play the emotional card, betting on feeling as in the pianistic lyricism of "It's A Beautiful Day" and the gospel fervor of "Let Me Live" and "Heaven For Everyone". Given the funereal march of "Made In Heaven", one might even think this is in fact a commemorative record, a final farewell to a voice unlike any other.

The album, however, quickly veers toward well-worn territory and dissolves amid the artificial tenderness of "Mother Love" and the toothless commercial pop of "My Life Has Been Saved" and "I Was Born To Love You". At this point commercial reasoning seems to prevail over musical heart: "Too Much Love Will Kill You" is the usual melodramatic ballad and, worse still, the bland dance-floor verve returns on "You Don't Fool Me".

In the end, Made In Heaven is a slapdash record, a disjointed idea that gets lost among its final instrumental textures and fails to do justice to the distant spirit it aims to reach. The release of Made In Heaven definitively closes the last chapter of the queen's story, but Brian May and Roger Taylor have no intention of hanging up their instruments, and they keep on playing live undeterred at various charity events for the fight against the virus that took their dearest friend.

The level-headed John Deacon, however, doesn't let himself get swept up in endless nostalgia and, in 1997, decides to leave the group after recording "No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)", the first and last original track created by Queen without Mercury. The waltz-time ballad sits awkwardly on the aggressive compilation Queen Rocks (Parlophone, 1997) and gets lost in the hodgepodge of the third installment of the saga, Greatest Hits III (Parlophone, 1999), notable for a rap version of "Another One Bites The Dust" featuring Wyclef Jean and for the voices of Bowie and George Michael on "Under Pressure" and "Somebody To Love".

Everything Queen (?) does by now is pure celebration of a time gone by.

Queen Plus

Between the late '90s and the early 2000s, Brian May and Roger Taylor keep performing under the Queen name at various award ceremonies and charity concerts.

In 2003 the duo decides to return to the recording studio to work on some original tracks intended for Nelson Mandela's "46664" anti-AIDS campaign.

Working with the band are Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and pop singer Anastacia. 2004 is the year the two surviving members of Queen decide, once and for all, to reopen the band's historic book and begin writing a new, mysterious chapter.

What seems to be galvanizing May and Taylor is the success of a new double live album, Queen On Fire – Live At The Bowl (Parlophone, 2004), recorded at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes in June 1982.

Hot Space is a dreadful record, but the document of the tour that followed it is, in the end, convincing. The pompous parade of classics is the usual affair (the piano version of “Somebody To Love” is captivating), but, oddly, even flimsy tracks like “Back Chat” sound better than they actually are.

Even this album, though, fails to match the verve of Live Killers, but at least it comes across with strength and conviction. The surprise arrives at the end of the year, when May and Taylor announce that Queen will return to the stage with singer Paul Rodgers (ex-Free and Bad Company). On his website, the guitarist stresses that the project is not meant to replace Freddie, describing it simply as Queen + Paul Rodgers.

John Deacon does not answer the call of his old bandmates, and is replaced by Blue Oyster Cult bassist Danny Miranda, who had already produced the triumphant musical “We Will Rock You” together with comedian Ben Elton. Rounding out the new lineup are Spike Edney on keyboards and guitarist Jamie Moses.

The first official appearance of Queen + Paul Rodgers comes in March 2005, when Nelson Mandela's Aids charity campaign takes the stage in South Africa. The actual tour raises the curtain at Brixton Academy in London and continues across Europe, with tickets selling at breakneck speed, through spring and summer, up to the unexpected no-show at Bob Geldof's Live 8.

The stop at the Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield is recorded for the release of a first double live album billed to Queen + Paul Rodgers. Return Of The Champions (Parlophone, 2005) has muddled ambitions of triumphalism, but fails to wring out either tears or smiles.

Paul Rodgers' robust blues voice ruins epic tracks like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and fails to adapt to the more complex melodies of “Killer Queen”. Brian May tries in vain to carry the show with the garish, aggressive sound of his guitar, but Taylor is visibly struggling, and the whole thing ends up sounding more or less like an excellent amateur cover band. There's singing and dancing, but calling this album “return of the champions” feels like a paradoxical joke, as well as an insult to the memory of a singer who can never be replicated.

In autumn the band flies to Japan (“Super Live In Japan” comes out on DVD the following year) and to the United States, where a long tour is prepared for winter 2006, with 23 dates from Miami to a sold-out show in Vancouver.

Between August and November, various voices from within the band announce, more or less officially, that an album of original material will see the light at some unspecified time, and that part of it will consist of songs already recorded for the 46664 campaign.

The single “Say It's Not True”, written by Taylor, is released on December 1, 2007, World Aids Day. The new ballad is messy and, ultimately, makes it clear that Queen have never managed to get over the loss of the only man able to wear the crown and raise the sceptre to the sky.

The new Queen + Paul Rodgers Rock The Cosmos 2008 tour, expected in the autumn, will take in 14 countries in seven weeks across Europe and Asia for a total of 28 dates, before bringing the band back to South America.

The next album, due out on September 1st, marks Paul Rodgers' studio debut with Queen, having actively taken part alongside May and Taylor in writing the songs. The album's title is still to be decided, previewed by the single “Say It's Not True”.

Outro

“It's been an incredible journey, believe me, gone by in a flash, while we always thought the best was still to come. We were spoiled, but we also fulfilled many of our dreams, having the time of our lives because we had total control over our medium. We were like children locked in the playroom, and sometimes I wish I could remember better what happened.”

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