Queen: two reissues for the landmark album "A Day At The Races" as it turns 50

Queen are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of “A Day At The Races” with two new vinyl editions, out December 11th via Sony Music Entertainment. The album will be available in a marbled blue version and as a picture disc sold exclusively through the Sony Music Store. Pre-orders are already open, with details on the official band website.

Released on December 10, 1976, “A Day At The Races” was the first album Queen produced entirely on their own, with Mike Stone as sound engineer. Like its predecessor “A Night At The Opera”, it took its title from a Marx Brothers film: a link that also reflected the musical kinship between the two records, so much so that Brian May and Roger Taylor have described it as a natural continuation of its predecessor.
The album reached number one on the UK chart and number five in the United States, cementing the quartet's international success. Amid hard-rock surges, layered vocal harmonies, vaudeville flourishes and elaborate constructions like “The Millionaire Waltz”, the album confirmed Queen's ability to make pop immediacy and compositional ambition coexist.

Leading the way, three weeks ahead of release, was “Somebody To Love”, destined to become one of the band's signature songs. Drawing on gospel tradition, the song weaves Freddie Mercury's voice together with the group's elaborate choral overdubs. In the Nineties it found a new wave of popularity thanks to George Michael's performance with Queen at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, later released in 1993.
On the rockier side stands out “Tie Your Mother Down”, written by Brian May and a fixture of the band's live shows ever since. Rounding out the singles are “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, with its vaudeville flavour, and “Long Away”, marked by twelve-string guitar and released in the United States and New Zealand. A special place belongs finally to “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)”, released as a single in Japan: sung partly in Japanese, it was a tribute to the country's audience, with whom Queen had built a special bond.
Fifty years on, this variety of languages and styles remains one of the defining traits of “A Day At The Races”, among the most beloved chapters in their catalogue.

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