So I Listened To Queen’s Entire Discography in One Sitting… And Survived?

So after enduring ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (2018) earlier this week I realised that apart from ‘The Works’, ‘Flash Gordon’, ‘A Kind of Magic’ and their Greatest Hits that I had never sat down and listened to any of their other albums all the way through, possibly because I was a hard core prog fan as a teenager who found Queen bombastic, silly and often annoying. But they could be fun and besides, their first two albums were complete mysteries to me and I hadn’t listened to them in years so thought “why not sit down and listen to (almost) everything they did?” And the result? Amazingly, nowhere NEAR as insufferable as I was expecting and with a few pleasant surprises along the way. Here are my thoughts on what I experienced and apologies for my unsubtle and clunky writing style but I have just been listening to Queen for 12 hours straight so that can’t but be reflected in my work here.

Anyway, here goes -

‘Queen’ (1973) -

A pretty decent debut that’s energetic, ambitious and ramshackled. It’s a bit all over the place and none of the tracks stuck in my head afterwards but it is definitely a rock album. It has that feeling of a young band refining its voice and style but the Queen sound is evident from the start. Whether this is a good or bad thing for music history is up to you.

‘Queen II’ (1974) -

Bloody Hell. I thought it wouldn’t be until their fourth album that the production values would be of ridiculous proportions but no, because their second album is one of the most excessively produced albums I’ve heard. It’s also hysterically hyperactive and relentlessly restless, never settling or staying still for a second. Is it a case of throwing as much shit at the wall and seeing what sticks? Without a doubt. This is a band determined to never let the listener be bored for a heartbeat. This is both Queens’ strength and ultimate weakness.

It doesn’t feel performed by a band but more stitched together in a painstaking process. It’s an impressive and wildly energetic listen but, at times, also exhausting. The lyrics are often very silly.

‘Sheer Heart Attack’ (1974) -

It’s odd when an album that contains the song ‘Killer Queen’ can claim to be stripped back. ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ might have dropped the proggy bombast of ‘Queen II’ but we’re still dealing with sonic excess here, just in tighter packages. The album blasts along and it’s almost over before you know it. Again, this is a positive thing when talking about Queen but it’s not a totally backhanded compliment; it just doesn’t outstay its welcome. Although ‘In The Lap of The Gods… Revisited’ is tedious and annoying and the first of Queen’s audience sing-a-long numbers, something that would only be worryingly exacerbated in the years to come.

‘A Night at The Opera’ (1975) -

So I finally listened to what was, at the time, the most expensive album ever made and boy, does it sound like that’s the case! The excess of the production goes beyond any sense of decency or taste and is all about sonic immersion and impact. Like ‘Queen II’ nothing sits still for a moment with constant invention being the prime factor here, and expensive invention at that. During every second of ‘ANATO’ I was sitting there thinking “How much did you spend on this?!”.

The good news is that it’s all incredibly fun and even though it’s not a concept album the tracks all lead into each other nicely. Oh, and it also contains one of my new favourite Queen tracks — ‘I’m in Love with My Car’! Yeah, the song often mentioned as a joke was the one that hooked me the most. I think it’s the vocal arrangement and harmonies during the chorus.

Silly, overblown but, most essentially, fun.

‘A Day at the Races’ (1976) -

I’d heard this was a letdown after ‘ANATO’ but ‘ADATR’ isn’t that bad at all. It’s not as OTT as the previous album and feels more like a collection of songs but after all the bombast ‘ADATR’ is quite refreshing. Nothing great but no major problems.

‘News of The World’ (1977) -

So if you strip all the excess and bombast away from Queen, what are you left with? Maybe nothing more than those awful stadium anthems and insufferable British whimsy? True, but only to a point. Yes, ‘We Will Rock You’ is annoying in its thudding simplicity cynically crafted for exploiting stadium engagement and there are a few numbers where the fun factor is missing resulting in some songs of little consequence but there’s still a bundle of energy here along with a decent amount of variation so while ‘News of The World’ feels lesser than the previous four it has a stripped down efficiency that keeps it listenable.

It also contains another of my favourite new Queen songs in the form of ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ which is a blistering little number deliberately designed to be as sonically aggressive as possible. It’s called Queen’s punk song but despite the intensity this isn’t a punk song in the slightest because NO punk band would record a chorus that had that many vocal overdubs. Either way, this is a great song.

‘Jazz’ (1978) -

I really liked ‘Jazz’! It’s an incredibly fun (if the word “fun” can be applied to a Queen album that’s all that matters), eclectic and extremely well recorded album. I’d happily listen to it for ‘Bicycle Race’ alone which is still one of my favourite Queen tracks. This album really encapsulates all aspects of Queens’ identity whilst keeping a tighter rein on the excess as well as providing enough breathing space for musical ideas to fly. Again, it’s produced to within an inch of its life but you certainly get your money’s worth audio wise.

‘The Game’ (1980) -

Queen wave goodbye to rock and produce a listenable, if rather unexciting and pedestrian, album. Not a travesty (that is still to come) but a ‘meh’ of an LP by a band you feel is running out of ideas and after the constant invention of some of their previous work that’s a problem for Queen, not just any band.

‘Flash Gordon’ (1980) -

Love it, and always have.

‘Hot Space’ (1982) -

Shit.

‘The Works’ (1984) -

I really like ‘The Works’. It’s not a perfect album but the buzz of hearing Queen remember they’re a rock band again is a blast to hear. It is a slick product by a band who knows how to mass produce this sort of stuff in their sleep but they’re also in total control of what they’re doing. And ‘Hammer To Fall’ is awesome.

‘A Kind of Magic’ (1986) -

The ‘Highlander’ one. It’s an uneven album due to its soundtrack/album hybrid nature with a few lackluster songs… but it also contains ‘One Vision’ which might just be the greatest opening number for an LP Queen ever had.

‘The Miracle’ (1989) -

Skipped it!

‘Innuendo’ (1991) -

So if ‘The Works’ showed Queen returning to their rock roots then ‘Innuendo’ had them fully embrace (to the delight of their fans, I can imagine) the pomp and bombast again. They up the prog factor (Steve Howe from Yes even pops up to cement the fact that this is the case) with the album feeling like one last gasp of Queen doing what Queen always did and, most importantly, what their fans loved them for. The title track is a fun slice of widescreen nonsense and I also have a soft spot for ‘Ride The Wild Wind’.

I stopped with this album as I felt I’d reached a natural end point and, besides, my ears had started bleeding.

So yeah, that was what listening to all of Queen in a single sitting was like. What I will say is that it was WAY more fun than I was dreading. It hasn’t converted me into a fan (they have too many issues, both musical and philosophical, I can’t get past) but they’re the kind of band I’m happy existed as they produced too many songs that are too much fun not to have around.

Yes, the excess of their studio production is crazy but you can hear where all the effort and work went and as someone with a background in bombastic, sound effects heavy, multi-tracked radio comedy I loved that they made albums design for listening to with headphones on and completely losing yourself in that sonic world. In fact, Queen’s work works much better if viewed as highly elaborate radio comedy. I was certainly laughing a lot.