Queen - Queen

For a first album by an unknown band Queen’s self-titled debut was by all accounts ignored by most critics, much to their assured dismay some thirty-seven years later. While some major publications praised Queen as the next logical step up from Led Zeppelin it’s amazing to think that Trident took nearly a year trying to get a record label to release this piece of majestic musical history. With guitarist Brian May’s signature tone (from his own handmade guitar), John Deacon’s plundering bass lines, Roger Taylor’s symbol-assaulting presence and, arguably, the greatest front-man to ever grace a stage in Freddie Mercury, Queen was ready to take on the world.   

Queen predates the band’s epic Bohemian Rhapsody by just over two years, but the classic tracks on this album are some of the greatest rock songs ever produced. “Keep Yourself Alive” generated a moderate buzz its first couple of times around, but it would take another two years for the band to truly find its audience on the grander scale. That should not diminish some of the brilliant songs on here like “Great King Rat”, “Doing All Right”, “My Fairy King” and “Seven Seas of Rhye”, though every single song on here is its own life cycle with its own gravitation field.

Some of the best Brian May guitar work is found here in tracks like the aforementioned “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Liar”, setting off a virtual windstorm of imitators and fans trying in vain to capture that unusual sound. While this album was the unfortunate victim of delays and suspect mixing that irked the band throughout the process, the band had already begun writing Queen II and had felt this album was a step backward by the time the public caught wind of it. Nevertheless, Mercury’s lyrical prowess was evident from the very start with some of the most avant-garde subject matter unheard of at the time. In “Liar” Mr. Mercury laments about the untruths in life in only his grandiose way with lyrics like “I have sailed the seas---/from Mars to Mercury--/I have drunk the wine-/time after time…mama, I’m gonna be your slave--/Mama I’m gonna try behave-I’m gonna serve you ‘til your dying day--“. This seemingly psychedelically-induced thought process is anything but a chemical misspeak; it’s more of a lifetime of servitude to the sins of the past, be it as simple as an untruth told once or a dozen times. While seemingly apologetic it sounds more of a Loki-esque promise to be good underneath a smirking child’s quiet mischievousness. It’s brilliant poetry through and through.

Another highlight is the Roger Taylor vocal on “Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll” with Freddie providing a concise backing vocal that is both fun and in perfect step with such a symbolic cornucopia of songs. It’s a swift change of pace from Mr. Taylor’s backing vocals on “Liar”, which are the sweetest compliment to the track. When that overpowering bass line in “Son and Daughter” hits your ears you see just how undervalued bass players are and Mr. Deacon is no exception. It sounds like a Geezer Bulter walking bass line that could easily have been on Paranoid or Master of Reality.

The obvious growth of Queen from Queen to, say, A Night at the Opera is significant, sure, but the raw power here on this debut is the same stripped down historical moment that the first Black Sabbath album, Led Zeppelin II and Dark Side of the Moon from Pink Floyd all possessed. One can look back on them now and spot nuances and inconsistencies abound I’m sure, but the true spirit of rock music was not only evident, it was prominent.

For more than historical importance, Queen is a look back at what was once a clean, valued medium devoid of pretention and filler songs, even in the noticeable infancy of a band’s career.

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I cannot recall the first time I heard this album, to be honest with you. I know well that I have been a Queen fan for as long as I can remember after seeing a clip of the 1975 Christmas show at, if memory serves, the Hammersmith Odeon on the Midnight Special television show broadcasted here in the States in the late Seventies. I saw this androgynous, black fingernail-painted guy with a large protruding upper mouth wailing so effortlessly and with such flamboyance that my impressionable palate was satiated enough to gather allowance money and buy albums. After all, this was leaps over the Beatles to my young ears, a band I loved then and still love to this day. I was hooked at an early age. My best memory has me hearing this album for the first time in about 1978 or ’79. 

To my ears there has never been a vocalist like Mister Freddie Mercury. He was what every young musician wants to be: a powerful front man that can command an audience with a lift of his arm, only to send the crowd crashing down with a dismissive, even flippant wave of his hand. No matter what, we always wanted more out of Mr. Mercury, Robert Plant or Rob Halford, the three most powerful singers in my personal preference pile. As a young singer I could hit high notes quite well, yet that special Mercury touch that made it all seem so effortless and so magical was never there for me…or anyone else save for Mr. Plant. Freddie Mercury was what I wanted to be in terms of a showman that seemed unafraid of any size audience, any musical challenge (think of his foray into opera with the lovely Montseratt Caballe) or any critic that dared to call out his band for any perceived infraction. Sadly, his taste for decadence would prove to be his undoing, a passing that affects me to this day more than I care to even comment on any further. Suffice it to say I was emotionally affected when Freddie Mercury passed from this life on November 24, 1991.

Wow…it’s been nearly twenty years. My mind can’t even wrap itself around that.

Anyway, this album is by far my favorite Queen offering. My favorite song by the band is here in “Great King Rat”, a very impressive lyrical offering from Mr. Mercury as well as one hell of a vocal. I also am quite partial to the Brain May composition “Doing All Right” which I wouldn’t necessarily call a ballad, but it’s certainly a step (or ten) away from the raucous “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Liar”, both which could arguably border on traditional metal. For a band that would eventually produce fan favorite, stadium-friendly songs like “We Will Rock You”, “We Are the Champions”, “Another One Bites the Dust” and the opus “Bohemian Rhapsody” it’s not too far a stretch to identify the eventual makings of these songs in “Seven Seas of Rhye” or “Jesus”. While this album isn’t necessarily indicative of what would make Queen steal the thunder at 1985’s Live Aid charity gig, the magic that was Queen is all here for the taking.

I tend to go for a band’s lyrical side more than anything else, hence my admiration for bands like Nevermore, the Beatles and Viking-era Bathory to name just three, even more so than the music. Whenever I hear “Great King Rat” or “My Fairy King” I am always impressed, even some three decades after I first heard these songs. More than any other band I think Queen has impressed me the most when it comes to lyrics simply because of the simplistic, seemingly disconnected value they have. I mean, really, in one of his famous untruths in the song “Liar” how did Freddie Mercury sail the seas “from Mars to Mercury” anyway? It’s one of the great mysteries of music that I might not even care to know. All I do know is I am ever hooked on this band and its greatness.

From the quiet, unassuming role of bassist John Deacon, in the blast-beat-heavy Roger Taylor drumming, under the horribly unique guitar sound of Brian May into the flamboyant, always glam-laden Freddie Mercury, Queen was the band of brilliance and charm, but also of excess gone criminally wrong, taking from us one of the most gifted men in music’s grand bible far too early. No matter your feelings on Mr. Mercury’s personal lifestyle or Queen’s head-scratching endeavor with Free/Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers, the fact that these four men managed to stay together from 1971 to 1991 says something. The music business is virtually filled with guys and girls on stages all over the world that genuinely detest one another but muster through the hate for the supposed ‘love’ of the fans when the underlying cash-grab factor sits nicely in place. Twenty years together is a lifetime, a marriage, and Queen produced some amazing music in its storied career, all of which started with this unpolished gem that was, quite literally, the Little Engine That Could for music.

We’re lucky to have it and it’s worth every repeated listen you give it.           

Release Date: July 13, 1973
Label: EMI Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Keep Yourself Alive
2.  Doing All Right
3.  Great King Rat
4.  My Fairy King
5.  Liar
6.  The Night Comes Down
7.  Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll
8.  Son and Daughter
9.  Jesus
10.  Seven Seas of Rhye

Total playing time:  38:30

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Classic Review

August 25, 2010

Reviewer: Chris