Queen - A Night At The Opera (Remastered, Gatefold, 180 Gram) (LP)

Superb 180 Gram re-mastered vinyl with all original artwork (including inner sleeves). Hollywood Records. 2008.

QUEEN / NIGHT AT THE OPERA - VINYL LP - A Night at the Opera is the fourth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released in November 1975. Co-produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen, it was the most expensive album ever recorded at the time of it's release. A commercial success, A Night at the Opera has been voted by the public and cited by music publications as one of Queen's finest works. The album takes it's name from the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera, which the band watched one night at the studio complex when recording. The album was originally released by EMI in the United Kingdom, where it topped the UK Albums Chart for four non-consecutive weeks, and Elektra Records in the United States, where it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and became the band's first platinum selling album in the US.

Queen were straining at the boundaries of hard rock and heavy metal on Sheer Heart Attack, but they broke down all the barricades on A Night at the Opera, a self-consciously ridiculous and overblown hard rock masterpiece. Using the multi-layered guitars of its predecessor as a foundation, A Night at the Opera encompasses metal ("Death on Two Legs," "Sweet Lady"), pop (the lovely, shimmering "You're My Best Friend"), campy British music hall ("Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon," "Seaside Rendezvous"), and mystical prog rock ("'39," "The Prophet's Song"), eventually bringing it all together on the pseudo-operatic "Bohemian Rhapsody." In short, it's a lot like Queen's own version of Led Zeppelin IV, but where Zep find dark menace in bombast, Queen celebrate their own pomposity. No one in the band takes anything too seriously, otherwise the arrangements wouldn't be as ludicrously exaggerated as they are. But the appeal -- and the influence -- of A Night at the Opera is in its detailed, meticulous productions. It's prog rock with a sense of humor as well as dynamics, and Queen never bettered their approach anywhere else. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Queen: Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano); Brian May (guitar, harp, ukulele, background vocals); John Deacon (electric piano, acoustic & electric basses); Roger Taylor (percussion, background vocals).

Recorded at Sarm Studios, Roundhouse Studios, Olympic Studios, Scorpio Studios, Landsdowne Studios, London, England and Rockfield Studios, Wales.

• Format: Vinyl
• Genre: Rock

Tracklist