“A Night at the Opera” by Queen
I take a closer look at the album that turned Queen into global superstars.
This album review takes a closer look at the album that turned Queen into global superstars to mark its 50th anniversary.
Genre: Prog Rock, Pop, Hard Rock
Label: EMI
Release Date: November 28, 1975
Vibe: 🫅
👉 Click the GIF to stream the album on your favorite platform
Long before that god-awful Queen biopic hit theaters, their collective persona as performers was tied to this album’s lead single, and the film’s namesake, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The band had been around for years prior and had even scored a hit on both sides of the Atlantic with “Killer Queen,” Freddie Mercury’s theatrical ode to an expensive call girl. In other words, they were already successful, but not the global superstars they became. That all changed with “Rhapsody,” now widely regarded as their most enduring track, especially when you consider the overall pop culture footprint. From Wayne’s World to the viral trailer for 2016’s Suicide Squad, there’s a good chance younger fans found Queen through that song first. You can nitpick through the band’s discography (an exercise I’ll be undertaking soon, as it turns out) and debate whether it’s their best song, but you could do a lot worse as the spark that ignites a love and appreciation of their art. It’s chaotic, melodramatic, and arguably the most accessible prog rock song in music history.
But A Night at the Opera, which dropped a little over a month after “Rhapsody,” is far more than a padded-out vehicle for a radio hit. Before writing this review, I hadn’t listened to it front-to-back in many years, so I was eager to return to it with fresh ears and see how the deeper cuts had aged. I was thrilled by it all over again, in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I was floored by how strange this record is and the degree to which the group sounds like they’re reinventing what’s “acceptable” in rock music more or less in real time. It’s got a little bit of everything thrown into the mix: acoustic folk, larger-than-life glam rock, and more than a little whiff of the pop-metal that would dominate the back half of the 1980s. It’s a staggering achievement in stylistic contradiction, most of all because Queen carries off the whiplash-inducing gear shifts effortlessly. They could’ve picked one lane, stayed in it, and had an extraordinarily successful run. Instead, to paraphrase another one of their hits, they wanted it all, and they wanted it now.
What’s lost to history a bit is how much of a do-or-die gamble this album was for the band. Because of an insanely bad record deal they’d signed with Trident Studios, they were essentially broke at the end of 1974. After a nine-month legal dispute, they freed themselves from those shackles. Initially, they paid a steep price, including the cancellation of a North American tour that was supposed to keep them afloat financially, at least for a little while. Not unlike Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, they desperately needed to build on their fledgling momentum. “If A Night at the Opera hadn’t been a huge success, I think we would have just disappeared under the ocean someplace,” guitarist Brian May said in 1995. “[We] were making this album knowing it was live or die.”
Recorded over four months, Queen enlisted Roy Thomas Baker, another Trident ex-pat who worked with the group on several records, including 1978’s Jazz, as producer and Mike Stone as engineer. One of several innovations they leaned on was the expanded use of multitracking, which evolved from 16-track to 24-track tape, allowing for more complex harmonies and the use of effects. The middle section of “Rhapsody” is the best-known example of this technique in the finished product, but you can also hear it in the dazzling acapella portion of “The Prophet’s Song,” where Mercury’s vocals are given an almost supernatural quality with layers of delay. The band also uses a much wider variety of instruments not typically heard in their music, ranging from electric piano to timpani to double bass. That list became so long that Brian May ended up being credited for “orchestral backdrops” in the liner notes, which is as concise a piece of copywriting as you’re likely to find in such a document.
A Night at the Opera kicks off with venomous grandeur. “Death on Two Legs” was essentially Mercury’s poison pill send-off to Trident’s Norman Sheffield, their former manager, whose exploitative behavior actively cheated the singer and his bandmates out of funds they’d rightfully earned. Mercury’s piano playing underscores the menace in his voice, pounding on the keys like a giant stomping after its prey. Sheffield sued Queen and their new label for defamation, though his attempt backfired after the lawsuit was made public, following an out-of-court settlement. It’s a terrific opener, but also a curious one when you consider the tonal shifts that occur over the next 15 or so minutes. You “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon,” an all-too-brief snapshot imbued with 1930s music-hall charm; “I’m in Love with My Car,” a growling rocker that pays homage to the Triumph TR4; and “You’re My Best Friend,” a sweet, understated love song from bassist John Deacon that ranks among the best pure pop songs Queen ever recorded. It’s all strong material, but it’s also so all-over-the-place that its sequencing risks throwing the listener off.
But wait—it gets even weirder. “Seaside Rendezvous” finds Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor imitating woodwind and brass instruments with their voices, as well as performing a “tap dance” on a desk with thimbles on their fingers. “Love of My Life,” one of the band’s most covered songs, is a tender evocation of love in its purest form. Not necessarily strictly romantic or platonic, but holistic, when your closeness with someone transcends any relationship labels. Over the years, it’s become such a concert staple for the band that, regardless of who’s singing lead, they’ll stop and let the crowd sing along and bask in the spotlight. There’s also “Good Company,” a bit of a headscratcher of a Brian May composition that sees him recreate Dixieland-style jazz on his custom-built Red Special guitar. I should say that, even when I’m not vibing with all the tinkering under the hood aesthetically, the group, and Mercury in particular, sells the heck out of these tracks. Your mileage will vary with the stylistic choices, but the showmanship and attention to detail are undeniable.
And, just like that, we’re back where this album’s legacy begins, at “Bohemian Rhapsody.” To say that the universe nearly conspired against them would be an understatement, at least in the U.K. Various executives tried to stop them from releasing as a single. Record promoters told them no DJs would ever play a nearly six-minute song on the radio. Instead, they were advised to split “Rhapsody” into three or four more digestible chunks, which, according to Mercury, would’ve defeated the entire purpose of releasing the “mock opera” as a single in the first place. Again, the group’s members held firm and, eventually, the British music establishment got behind them. They parlayed that buzz into similar success in the U.S., where the track peaked at No. 9 on the Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for a combined 24 weeks in 1975-76. Since then, the American public has had a recurring love affair with “Rhapsody.” It was re-released in 1992, two months after Mercury’s death, and reached No. 2 (Kris Kross’s “Jump,” of all songs, kept it out of the top spot). In 2021, the song was certified Diamond in the U.S. for combined record sales and streams, now exceeding 10 million copies. In 2025, it was declared the most-streamed song of the 20th century, with a total of around 4.8 billion plays on YouTube and Spotify.
In retrospect, A Night at the Opera is a survival story, albeit one couched in glamorous camp. There’s plenty of absurdity on display throughout, but also a level of craftsmanship so impeccable, so unbothered by rules and tradition, that it couldn’t be anything less than timeless. By pushing the envelope as far as they did, they paved the way for modern pop theater as we know it today. From Lady Gaga to Muse, arena rock bombast wouldn’t have found its way to quite as exciting a place without Queen’s guidance. These were also four musicians who had both everything and nothing to lose at the same time, making them all the more dangerous when they’re as underestimated as they were back then.
What’s your favorite Queen song? Shout it out in the comments?