Every Queen Studio Album, Ranked from Worst to Best

I rank every studio album released by Mercury, May, Deacon, and Taylor.

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In the 1970s, Queen dominated the rock landscape like few bands have before or since.

Between 1973 and 1980, they released 9 studio albums, scored multiple international hits, and built a totally unprecedented live reputation. By 1981, they were drawing 300,000 people to a single show in Buenos Aires, the largest concert crowd in the country’s history at the time. They also mastered the album format when it still mattered commercially, and lorded over FM radio when it was the primary battleground for cultural relevance. Overall, their catalog is so diverse that casual fans and diehards regularly have different entry points into the same musical universe. Groups like that don’t come around very often.

And yet, that versatility is both a strength and a complication. Queen never committed to a single sound, ricocheting between hard rock, prog, theatrical glam, funk, disco, and synth-pop, often within the same LP tracklist. Some bands find their lane and perfect it. Queen treated lanes like suggestions, constantly swerving in and out of those markers to avoid predictability. The result is a legacy that’s thrilling and frustrating in equal measure. At their best, Queen produced some of the most ambitious, meticulously crafted rock and pop of their era. At their worst, they awkwardly chased trends with diminishing returns.

I can’t be mad, though. Even their misfires are instructive, revealing a band that, even at their peak, was incapable of coasting on their reputation alone. They were always reaching for something just beyond their grasp. They were also unafraid of excess. While punk stripped rock down to its essentials, Queen piled on more and more layers. While critics stood on their soapboxes, demanding authenticity, Queen reveled in showstopping artifice. They didn’t apologize for their theatricality, which was (and, so I’ve heard from folks who have seen them live since Freddie Mercury’s passing, still is) what made them unforgettable.

This ranking reflects both historical achievement and cultural staying power, however it’s not in the ways you might think. Some of their albums were massive commercial successes that, honestly, haven’t aged well. Others were critical and commercial disappointments that have revealed themselves as hidden gems decades later.

If you’re new here, make sure you dive into the discography ranking archives to catch up on all the deep dives you’ve missed.

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Let’s begin:

15. A Kind of Magic (1986)

Let’s start with a slight historical repositioning: A Kind of Magic is basically the Highlander soundtrack that, at least in the US, no one was clamoring for.

Six songs that appear in that film also pop up on this tracklist, which is why you’ll hear dialogue cut-ins every so often. Highlander never got its own soundtrack release, and Queen were working on both that project and this one simultaneously, so I can understand the two-birds-one-stone approach in theory. It was also a pretty transparent attempt to capitalize on the public’s renewed interest in their back catalog following their legendary set at Live Aid in 1985. And it accomplished what it set out to do … sort of. A Kind of Magic exploded in the UK, producing multiple hit singles and staying on the album chart for 63 weeks. Stateside, it was met with a tepid reaction, further diminishing Queen’s stature as A-list arena acts. Instead, they were sliding into nostalgia tour territory.

Both reactions are understandable. There are a few standout tracks, including “One Vision,” with its laser-sharp chord progression, and “Who Wants to Live Forever,” a power ballad that Mercury and the orchestral section sell with unwavering conviction. It’s also a great example of how he could vacillate between incredible, skyscraping vocal runs and small, almost whisper-level vulnerability, and back again in the space of a verse or bridge. Chill-inducing stuff. But, like several of the band’s other LPs from the 80s, the highlights are balanced out with an equal (or close to) amount of clunkers. Songs like “One Year of Love” and “Pain is So Close to Pleasure” sound pretty dated, not to mention lacking in energy compared to the group’s best stuff.

The contrarian in me wants to make the sweeping statement that this decade routinely gets underrated, especially in American retrospectives. But then you go through every song, album by album, and the rational part of me stands up, clears its throat, and says, “No, it’s properly rated.” The audience split plays to that dual sensibility, in a way. A Kind of Magic peaked at No. 1 in the UK but only No. 46 in the US, going 2x Platinum in the former region. The eponymous single hit No. 3 in the UK but barely charted in the US. Critics were lukewarm, and I don’t think that impression was entirely wrong.

14. Hot Space (1982)

Maybe this will be the hottest take on this discography ranking list. Who knows. But, even if the haters are going to hate, I’ll stand firm on the claim that Hot Space has at least a handful of redeeming moments. Maybe more. It all depends on how tied you are to the idea of Queen as a “rock band.”

By the time 1982 came around, the band was already moving away from a traditional stadium rock aesthetic and into humid dancefloor territory. The Game had an inkling of this experimental streak in it, starting with “Another One Bites the Dust,” of course. Keep in mind, 1982 was also the year that Billboard renamed their R&B songs chart “Hot Black Singles,” so it wasn’t exactly a progressive era for deciding what a rock band made up of white men, led by an out-and-out LGBTQ+ icon, should sound like. When Queen turned up the volume on the disco and funk elements, their fans revolted. Two of the group’s members, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, nearly did so, too. Taylor would later blame some of that influence on Mercury’s former personal manager, Paul Prenter, saying, “[he] wanted our music to sound like you’d just walked in a gay club...and I didn’t”.

What gets lost in the conversation about Hot Space is that it’s more like 60% disco-funk pastiche and 40% what Queen normally sounded like. “Put Out the Fire” is a perfectly pleasant throwback to their mid-70s heyday, while deeper cuts like “Life is Real (Song for Lennon)” and “Las Palabras de Amor” have elements that really work. May’s Latin-tinged guitar work on the latter is a nice touch. Less successful are the dance-oriented “Back Chat” and “Action This Day,” both of which sound thin and almost too sparse production-wise. You also have “Body Language,” one of the most sterile-sounding songs about sex ever released. The music video is also unintentionally hilarious, featuring Mercury strutting through a warehouse full of palettes topped with … New York City sewer grates? The 80s, man. What a time to be alive.

“Staying Power” is the best track here, full of bright horns and vibrant harmonies soaring over the synth bass and drum machine that underpins the infectious groove. If Queen had made more dance tracks as good as that one, you’d be talking about them having an entirely different career trajectory. And no, I’m not forgetting about “Under Pressure,” the David Bowie collab that earned them another No. 1 hit in the UK, when I call “Staying Power” the most delectible delight Hot Space has to offer. Bowie and Mercury are sublime as a vocal duo, and it’s a shame they never got to finalize a sequel while both men were still alive. It’s an impressive achievement, but it’s also been played to death over the years. The opening groove, however, still sounds fresh and fit for a Top 40 battle any time, any place.

13. The Works (1984)

After Hot Space, Queen attempted a course correction. After longtime fans felt betrayed by their dalliance with disco and a more club-ready sound, The Works was supposed to mark a return to their arena rock roots. It seemed like everyone wanted the “old Queen” back. More guitars. More anthemic scale. More of everything. No more chasing trends or giving in to their weirder musical impulses. That was the hope, anyway, and I think the band (mostly) delivered on that ask. I say “mostly” because there’s still a lot of synth-pop on this record, but, by the mid-80s, they would’ve been foolish not to try and incorporate some of that aesthetic for broader mainstream appeal.

Let’s lead with the good stuff. “Radio Ga Ga” is one of my all-time favorite Queen songs. It’s as if Hot Space and Flash Gordon had a baby after a wild night out, and I mean that in the best possible way. Those synths are lush and layered, creating a shimmering effect that’s among their most cinematic work. When the bridge hits, everything at the top opens up, and it sounds like the sky is cracking open, allowing shards of bright light to fall across the landscape. Where was this kind of single lurking for the first three years of the 80s? Maybe it would’ve been too ahead of its time, but “Ga Ga” is also the kind of single Queen could’ve honed in on quicker and saved themselves (and some of us) from their other, clunkier electro-disco experiments. Other highlights include “Hammer to Fall,” a legit stadium-worthy rock song, and “Tear It Up,” a Billy Squier and “We Will Rock You” hybrid that’s a lot of fun.

All that said, The Works was the first time listening through Queen’s catalog in chronological order that I felt the presence of genuine filler. Not big swings that don’t work, but the kind of songs that get added to an album to meet contractual obligations or pad tracklists to a similar effect. Case in point: a cut like “Man on the Prowl,” which sounds so autopilot that I checked out after the first 20 seconds and had to restart it from the beginning. Everything about it, from the riff to the songwriting, is as generic as you’ll find in Queen’s discography. The tension at the heart of this LP, a stylistic tug-of-war between hooky pop structure and guitar-driven rock, is one of the main reasons they can’t fully connect the dots moment to moment. Without that cohesion, you’re left with mostly fleeting glimpses of a record that could’ve been much, much more powerful.

The Works also gave the world one of the most unintentionally revealing cultural documents of the decade with the music video for “I Want to Break Free.” Conceived as a straightforward send-up of British soap opera Coronation Street, it features Mercury hoovering in a black leather skirt, May in curlers and a nightdress, Taylor done up as a schoolgirl, and bassist John Deacon shuffled around as a conservative grandmother. Everyone got the joke except MTV, which banned the video outright, causing the song to stall at No. 45 on the Hot 100. Sadly, this homophobic broadcasting decision cost Queen a good chunk of their momentum in America at exactly the wrong moment. They’d have to wait until Live Aid, which aired the following summer, to get it back.

12. Queen (1973)

Queen’s debut full-length studio effort opens with a lie. Not lyrically, but structurally.

“Keep Yourself Alive” barrels in with such force that you’d assume Queen had been road-testing this material for years. Interestingly, most of these songs were recorded in stolen studio hours at Trident, squeezed in between sessions booked for bigger acts. At that time, the band was effectively unpaid labor, burning through downtime to prove they belonged and, in the eyes of their label, could make music worth releasing. You can hear the hunger. Mercury’s voice already leans theatrical, to the point of defiance, stacking harmonies that feel almost combative for a hard-rock debut in 1973. Without that melodrama, several tracks would drift into competent but anonymous blues-rock territory. Instead, they tip into something stranger and more personal.

Brian May is the quiet anchor here. His guitar tone, achieved through obsessive overdubbing and that homemade Red Special, already sounds unmistakable. The opening run of “Keep Yourself Alive” and the seriously underrated “Doing All Right” make it clear this isn’t a band guessing their way through riffs or chord progressions. They flirt with Led Zeppelin’s long shadow, but they never totally wilt under it. There’s authorship here, even when the influences are loud and reasonably obvious. The problem (normal for a debut LP this ambitious) is the lack of cohesion. The second side sags due to pacing and sequencing issues, exposing a degree of uncertainty in the band’s early understanding of their persona. Hard rock brawlers sit next to delicate prog detours in a way that’s jarring. It plays less like a statement and more like a portfolio submitted for approval.

Though it gets memory-holed these days, the band was not a commercial success out of the gate. Queen peaked at No. 24 in the UK and failed to chart in the US. “Keep Yourself Alive” peaked at No. 47 on the UK Singles Chart, and critics were skeptical. Rolling Stone dismissed the band as derivative for years afterward, citing their debt to groups like Zeppelin and Cream as too indulgent for rock radio. But, for a first kick at the can that, from a recording standpoint, was held together with the equivalent of scotch tape and dental floss, it’s an impressive collection of material. The successes, starting with the opening 15 or so minutes, far outweigh the misfires. Queen already sounded like themselves, even when they’re not sure what that fully meant yet.

11. Queen II (1974)

Of all the albums in this discography ranking, Queen II was the hardest to slot in. It’s aged into cult-classic status across various corners of the internet and, even at the time, was seen as a mini-breakthrough for a band flashing increasingly seductive potential. It’s a quantifiable stepping stone towards their theatrical endgame, A Night at the Opera, though, unlike that record, not everything here works. More annoying still is that Queen makes you wait before hitting you with the strongest material.

The primary reason for that is sequencing. The LP is split into two distinct halves: “Side White,” mostly conceived by May, and “Side Black,” which is wilder, heavier, and, in a revelation that will surprise no one, came mostly from Mercury. As a conceptual structure, it’s a fine idea, but in practice, the more regal first side is less willing to let its freak fly fully. Songs like “Father to Son” keep the listener at arm’s length, leaving the first 20 or so minutes feeling like the band’s stuck in neutral. That said, does the second side work nearly as well if it isn’t preceded by May’s material? If those first few songs don’t take their time and restrict your access to Queen’s brand of mythic melodrama, does the latter part of their aesthetic hit you with as much force when they want it to? That’s all debatable and, with repeat listens, maybe Side White grows on me more.

That’s all to say that “Side Black” is mesmerizing from start to finish. Mercury leans hard into lyrics and atmosphere that evoke fantasy fiction, populating his stories with ogres, queens, and life-and-death battles. It’s a breathless swords-and-sandals epic in microcosm, delivered with unwavering seriousness and conviction. If you’re not in on that aspect of Queen’s sound, this album won’t hit the same way, and I don’t begrudge anyone that reaction. However, if we’re being honest, I’m not sure there are too many Queen fans out there in the world who are totally against theatricality in their rock music. It’s also worth calling out that the group’s studio experimentation was already in full swing on Queen II, with layer upon layer of vocal overdubs stacking harmonies high enough to give you vertigo before crashing back down to earth to devastating effect. It’s thrilling, but also mildly exhausting when it’s all over.

What’s missing, compared to their later material, is a consistent semblance of a pop instinct. “Seven Seas of Rhye” hints at what’s to come with that gorgeous piano figure and massive opening hook, but even that feels underdeveloped. There’s an alternate universe where that song cannibalizes what they’d later accomplish with a crossover like “Killer Queen,” but Queen wasn’t quite chasing that outcome yet. Still, the album peaked at No. 5 in the UK and was a resounding success in other European countries. It failed to chart in the US—words I will repeat at least a couple more times before this post is done.

10. The Miracle (1989)

Queen didn’t really need to make another album in 1989. They may have actually benefited from more time away from the album-release cycle. But circumstances brought them back to the studio to heal. Behind the scenes, the band was fracturing under personal turbulence. Brian May’s divorce was playing out publicly and messily in the British tabloids. Freddie Mercury revealed to the group’s other members that he had AIDS, a diagnosis he’d received in 1987 and wouldn’t disclose publicly for another two years. For them, along with Taylor and Deacon, the studio became a refuge, a space where the four of them could focus entirely on music instead of the chaos outside.

The material from those sessions may be their most complete albums of the 80s, or at least the one that packs the biggest sonic punch. Everything Queen does well is front and center, from towering arena rock to underrated club-ready digressions into synth-pop. “I Want It All” opens the record with a statement of intent, elevated by May’s enormous earworm of a guitar riff. Mercury’s vocals, particularly with hindsight, are defiant. Almost combative. He wasn’t ready to relinquish any of his frontman stature, even in the face of a terminal illness. Elsewhere, “Khashoggi’s Ship” and “Was It All Worth It” are two other solid rockers that lean into the band’s penchant for grandeur without apology.

Even with all those fine songs on the tracklist, my favorite cuts are of the synth-pop variety, territory that Queen handle much better here than on Hot Space or, save for “Radio Ga Ga,” The Works. Atop that list is the insanely catchy “The Invisible Man,” which features a bass line that’s absolutely addictive. Seriously, I walked around my condo for days after listening to the album, air-guitaring my heart out to that bass riff as it played over and over and over again in my head. The production is sleek, Mercury’s singing has considerable bite, and all of it makes the groove undeniable. “Scandal” is another pop highlight, a petty rebuke of their incessant tabloid coverage in the UK. The lyrics are acerbic, but the melody is gorgeous, leaving with a genuinely cathartic release of tension once it’s done.

How high The Miracle ranks in your personal list will largely depend on your appetite for their non-heavy rock material. There’s a thick dollop of late-80s gloss on several of these arrangements, which is definitely my jam, but may not be yours. Gated drums, prominent synths, and so on. Of its era, but I don’t think it takes away from the experience, either. The album peaked at No. 1 in the UK and No. 24 in the US, went Platinum in both markets, and provided the band with a much-needed resurgence in America. It was the first time a Queen album had cracked the Top 30 on the Billboard album chart in five years, and it’s hard to disagree with that popularity on the merits.

9. A Day at the Races (1976)

Here’s the problem with sequels. They arrive with enormous expectations and a track record to uphold. Surprising or wowing your audience is more challenging than ever, especially since the whole impetus behind making a sequel in the first place is to run a successful formula or aesthetic back and give consumers more of what they signaled they liked. Some sequels strike gold and attain a level of cultural transcendence that the original fell short of. In cinematic terms, you’ve got Aliens or Godfather Part II as prime examples. All that to say, A Day at the Races suffers from a case of sequel-itis that holds it back from greatness.

Designed as a spiritual follow-up to A Night at the Opera, right down to the Marx Brothers-inspired title and similar cover art, this record loses a lot of the spark that made its predecessor so special. There’s plenty of solid, occasionally incredible, craftsmanship embedded in this tracklist, but, in the end, it plays like a victory lap LP. A lavishly conceived and constructed one, not doubt, but a victory lap nonetheless. The band was no longer scraping together studio time or trying to prove their mettle as an A-list act. They had resources, creative control, and boundless confidence at their fingertips, which makes the actual album amusingly ironic. All the power they could want, and they sanded down the edges of what made Opera such an outstanding listening experience.

The highs remain spectacular. “Somebody to Love” is one of the greatest vocal showcases in rock history. Gospel harmonies stacked to the moon with the utmost precision and elegance. Mercury sings like he’s summoning something larger than himself, and the band clears space to let him dominate. It’s a genuine achievement. But the rest of the album lacks that same grandeur. The last remnants of Queen’s earlier hard rock and prog aggression are mostly scrubbed away in favor of a please-everyone polish. There’s no venom like “Death on Two Legs.” Instead, you have head-scratchers like “White Man,” which reaches for political commentary and lands awkwardly, as well as “Tie Your Mother Down,” a blues-tinged stomper that tries to reclaim grit and only half-succeeds. “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” may be the best of the B-tier, in part because it’s a successful blend of old and new Queen—theatrical without being exhausting.

Commercially, the album was a smash. It reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 5 in the US, going Platinum in both markets. “Somebody to Love” reached No. 2 in the UK and nearly cracked the Top 10 on the Hot 100, too. The critical response was mixed, and I think that’s right. There was a consensus that Queen had delivered a very good album, but not a great one. What’s most frustrating is that it could’ve been. The couple of highlights I’ve mentioned here are as inspired as anything you’ll find in the band’s canon. It’s too bad that nothing else has the staying power to linger in the mind’s eye. It’s a different, more complicated version of falling short of expectations. But it’s a sequel, so maybe it was playing a losing game from the start.

8. Flash Gordon (1980)

I first saw Flash Gordon the film when I was 11 or 12. I thought it was one of the strangest, most unintentionally hilarious creations I’d ever laid eyes upon. The recent 4K re-release trailer describes it as being “like a fairy tale set in a discotheque in the clouds,” which is … not wrong. If you enjoy your campy sci-fi with several additional layers of gooey, period-specific cheese, you may get a kick out of the film. Despite being an infamous box-office disaster during its initial theatrical run, it’s since earned a place as a cult classic, not dissimilar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show in its appeal (Richard O’Brien even name-checks Flash in the opening verse of my favorite song from Rocky Horror, “Science Fiction/Double Feature”). The other aspect that unites both movies? Absolutely killer soundtracks.

Before doing the listening and research for this discography ranking, I hadn’t heard anything off Flash Gordon the Queen LP in years. I hadn’t thought about it. I barely even remembered it existed until listing the band’s studio albums. And you know what? That attitude was at least mildly disrespectful. I’m not proud of it, but I have to level with you and frame this reaction honestly, because, seriously, this record is slept on by too many fans. The music rises far above the source material, turning what could’ve been a purely disposable exercise into a tracklist that’s legitimately compelling, even if you’ve never seen a minute of the film. The eponymous theme is exhilarating, with Taylor’s pounding drums creating the perfect on-ramp for Mercury’s operatic declarations. Just the opening chant— “Flash! Ah-AAAHHHH!”—is so perfect that you’ll literally walk around for the rest of your day shouting it at random strangers. I did, anyway.

But “Flash’s Theme” is far from the only memorable moment on Flash Gordon. “Battle Theme” and “The Hero” lean into the band’s gift for propulsive rhythm, with Taylor’s drums driving the energy forward while the guitars and synths swirl around him. The quieter moments work too, especially in the aching throbs of “In the Death Cell (Love Theme Reprise)” and “The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash).” In terms of the group’s trajectory, this album also showcases their growing comfort with electronic textures, though the synths and drum machines hadn’t totally replaced any of the hard rock instrumentation quite yet. Instead, they layer underneath, adding depth and atmosphere. It’s arguable that the best thing Queen did in 1980 with Flash Gordon was prove they were adaptable.

The record didn’t perform as well as The Game, which came out less than six months earlier, but it still hit Gold status on both sides of the Atlantic. At the time, much like the parent film, the soundtrack was treated more as a curiosity than a proper Queen release, which, as my snooty attitude demonstrated, is the wrong way to conceptualize its legacy. Queen didn’t invent the synth-first, crossover-ready film score (Vangelis and Tangerine Dream got there first), but it’s fascinating to consider what Queen would’ve done had they been given more opportunities like this one. This is the sound of a band testing new waters, seeing what sticks. Some of it does. Some of it doesn’t. But the willingness to experiment is what keeps their catalog from stagnating.

7. Jazz (1978)

In their 1979 review of Jazz, Rolling Stone called Queen “fascist.”

Not authoritarian. Not problematic. Fascist.

That Dave Marsh write-up was so over-the-top that it became its own artifact, an overreaction that, to my eye, as someone who wasn’t around at the time, is an apt snapshot of the critical climate that greeted Jazz when it dropped. Here’s Marsh wrestling with what’s really fueling his discomfort with the record:

“Anyway, it shouldn’t be surprising that Queen calls its album “jazz.” The guiding principle of these arrogant brats seems to be that anything Freddie & Company want, Freddie & Company get. What’s most disconcerting about their arrogance is that it’s so unfounded: Led Zeppelin may be as ruthless as medieval aristocrats, but at least Jimmy Page has an original electronic approach that earns his band some of its elitist notions. The only thing Queen does better than anyone else is express contempt.”

Like, sure, I guess, but the fact that Queen had larger, occasionally sprawling notions of what their music could be, instead of staying in their ever-widening lane stylistically, shouldn’t be mistaken for contempt. Their previous album, the excellent News of the World, stripped back the pomp and circumstance and built razor-sharp arrangements on pure muscle. Here, they return to the often beautiful chaos that characterized most of their 1970s output. It’s a pastiche of pop, rock, early metal, and Broadway, a cocktail that made them persona non grata with critics. But can you really take the album’s title and implied mission statement at face value? I tend to think the group knew exactly what buttons they were pushing, particularly in their detractors. I admire that middle-fingers-to-the-sky energy, as it’s the most rock and roll thing you can do, actually.

That’s not to say that Jazz is altogether straightforward as an album. There are some genuinely strange decisions on this record, maybe more so than anything they’d done up to this point in their career. “Bicycle Race” and “Fat Bottomed Girls,” two of the bigger hits, still have this ability to make you sit up and go, “What did they just do?” The former starts like a nursery rhyme, simple, almost childish, and morphs into a barreling rocker with a full head of steam (there’s an absolutely insane May guitar run late in the song that’s one of my favorite hair-raising moments in their catalog). The shift happens so fast you barely register it. The latter is an equally silly excursion into the pleasures derived from, well, a certain kind of woman. Both tracks lean hard into absurdity, daring you to (and someone like Marash did) take them seriously. In 1978, that felt subversive. The jokes landed because they were inappropriate. Now, it’s all kind of quaint.

The deep cuts have aged better than those singles. “Let Me Entertain You” is sly camp built on staccato guitar stabs and Mercury’s voice sliding between menace and seductive invitation. “Dead on Time” is a manic jumble of jagged edges and pinballing rhythm that threatens to lodge itself in your skull for days. As far as Jazz’s most enduring song goes, I’ve really tried to love “Don’t Stop Me Now” the way the rest of the world does, but it won’t stick. The song has become one of our most enduring pop culture standbys, showing up in film trailers and wedding playlists with metronomic regularity. It’s catchy, sure, but I can’t etch its name onto Queen’s Mount Rushmore of great songs. It’s too frictionless, too eager to please. The same more or less goes for the rest of the LP.

6. The Game (1980)

The Game is a record that’s split clean down the middle. The first half gave Queen their first No. 1 album in the US, nearly a decade after their self-titled debut got them noticed by industry tastemakers. The second half delivers some of the worst filler they ever padded a tracklist with.

Maybe that’s coming on a bit strong or harsh, but I want to be clear: the first five songs earn this album its ranking on my list. It features some of the group’s catchiest, most enjoyable pop fare. Had the rest of the LP been of the same quality, there’s no doubt in my mind that casual and die-hard fans alike would be discussing The Game as the best Queen album of all time. You go through the first 15 or so minutes, and it honestly plays like a greatest hits compilation. Opener “Play the Game” is a tender ballad that’s among the most earnest hits they ever produced. Mercury’s voice, compared to his antic on Jazz and A Day at the Races, is restrained in the best possible way. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is the singer’s shameless Elvis impersonation, written in about “five or ten minutes” while taking a bath in a Munich hotel. It’s pure charm, a goofy rockabilly throwback that works because it never winks at the camera.

Elsewhere in that Side One stretch, “Dragon Attack” and “Need Your Loving Tonight” are quietly two of the best arena-sized rock songs of the decade. “Dragon Attack” in particular deserves more attention, with Deacon’s relentless, creeping bass line that creates an incredible rumbling pulse throughout the track. May’s guitar is coiled tight, playing off the bass instead of dominating it. It’s an example of the band being so locked in that Mercury, who could be called upon to save tracks that flounder instrumentally, barely has to do anything. His voice becomes another texture in the groove. Then you have the ubiquitous “Another One Bites the Dust,” which became their best-selling single in the US, reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100 and staying there for three weeks. It’s sleeker and funkier than anything Queen had released previously, paving the way for disco and dance experimentation in the years that followed.

But alas, we’re then met with the second half, where the record loses all momentum. “Rock It (Prime Jive)” and “Coming Soon” are glossy but forgettable, the kind of filler that wouldn’t have made it onto their LPs from their peak 70s period. Worse is “Don’t Try Suicide,” a track so dissonant between arrangement and subject matter, so tone-deaf in its execution, that it should’ve stayed on the cutting room floor. It wasn’t good then, and it plays even worse now. Best to block it from your mind. The closer, “Save Me,” does its best to answer the eponymous cry for help, but as pleasant as it is in some spots, it comes across as more strained than “Play the Game.” All that said, even if the second half sags under the weight of mediocrity, The Game packs quite a pop-rock punch when it wants to.

5. Made in Heaven (1995)

After Mercury’s death in 1991, the surviving members of Queen were faced with a question: What do we do now?

The answer arrived in stages. First, the massive Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in April 1992, which raised awareness and funds for AIDS research. Then Brian May’s solo album, Back to the Light, was released later that year. Eventually, and I mean several years after Mercury’s passing, they turned their attention to the vault and turned leftovers and half-done tracks into Made in Heaven, a surprisingly poignant and emotional eulogy to one of music’s most unique talents. Though they’ve since toured extensively with other singers at the helm, they’ve thankfully never released a true full-length follow-up to this record. In a sense, it helps Mercury’s legacy with the band remain intact.

By all accounts, the vocals you hear on Heaven weren’t altered significantly during the recording process. The surviving members fleshed out the arrangements, adding instrumentation and production, but clearly wanted to let Mercury’s final contributions to Queen’s backlog of unreleased music speak for themselves. Because of this, the LP’s best moments feel like gifts from beyond the grave. “I Was Born to Love You” is a lush, sweeping ballad that showcases Mercury at his most tender. “Heaven for Everyone” is gentle and hopeful, with a melody that’s as devastating as it is straightforward. “Too Much Love Will Kill You” is a raw confessional, as if the singer were tying up loose ends before leaving us. May’s guitar practically weeps underneath the vocal, walking right up to the overacting line without stepping over it.

“Mother Love” may be the most moving moment of all. It was supposedly the last song Mercury ever worked on. He didn’t have the strength to finish it and died not long after that session wrapped. May ended up stepping in and completing the vocal, and when that transition happened as I was listening, I teared up. It’s a heartbreaking moment not for what you hear, but for what (or who) you don’t. The only major miss on the album is the closing instrumental jam session, a 22-minute coda that still doesn’t land quite right. If it’s supposed to be a tribute to Mercury, why close in that fashion? Why include it at all? For some, I suspect it undoes much of the goodwill this posthumous eulogy, so lovingly executed to that point, built up.

Maybe it rubs me the wrong way because of the emotional weight the project carries. Made in Heaven closes Queen’s discography with more grace than anyone could’ve predicted, helping the record hit No. 1 in the UK. It may not be their best work or even their most musically adroit, but it’s undeniably powerful as a loving tribute. It gives everyone—the band, along with multiple generations of fans—the space to grieve and open their hearts at the altar of a legitimate music icon.

4. Sheer Heart Attack (1974)

This, my friends, is the first great Queen record.

On Sheer Heart Attack, everything snapped into place for the band. The production and performances got much tighter and sharper, moving away from the meandering style of their first two studio albums. For the first time in their history, Queen also began to sound like four people pulling in the same direction rather than competing for the same shared space. Even the tracklist’s sequencing feels intentional rather than haphazard on first listen.

What’s remarkable is how much catchier their songs became without sacrificing muscle. The opener, “Brighton Rock,” is a microcosm of that shift, barreling forward before detouring into whirlwind guitar solos that add to the momentum with each thrilling bar. “Stone Cold Crazy” opens with an alarm shriek, an exquisitely appropriate warning before it detonates into a ball of proto-thrash fury. It’s arguably the most metal song Queen ever recorded, so much so that when Metallica covered it, they didn’t have to change much. More than half a century later, it still sounds dangerous, like a car swerving too close to the edge of the PCH going 100 miles per hour. “Now I’m Here” lands one of the most explosive bridge payoffs in the group’s catalog. The way May’s guitar and Taylor’s tom rolls erupt out of the first verse feels like a trapdoor opening under your feet. You don’t hear it coming before it pushes you into freefall.

Sheer Heart Attack is a study in Queen’s chemistry, becoming an undeniable part of their overall appeal. Taylor’s drumming, punchier and lighter on their feet at once, is positively symbiotic with Deacon’s bass lines, giving the arrangements the structural integrity they’d previously lacked. Everything is more deliberate, carefully curating moments rather than trying to catch a rainstorm in a teacup. But, more than the beefed-up instrumentation, the real star of the show is Mercury, who, for the first time, asserted himself as the group’s gravitational center. The primary reason for consumers to buy their records. Not just a singer, but a frontman with a sense of character and narrative. You can hear the difference from Queen II to Sheer Heart Attack on cuts like “Lily of the Valley” and “In the Lap of the Gods,” testaments to how incredible a studio performer he was, with unparalleled range and precision.

No one song made Mercury’s reputation quite like “Killer Queen,” which is the pivot point on which their career truly rests. That song changed everything for them. Mercury stomps through the glam-adjacent camp anthem with all the confidence and bite of a singer who realizes mid-verse that he’s evolved into this indefatiguable force of nature. The band recognizes it too, clearing space and letting him dominate the frame. The harpsichord, the falsetto, the multi-tracked harmonies: all of it designed to serve and augment his performance, not compete with it on any level. The resulting commercial breakthrough was immediate. The album peaked at No. 2 in the UK and No. 12 in the US, and “Killer Queen” as a single did the same in both countries. Because it was the band’s first certifiable international success, critics finally took notice, with NME praising their newfound focus and Rolling Stone calling it “a remarkable debut” (because of course they would make that gaffe).

From that point on, Queen wasn’t just talented. They were the next big thing.

3. Innuendo (1991)

Freddie Mercury recorded Innuendo while he was dying. Mercury’s AIDS diagnosis wasn’t public knowledge during the studio sessions, but the band knew. They also knew, deep down, that this was their last shot at finishing a full-length project while he was still alive. That sense of urgency is palpable from the first note to the last, and it’s a major reason why it’s aged so gracefully in Queen’s discography. The four men clearly wanted to go out on a high note, and they more than succeeded. Under normal circumstances, this LP would’ve been hailed as their strongest in many years. Maybe since the mid-70s. In the context of how and when it was made, the achievement is nothing short of head-spinning.

The album opens with the title track, a six-and-a-half-minute epic that builds from Spanish guitar to speaker-shaking bombast. It’s one of Queen’s more ambitious songs, which is saying a lot, funneling flamenco, prog rock, and classical influences into a single towering statement. Mercury sings like a man possessed with fierce defiance, categorically refusing to go quietly into the good night. The rest of the album’s hard rock moments hit with renewed force after that. “Headlong” is an underrated early-90s rock gem, one that barrels forward with reckless abandon, featuring a May guitar riff that carries all the power of a runaway freight train. “The Hitman” is darker and meaner, making it clear the band wasn’t trying to coast on nostalgia alone. That disposition ensures the odder adult contemporary moments land, too. “I’m Going Slightly Mad” is playful and strange, with Mercury singing about losing his mind with a lightness that feels almost surreal given the context, whereas “Don’t Try So Hard” is tender, introspective, and, at times, almost still.

I’m torn between the two best tracks, earning the following distinction, but I have to go with my gut and anoint “The Show Must Go On” as the emotional centerpiece of the album. Mercury was reportedly so weak during the recording sessions that the band wasn’t sure he’d be able to finish his vocal. May told him they could scrap it. Mercury reportedly downed a vodka, walked into the booth, and nailed it in one take. The performance is staggering in a vacuum, but knowing that, knowing how much pain he was in and how much conviction he still had in him, it’s enough to bring you to tears. I say that, but the proper tearjerking farewell to his fans is the gorgeous “These Are the Days of Our Lives.” The music video, with a fragile, ghostly Mercury, only heightens its haunting nature. When he whispers, “I still love you,” I get chills every time.

Innuendo reached No. 1 in the UK and 12 other countries upon its February 1991 release. Mercury died nine months later. The timeline feels almost too cruel to process, even now, 35 years and change later, as I write this. What I will say is that, beyond the tragic circumstances, the album more than holds up on pure craft. Strip away everything you know about how it was made, and you still have a collection of songs that showcase Queen at full creative force, writing with economy, drama, and complete conviction. Put the context back in, and it becomes something else entirely. It’s not a death album, but rather a celebration of tenacity and, in many ways, life itself, recorded by a man running out of time and who refused to waste a second of it.

2. A Night at the Opera (1975)

I’ve already gone long on this album, so I’ll defer to my track-by-track thoughts from that article, which still hold. Instead, I want to position this LP correctly in Queen’s historical arc.

In 1975, they literally bet the farm on A Night at the Opera working. Everything, from its financial sustainability to its creative viability as a rock act, rode on its success. It also cost over £40,000 to record, then the most expensive rock album ever made. Mercury and the production team spent days perfecting the operatic section of “Bohemian Rhapsody” alone, layering vocal takes until the tape literally became transparent from overuse. Brian May recorded guitar harmonies by overdubbing his Red Special through different amps in different rooms to create orchestral depth without actual strings. Though the process was, by all accounts, a perfectionist struggle, the result was a maximalist masterpiece. It’s an unapologetically ornate, genre-hopping whirlwind, where nearly every idea gets pushed to its extreme. Brilliant and indulgent in equal measure, if not the best Queen album, it’s certainly the most Queen album.

Here’s how I summed the record up in my original review:

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.

If you’re looking for daring, look no further.

1. News of the World (1977)

News of the World is an incredible rock album, but not for the reasons many people might think.

You could point to the opening two tracks, which were frequently played back-to-back as a mini-suite of sorts, as being even more widely popular and career-defining than “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Think about how many venues, and in how many different contexts, you’ve heard “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” rattling through a set of speakers. When I was a wedding DJ, I once played it as the bride and groom were walking down the aisle, and you know what? Their guests absolutely ate it up. So there’s that, but those two songs are now so ubiquitous that hearing them clean feels almost impossible. They’ve been swallowed and regurgitated by professional and amateur sports so often that I can’t hear them as jock jams now, as good as they are. But push past that saturation, and the rest of the album opens up beautifully.

The middle stretch of News of the World is undoubtedly one of the strongest runs in their entire catalog. “Sheer Heart Attack” (the song) is raw and frantic, proof Queen could still run with (or, at worst, alongside) the nascent alt-rock and punk movements that were gaining increasing ground with rock fans in the US and the UK. It’s faster and meaner than anything they’d committed to tape before. On the other end of the spectrum, you have “Spread Your Wings,” a vehicle that gives Mercury room to deliver one of his most heartfelt performances ever, his vocals framed by these cavernous guitar textures from May. That combination makes the song feel like it’s happening in some gothic cathedral.

The signposts for Queen’s next phase also rear their heads at this point. “Fight From the Inside” and “Get Down, Make Love” flirt with funk, disco, and more overt sexuality, with the latter smashing Mercury’s winking growl against a grinding riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Prince record (now that’s a collaboration we should’ve gotten while all parties were still alive). The deeper cuts, like the bossa nova offshoot “Who Needs You” and the artful closer “It’s Late,” underscore how consistent Queen’s mid-to-late-70s material had become. Everything you hear on this album is the product of momentum building and not cheaply manufactured thrills. Placed in its historical moment, when excess was under fire and club acts were recapturing rock’s essence, it’s a fascinating response from an arena-sized act. They stripped things back without losing identity by focusing their ambition.

Up and down Queen’s tracklists from 1974 to 1977, you’d be hard-pressed to find more than half a dozen clunkers. Sheer Heart Attack is the starting point, A Night at the Opera is the envelope-pusher, and A Day at the Races is what happens when you hit the glass ceiling of overrefinement. To go from that point to a collection of songs this razor-sharp cements News of the World as the most staggering milestone in Queen’s catalog.

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What’s your favorite Queen song or album? Sound off in the comments.