There are only two Queen albums in the running for their best: Queen II or Night at the Opera. It's a terrific album. When you listen to Queen II and then listen to what they did after Day at the Races, you hear the sound of a distracted band not pushing themselves anymore.
Side Black was my go to nearly every day after school when this was released.A masterpiece of musical mastery.The White Side is pretty cool,too.
For me,Sheer Heart Attack is THE ONE..They lost it for me with News Of The World,which I thought was their first really flawed effort.
Sheer Heart Attack is easily as good as both of those. Including that, I agree these are the best Queen albums. I think they stopped pushing themselves after The Game, at least on records. They became more of a singles band then, a great one though, as well as still being a phenomenal live band.
Picked up in ‘77 as an 11- yr old...still look forward to putting on the table 40+ years later. Genius. (and the band was good, too...) Couldn’t rank Queen 2-5 myself, other than they’re my favorite group of Queens.
Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue summed it up best for his love of Queen II: "It'll knock your d#$k in the dirt."
It's my favorite Queen album and that's saying a lot because all of those early albums are brilliant.
Actually, it's an observation that was also made by Mack, the late David Richards and even Roy Thomas Baker.
Interesting. I've never thought of Queen that way, though it's obvious on some of their 80s material that they aren't united over the material. Do you have any quotes from these or know when they consider that to start?
Baker noticed it started happening as early the 'Jazz' sessions, Mack talks about it in a documentary in which he says something like, some days they would work together, then one would go skiing so another would go f**k this I'm off to Bali and only one would show up! I can't remember where I read David Richards comments, I'll try and find it.
This album was missing from my record collection until last week - found a decent looking US press for $5.95 and could not pass it up. Cleaned it yesterday and gave it a spin. WOW. How did I neglect this album for all these years??? The B side is crazy good. Sound quality leaves a lot to be desired but I think the music shines through and I can ignore the maxed out levels and murky quality. (I also think the Procession intro sounds really good on my copy - very "real and transparent" - like a guitar is in the room - then the album starts...) Very glad I picked this one up! Side note as a younger person I HATED this album (except for "Ogre Battle") - I had the "Crown Jewels" CD boxset in my collection for years and didn't care for the album at all when I first got the box. I thought it was complete rubbish at the time. Almost 15 years later and my taste has changed drastically.
Purchased my copy way back in 1975 and have still got it. I was 14 then and how I used to love listening to it on my little record player ! Must dig it out for a spin very soon.
