Queen 70's Album Poll

Although popular opinion has A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races as the sister albums, I think Sheer Heart Attack bears so many of the same trademarks (i.e. songs, sequencing, production, etc.) that the only reason it's not considered part of a trifecta is due to the title and cover not being thematically linked.

Sheer Heart Attack. This was the album that made me love Queen, and features pretty much everything do at their best. Queen II is also fucking cool, but I don't think they'd *quite* got the production part of it down (and also weren't yet writing pop hooks w/the mastery of "Killer Queen"). And of course Night at the Opera features the song that made them legendary, so...

Night at the Opera bc fuckin prophet's song brah

"...the only reason (SHA is) not considered part of a trifecta is due to the title and cover not being thematically linked."

And also that it's much better than and doesn't sound much like those other records.

Not sure which record you're listening to if you don't think it sounds "much" like those other records.

The last prog metal Queen album is what I'm listening too. It's recognizably the same band, but the vocals and guitar change into Klassic Kween (which I don't love anymore more the way I did when I was 8) on the Marx Brothers records.

The hodgepodge of genres on SHA, not to mention how it's seamlessly sequenced into a sonic tapestry meant to reflect the stylistic breadth of the band (shouldn't work but does!) much more closely mirrors the the next two records than it does the more prog tendencies (side two suite, etc.) of the previous one. They also perfected the art of the "pop" single on SHA and would later follow similar suit on ANATO and ADATR, whereas they were still working that out on Queen II. Thus, it feels more in line thematically and sonically with the two records that follow it. Opinions...

Prophet's Song, '39, Love of my Life, and the obvious singles on ANATO really make me think it should win, but Lazy On a Sunday Afternoon, Seaside Rendezvous, and Good Company freakin' annoy the living crap out of me everytime they come on. Maybe one day I'll take my four favorites from ADATR and make a mashup über-record called "A Race to the Opera" or something and see how it flows.

I need to revisit Sheer Heart Attack and News of the World though.

Does anyone else agree that every album that Queen made through to News of the World is better than any of their subsequent albums? The debut's slightly weird as it's understated compared to what came later, but I still think it's more solid than anything after 1977.

Absolutely, it's the main reason I made this a "70's" poll. I'm sure there's a decent consensus here that the 80's records are a relative afterthought in terms of quality, and with that considered, I think an 80's/90's poll of Queen records might be even more interesting than this one in terms of which record might win out.

I would extend that run through Jazz but I don't know the 80s records as well - they could still write a fucking killer single in the 80s though

I never enjoyed Jazz very much - for me, the better later records (The Game and Innuendo are my favourites from post-1978) challenging it.

the game rules, i'd put it up against most of these

man Jazz has so many unimpeachable jams

Mustapha, Dead on Time, Dreamer's Ball, Leaving Home Ain't Easy (A+++ ballad), Don't Stop Me Now, More of That Jazz...weirdly sequenced album, most of those are from side 2, but I really think it stands next to the best

Sheer heart attack, obv

My understanding is that they moved to going into the studio without much written material after NotW, which was the last Queen album I ever purchased (purchased it new at the end of my childhood Queen obsession).

As much as I'd love to vote for one of the other albums listed here, when push comes to shove it has to be Sheer Heart Attack for me. I've always felt that Sheer Heart Attack had more in common with A Night At The Opera than A Day At The Races did.

I'd rank Queen's 1980-1991 albums like this:

The Works > Innuendo > The Miracle > The Game > A Kind Of Magic > Hot Space.

Quenn II

lol

"As much as I'd love to vote for one of the other albums listed here, when push comes to shove it has to be Sheer Heart Attack for me. I've always felt that Sheer Heart Attack had more in common with A Night At The Opera than A Day At The Races did."

This is true, too.

While I love Queen II and can understand why it has such a cult following, it definitely has its flaws. I've always felt that 'The Loser In The End' was completely out of place on the record, and there's one or two production decisions that I'm not so keen on: the transition from 'The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke' into 'Nevermore' may have been more effective if the piano sound didn't change so blatantly - you can tell where the edit point is, and it could have felt a little more seamless. The segues on Sheer Heart Attack: 'Tenement Funster' into 'Flick Of The Wrist' into 'Lily Of The Valley', are so fucking masterful that it makes me feel disappointed in a way that they near enough stopped doing segues like that after A Night At The Opera. While I love how completely rammed with detail Queen II is, I guess it can also be accused of sounding a little on the murky side sonically. I think with Sheer Heart Attack, they finally found a way of having a big productions on their records that sounded crisp and clear. For me, A Day At The Races is the transitional album between "early Queen" and "middle period Queen"*. On the follow-up album News Of The World, not only were the segues that characterised Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack and A Night At The Opera missing, but they'd also toned down the production a great deal and it seemed like they weren't too fussed about sequencing the tracks so the album felt like a "whole" rather than a "collection of songs" anymore. I've always thought that the track order on News Of The World was a bit bizarre.

*("early period Queen" = Queen to A Night At The Opera, "middle period Queen" = News Of The World to Hot Space (with A Day At The Races being a transition between the two), "late period Queen" = The Works to Innuendo, with Made In Heaven being a bit of a P.S.)

oh wait, when i said the game i meant the works

goddammit i always do that

I don't even know if I can vote

II is so great, but I heard it way late -- the ones I knew when I was a kid, the ones I can sing most of the songs on from memory are News of the World and Jazz and to a lesser extent Sheer Heart Attack and A Day at the Races -- the ones that were news to me & my grade school friends, the ones we were processing as they became available, they have that I-was-there glow for me. It was kind of...like, they were huge, you knew they were huge, but they weren't being pushed/covered/presented like a Here's A Contender For Best Band In the World candidate -- this was southern California in the late seventies/early 80s, the Times was Hilburn and Hilburn was into Springsteen/Elvis Costello/the LA Scene. And U fucking 2. But in my 6th grade classroom, everybody knew all the songs on those two records. It wasn't even about "We Are the Champions," they were huge complete records with deep cuts way into their second sides, records that still sound to me like some of the very best of their age. So there was this hard-to-process disparity between lukewarm coverage and these amazing tunes, which'd be an easier disparity to navigate within a couple of years but kept Queen from feeling as big as they were, to my circle of music-obsessed 12-year-old friends.

But then as a grownup I got II and fuckin', goddamn that is an album and a half

I can't vote

Always loved Queen as a kid after discovering them via Mighty Ducks soundtrack then making tape dubs from my folks' records.

Voted for the debut. "Keep Yourself Alive". That GUITAR SOLO MY GOD.

Sheer Heart Attack, with A Night at the Opera and Queen II close behind.

Agree that 'Loser in the End' is out of place on Queen II. It's a showpiece for Roger, and there's barely a song beneath all the percussion & noise (not that I normally have a problem with percussion & noise). Whereas what might be seen as the weaker moments on Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera ('Good Company' comes to mind) are saved by the sequencing/segues and the feel of those albums as a whole. And yes, some of those segues are masterful. My personal favourite is the leap from 'Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon' into 'I'm in Love with My Car'.

The debut and A Day at the Races are solid albums too. I find News of the World and Jazz patchy, although the latter has some killer tracks. I take my hat off to them for stripping everything back on News of the World, but aside from 'It's Late' (maybe), there aren't any tracks on it that I feel compelled to revisit.

Just revisited Sheer Heart Attack. Love it, but it's still no II. The first half just doesn't seem to have that flow and epic open that II does with Father to Son and unlike others here, I really like Loser in the End and don't think it's very out of place at all.

Loser in the End works better than most Roger songs, largely because the echo he's playing to prevents him from his tendency to drag the tempo down -- he's always better when a machine or Freddie's piano are there to keep him in time.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Really hard to choose between Sheer Heart Attack and Night at the Opera... SHA is the easy answer, but, I fear... too easy.

track for track I had to go with News of the World in the end, which surprised me -- if I made a POX for Queen, it wouldn't be News-heavy, but as an album that record is quality jam after quality jam. Their best play-both-sides album next to II.

Queen II hands down

Doom Queen :

Liar
Great King Rat
Son and Daughter
Ogre Battle
The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke
March of the Black Queen
Brighton Rock
Tenement Funster
Flick of the Wrist
Death On Two Legs
Sweet Lady
The Prophet's Song
White Man

Voted for the debut in the end, just because it's underrated imo. The drop-off in quality between Night At The Opera and Day At The Races is quite startling, in retrospect.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Yay!

It's great to see the debut getting some love, although I think both A Day At The Races and Jazz are superior to News Of The World.

A Day At The Races got zero votes?! On what planet is News Of The World a better record?

I can go along with these results - I'd swap II and Sheer Heart Attack over but those are the two consistently great Queen albums for me. I like Night at the Opera too but the three music hall songs let it down. Not a fan of Day at the Races or Jazz at all.