Rock review

Queen in 1976. From left: Freddie Mercury,
Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.
“I thought up the name 
Queen… it’s just a name, 
but it’s very regal, and it 
sounds splendid. It’s a strong 
name, very universal and 
immediate.”
Freddie Mercury

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ROCK REVIEW
11
something successful happening to us. 
We were penniless, you know. Just like 
another struggling rock ’n’ roll band. All 
sitting around in London bedsits, just like 
the rest.’
Sheer Heart Attack proved to be a 
big success all over Europe, and even 
managed to go gold in the United States 
– a sure sign that Queen was a band to be 
watched. Speaking about the album, John 
Deacon commented, ‘I have the feeling 
that the whole thing is getting a bit more 
professional all round. We are, after 
all, on our third album. I’ve got more 
confidence in the group now than ever 
before. I was possibly the one person who 
could look at it from the outside because 
I was the fourth person to join the band. 
I knew there was something there but I 
wasn’t so convinced of it. Till possibly 
this album.’
Mercury expanded on this after 
harsher critics described the album 
as nothing more than a collection of 
singles, in spite of it generally being seen 
as a cohesive long-player with a wide 
variety of musical genres, including 
ballads, ragtime and heavy metal: ‘Not 
a collection of singles, dear – although 
we might draw another one off later for a 
single. I’m not absolutely sure about that, 
though. No, not all the numbers last for 
ages. There were just so many songs we 
wanted to do. And it makes a change to 
have short numbers. It’s so varied that we 
were able to go to extremes. I only had 
about two weeks to write my songs so 
we’ve been working fucking hard.’
It was at this point that Queen started 
to make a name for themselves with their 
onstage theatrics, in particular those of 
front man Freddie Mercury, who had 
fast become a remarkable entertainer – 
dressing in satin, sequins and leaping all 
over the place.
Following the dismissal of Norman 
Sheffield, the follow-up to Sheer Heart 
Attack arrived a year later under new 
management. The opening track of A 
Night at the Opera, Death On Two Legs, 
proved to be a reference to the whole 
sordid affair, and Mercury later stated, 
‘As far as Queen are concerned our old 
management is deceased. They cease to 
exist in any capacity with us whatsoever. 
One leaves them behind like one leaves 
excreta. We feel so relieved!’ Queen’s new 
manager was John Reid, who also handled 
Elton John’s career at the time – an artist 
that the band later collaborated with.
Considered by many to be the band’s 
strongest ever outing, A Night at the 
Opera featured what is also widely 
considered to be the group’s greatest ever