Queen
A Night At The Opera

THE REVIEW

I am about to write a review of an album that has been discussed over and over and will surely say nothing new, but since I adore this album, I can't help but review it. "A Night at the Opera," the fourth album by Queen, dated 1975, is the album that consecrated the band in the world, the album that freed them from an economic crisis due to a contract with the Sheffield brothers, which stipulated that the band would not receive any monetary recognition for their music.

In this album, Queen combines different styles, they throw in everything they have experienced, and it is perhaps the album that represents them the most. The album starts with "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...).” A slightly unsettling piano flows into a goosebumps-inducing electric guitar solo, and Freddie's voice comes in with one of the most acidic and direct lyrics in Queen's history. "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" is an expedient to take a breath and smile at the song’s comedy. "I'm in Love with My Car" is a love declaration by Roger Taylor, the band's drummer, to cars, a tribute to the automotive world he has always been passionate about. The only lyrical contribution from bassist John Deacon comes with "You're My Best Friend," a sweet and delightful love song dedicated to his wife. It's time for a beautiful folk ballad, signed by Brian May, who with his guitar paints a scene projected into the future but with references to the past, the distant '39 in which the Second World War was taking place, taking away a myriad of poor soldiers. "Sweet Lady" is, in my opinion, the worst song on the album: it’s a modest hard rock piece, which feels a bit like filler. "Seaside Rendezvous" echoes Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon with its fun - comic melody.

Side B is honored by the presence of a masterpiece, the real highlight of the album, a hard rock gem with multiple changes in tempo and mood, "The Prophet's Song," the prophet's song, whose lyrics speak of the Apocalypse experienced by people with terror. This masterpiece is followed by "Love of My Life," the album’s second love song, this time written by Freddie Mercury: it will become one of the band’s most appreciated pieces around the world, especially in South America. "Good Company" is impressive and melodious, a fun dixieland in which Brian May embodies a bum who has lost wife and kids, money, and home. In number 11 on the tracklist is a piece that needs no introduction, a masterpiece par excellence, considered by many as the best rock song of all time (although wrongly in my opinion - there are better ones), a marvel full of changes in tempo, the "Bohemian Rhapsody" which became famous for the choruses in the middle of the song and Freddie Mercury's suffering "Mama." I will not describe the song by outlining its structure: it is useless. What I consider important is the subjective aspect: this goosebumps-inducing piece is one of Queen's best, if not the best for compositional beauty, a piece that gives you goosebumps from the first to the last note, from the first to the last verse. Simply sublime! We can relax at the end of the album with an arrangement by the band of the English national anthem, "God Save the Queen."

"A Night at the Opera" is a pompous record, full of epicness, and worthy of the name Queen, royal and full of excesses. "A Night at the Opera" represents excess, artistic perfection, the peak moment of a band that put their entire soul into it. A Night at the Opera = Queen.