Queen is one most popular bands of all time. From their numerous best-selling songs and albums to movies about Freddie Mercury and the band, Queen has created an extremely long-lasting legacy. While they have released a wide array of songs and albums, the first thing that comes to mind for Queen is their breakthrough smash hit “Bohemian Rhapsody.” So, how did a group of four guys become a world-renowned rock band? It starts in London, England in 1970.

The band was created by Freddie Mercury (lead vocals and piano), Brian May (guitar and vocals), Roger Taylor (drums and vocals), and John Deacon (bass). The band formed out of a separate band, “Smile,” in which May and Taylor played before Mercury joined in 1970 and suggested the name change to “Queen.” Queen released their first album, self-titled, in 1973 but didn’t hit the UK charts until their second album, Queen II, released in 1974. Two more albums brought them success outside of England and around the world over the next year: Sheer Heart Attack and  A Night at the Opera. Specifically, smash hit “Bohemian Rhapsody” was featured on A Night at the Opera which propelled Queen even further in the spotlight. This song claimed the number one spot on the UK billboard for nine weeks. In 1978, this blog’s feature album Jazz was released! (Wikipedia)

With the additional releases of News of the World, featuring “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions,” Queen had become one of the largest “stadium rock bands” in the world selling out arenas for massive concerts. Their pinnacle performance came at the 1985 Live Aid concert. This concert and performance are notably featured in the recently released 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody. Unfortunately, Freddie Mercury died due to aids complications in 1991 which led to varying personnel changes in the band with new vocalists as they continue to play and tour under the name “Queen +.” Queen has been labeled as one of the world’s best-selling rock bands with record sales estimates between 170-300 million and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. (Wikipedia)

This week’s featured album is Jazz, a popular Queen album. On this album, the name seemingly stems from the song “More Of That Jazz” which is the last song on the album, but one of the less popular songs over time. This song, contrary to what the name may suggest, does not at all feature jazz. It’s the standard Queen rock song with thick vocals and guitar. However, this song pulls in many elements from the other songs in the album, with some very abrupt style changes towards the end, to wrap up the album in one song. The more prominent songs from the album include “Don’t Stop Me Now” (with over 1 BILLION Spotify streams!), “Bicycle Race”, and (of course) “Fat Bottomed Girls.” A fun fact that I didn’t learn until writing this passion blog is that “Fat Bottomed Girls” and “Bicycle Race” “were released together on a double A-sided single, and both songs refer to each other. Near the end of “Fat Bottomed Girls”, the song references “Bicycle Race“, with Mercury shouting, “Get on your bikes and ride!” “Bicycle Race” reciprocates with the lyric “fat bottomed girls, they’ll be riding today”” (Wikipedia).

Now go explore Jazz and Queen’s numerous other albums! Specifically, listen to music that you haven’t hear of before and try something new!