Hey, I love Albums, So I Started Writing About Them
A Night At The Opera – Album Review
Context
Considered a masterpiece and containing Bohemian Rhapsody in the track list. Queen’s fourth studio album is highly regarded as one of the best, if not The Best of their discography. But is it the shit as they say? I’m gonna give this album my very own breakdown treatment. If you want to know the method before reading this, go to “The Method” in the menu. Let’s move on.
Queen was a weird band that used a lot of piano, varied vocals from their members for unique choirs and they experimented like there was no tomorrow. So for every Queen album expect the unexpected. There will be: At least more than one hit song, good and bad weird shit and songs from different band members; be it just the writing or both writing and vocals. “A Night At The Opera” is their fourth album, so they were already on to their signature style, different from their first and second album, in which they were still looking for it.
Rating Theme: Car related stuff in homage to “I’m In Love With My Car”
A Night At The Opera: Intro Song
Every great album needs a great intro song. On this case we got “Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…)”. Is it a good song? It’s ridiculously good. Is it a good intro song? It does have the build up of a great intro, the piano, the drama, the energy, the mood. It all fits in the category of an Intro Song pretty well. I think it’s fair to say it’s a more than decent first song. This album is quite the Drama Queen with its extravagant melodies, themes and such, so “Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…)” does its job. I give it:
Grade: 4/5 Machines of a Dream
A Night At The Opera: Variation Of Songs
We have a 12-song-track-list here.
Side One
Starting with two Mercury songs we have the aforementioned “Death on Two Legs” and the second, “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon”. Both are very different from each other. The first one being more fast paced, heavy and dramatic. And the other being more fun, delightful and slower paced.
Next we get Roger Taylor’s car-fetish tune: “I’m in Love with My Car”. This is a pretty rocking song, like most of Taylor’s are, the same way it’s pretty weird and fun, employing car noises along with the instruments and having some really over dramatic delivery for its lyrics, making it funny since he’s just talking about a car.
Following along we get John Deacon’s track: “You’re My Best Friend”. Another piano heavy track with a more melodic, radio friendly ring to it. Here the the back vocals really shine, in my opinion.
Oh boy, next we get some double trouble with two bangers from Brian May: “’39” and “Sweet Lady”. The first has some really heart feeling melody, it’s mostly acoustic driven and up beat, even though it makes you feel nostalgic for days of past (at least for me). “Sweet Lady” is the second rocking track on the album after Taylor’s car song.
To finish the first side we get another Mercury cool track: “Seaside Rendezvous”. Fabulous piano strikes again in a very classic Mercury song. This one is very similar to “Lazying on a Sunny Afternoon” but it is so much more weird and crazy. At about minute 1:06 there’s some awesome instrumental going on.
Side Two
Alright… “The Prophet’s Song”. This is by far the weirdest of them all. That’s both great and bad at the same time. In my opinion the beginning and ending of the song are fantastic, however the middle point is just bananas, bad bananas the way I see it. This is a May song again, his third so far.
“Love of My Life”. It’s just perfect. This is the slow song of the album and the second most emotional. Oh yeah, it’s piano heavy.
Yet again a May song. “Good Company” belongs to the “Lazying on a Sunny Afternoon” feel. It’s fun, whimsical and melodic. Oh, and it’s weirder as well, like “Seaside Rendezvous”.
And finally we get to the masterpiece of masterpieces: “Bohemian Rhapsody”. This song has more variation within itself than the entire album. Actually, it has more variation than a lot of albums. This is a full package. It’s the most weird and experimental, and yet it works very well. Piano has the spotlight, as of course it is another Mercury track.
To end the album May’s “God Save The Queen”, the instrumental song, gives some time for the listener to understand the masterpiece they just heard.
As you can see “A Night At The Opera” is more than decent in its oscillation between rocking songs (“I’m in Love with My Car”, “Sweet Lady”, “The Prophet’s Song”), dramatic songs (“Death on Two Legs”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “’39”) and fun songs (“Lazying on a Sunny Afternoon”, “Seaside Rendezvous”, “Good Company”). And that ladies and gentleman, is deserving of:
Grade: 5/5 Machines of a Dream
A Night At The Opera: Closing Song
Even though I think “God Save The Queen” is a good ending to the album, nothing should ever follow “Bohemian Rhapsody” honestly. That song is so extravagant, original and unexpected that it should have been the true finale to “A Night At The Opera” in my opinion.
Grade: 3/5 Machines of a Dream
A Night At The Opera: Hits & Deep Tracks
Alright, when I say hits I mean: “What are the songs that are remembered the most?” I’m not saying that they are better, but just that they ended up being the big ones for the ages, you dig? Deep Tracks are obviously the ones mainstream Queen fans don’t know about; seriously though, they can be as good as the hits.
Hits: “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Love of My Life”, “You’re My Best Friend” and “I’m in Love With My Car”. The last one was the B-side to “Bohemian Rhapsody”, a big factor in it being a hit.
Deep Tracks: “Lazying on a Sunny Afternoon”, “Death on Two Legs”, “’39”, “Sweet Lady”, “The Prophet’s Song”, “Good Company”, “Seaside Rendezvous” and “God Save The Queen”.
So we got four hits against eight deep tracks. Considering some albums have just one or two hits, I’ll say this is pretty great. In my opinion “’39” is one that should’ve been a hit as well, it is one of my top five Queen songs even.
Grade: 5/5 Machines of a Dream
A Night At The Opera: Album Order
As the name of the album already suggests it is very dramatic and it feels like that. All of the songs, even the fun ones, have some extravagant proportion to them that just rhymes really well with “Opera”. It starts really well. It has good variation of songs in the bulk of it. It ends really well.
This is not a Concept Album, so there’s no need to analyse it as one. It is very thematic with its drama thought, so “Death on Two Legs” really does set the mood. Queen is fabulous and this album lives up to this trait. For what it is, “A Night At The Opera” is a masterpiece for sure, having both spectacular Hits and Deep Tracks as well. The only problem I have with this album is the order of the songs. I think “God Save The Queen” is the perfect opening to it, leaving “Bohemian Rhapsody” to finish it of by itself. There’s also other changes. However I’ll put them in this different order down bellow for you, if you want to check if my intuition makes for a better album order. (Not shitting on Queen, just think they messed up the order, nobody is perfect after all).
The reason I criticize the order is that it feels all over the place in a bad way. I mean the songs are amazing, but it feels like it’s on shuffle. What I did was put songs with similar moods together. So we start the “Opera” with the big instrumental “God Save The Queen” and then move on to two “darker”, more heavy hitting melodic songs; number three being less “dark” than the 2nd. So as you listen you get ready for a lighter track that doesn’t make you feel sentimental. These two fun songs are followed by “The Prophet’s Song” that brings the first heavy surprise to the “Opera”. Since this one is 8 minutes long, your ears will be longing for fun again, and that’s when “Seaside Rendezvous” arrives.
At this point you already heard heavy melodic tracks, fun tracks and had a surprise with number “6”. It’s half way trough the album, so let’s get rocking, ma rite? “7” delivers “I’m in Love with My Car” followed by another rocker: “Sweet Lady”. Then before the heavy feelings hit we get another fun track at number “10”. Before the Grand Finale “Love of My Life” takes your guard down by being the first real slow track on the album. And to finish it off, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is like the whole album until now in a nutshell. The perfect ending.
Grade: 3/5 Machines of a Dream
A Night At The Opera: 4/5
This is the final score for my method of analyzing albums. “A Night At The Opera” is top-shelf Queen for me. What I did was add all the grades and divide them by the total number of categories of analyses, simple shit. As you can see the Album Order was the factor that fucked it up, but I can’t deny that I dislike this order. So here is my order:
- “God Save The Queen”
- “Death on Two Legs (Dedicated To…)”
- “’39”
- “Lazying on a Sunny Afternoon”
- “You’re My Best Friend”
- “The Prophet’s Song”
- “Seaside Rendezvous”
- “I’m in Love with My Car”
- “Sweet Lady”
- “Good Company”
- “Love of My Life”
- “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Well, that’s it. See ya.
thealbumdetective 