Celebrating
its golden jubilee today at 50 years old is the sophomore LP from
Queen, Queen II, which was released on March 8th, 1974. While it
remains one of the bands lesser known works, any true Queen fan knows
that this is the record to go to if you want to experience them at their
deepest, darkest and heaviest. Only true aficionados need drop the
needle on this slab of melodramatic musical dualism!
After the
lacklustre performance of their eponymous debut album in 1973, Queen
were working hard on getting things together to make a real impact with
their next record. Though their debut wasn't a hit, it had sold
respectably enough to allow the group to insist on booking regular hours
at Trident Studios, rather than being relegated to off-hours, as had
been the case with their budget constrained debut. They also had the
production prowess of Roy Thomas Baker onboard to help bring things to
another level. With this project, the band were looking to take their
production values to a new peak of complexity and density, pushing the
technology of the multi-track studio to unprecedented heights. The end
results would set the bar as the band's largest technical stride forward
of their illustrious and ambitious career, introducing fans to the
layered complexity that would become their trademark, with all of their
vocal choruses and harmonic guitar parts fully on display.
The
group were still running on a full tank in terms of having a backlog of
songs to incorporate into the album, some of which had been gestating
since 1969 and pre-Queen days, affording the group a solid foundation
upon which to build the record. As that process began to take shape, a
natural breakdown of the songs suggested an overall theme of "good vs
evil" or "dark vs light". Less than a concept album, the dualism taking
shape provided the group with a focus with which to organize the songs.
This would result in what would be termed the album's "Side White" (A)
and "Side Black" (B), with Brian May's compositions taking up the
former, along with a song from Roger Taylor, and Freddie's songs
grouping up on the latter. John Deacon had not yet begun to contribute
as a song writer. The distribution of material collected the "softer",
more introspective tunes on the first side, and more aggressive, fantasy
themed songs on the second. This theme also played well with the
album's title and provided guidance for the cover art, but more on that
later.
Recording of the album began in August of the previous
year, with the bulk of the production done in that month, but the group
would return to the studio repeatedly until January of 1974,
interspersing their recording time with jaunts of touring, most notably
as the opening act for Mott the Hoople, an opportunity that went a long
way towards building the band's audience, fostering a friendship with
the headliner band that would endure well after Queen had outgrown their
opening slot. When the band were in the studio, they took full
advantage of the facilities and delved deeply into the process of
layering sounds, especially vocal choruses and guitar orchestrations.
They would spend hours building up layer after layer, creating the
dense, bombastic sound that would become their trademark.
For
the album's cover, acclaimed music photographer, Mick Rock, was brought
in to work with the band, and a better match couldn't have been made.
Rock's sense of the band dovetailed with Freddie's aspirations for their
image and the two began to cook up concepts for how to best express the
sound of the album with the image of the group. According to Rock,
Queen were looking to grab people's attention with the cover, especially
since their first album had failed to do so. "They realized that if you
could catch people's eyes you could get them interested in the music."
The brief he received from the band conceived a black and white theme
for the album. The cover features a photograph described by VH1 as
"Queen standing in diamond formation, heads tilted back like Easter
Island statues" against a black background. The iconic chiaroscuro image
of Queen was inspired by a similar photograph of Marlene Dietrich from
the 1932 film Shanghai Express. "And of course no one was ever more
'glam' than the divine Ms Dietrich," Rock quipped. "It was just one of
those flashes of inspiration that happens sometimes," Rock explained.
"There was a feeling that [echoing the Dietrich pose] might be
pretentious," but Rock convinced the band otherwise. "It made them look
like much bigger a deal than they were at the time, but it was a true
reflection of their music." Rock stated Mercury loved to quote Oscar
Wilde. "Often, that which today is considered pretentious is tomorrow
considered state of the art. The important thing is to be considered."
Rock added, "To Freddie, that word [pretentious] was meaningless – 'But
is it fabulous?' was all that mattered. It was certainly THAT!" To
expand on the black and white theme, Rock made a second image of the
band, dressed in white against a white background, that was used in the
album's gate-fold, advertising, and the "Seven Seas of Rhye" single
sleeve.
Release of the album ended up being delayed for a number
of different reasons. Firstly, their debut had only been released in
the UK while the band were working on its follow-up and had yet to get a
US release. Secondly, the energy conservation measures put in place
during the 1973 oil crisis delayed its manufacture by several months;
then, when released, John Deacon was credited as "Deacon John", and the
band insisted it had to be corrected. Once if finally hit the shelves,
it sold well, peaking at number five in the UK and 49 in the US, but
many critics were less than flattering of the band's best efforts.
Melody Maker wrote, "It's reputed Queen have enjoyed some success in the
States, it's currently in the balance whether they'll really break
through here. If they do, then I'll have to eat my hat or something.
Maybe Queen try too hard, there's no depth of sound or feeling." Record
Mirror wrote, "This is it, the dregs of glam rock. Weak and
over-produced, if this band are our brightest hope for the future, then
we are committing rock and roll suicide." Robert Christgau, writing in
CREEM magazine, derisively referred to it as "wimpoid royaloid heavyoid
android void." The reviews weren't all bad, however. DISC wrote, "The
material, performance, recording and even artwork standards are very
high." NME opined that the record showcased "all their power and drive,
their writing talents, and every quality that makes them unique," while
Sounds wrote, "Simply titled Queen II, this album captures them in their
finest hours."
The legacy of the album is where the truth of the
tale is finally told. Time gives distance and increases objectivity,
and in the case of Queen's early music, Queen II retains a sense of
distinction, not only inaugurating the band's grandiose sense of drama,
but also offering up a musical landscape that would never be covered in
quite the same way again. Hardcore fans of the band know that this is
the album that delivers the purest essence of what they were in the
early days. It also made it clear that this was a band who were not
merely a lead singer posing in front of a clutch of nondescript backing
musicians.
Though John Deacon's role in the band would bloom in
later albums, Roger Taylor and Brian May made great strides in
establishing their value as distinct contributors. Brian delivered his
first lead vocal on his ethereal Some Day One Day, investing the
gorgeously dreamy song with a wispy melancholy in its longing for better
days ahead. Roger, on the other hand, lent his raspy lead vocal to
his lament for the inevitable sense of loss motherhood is bound to
bestow as children leave the nest. He also displayed his secret weapon
in the form of his impossibly high falsetto, an asset that would allow
the groups choral vocal arrangements to ascend to the loftiest heights.
Of course Freddie couldn't have been a more attention getting
front-man. When he sings a lyric like "Fear me you loathsome, lazy
creatures, I descend upon your earth from the skies...", where another
vocalist would come off as absurdly pretentious, Mercury manages to
deliver the pomposity with enough conviction to make it all credible.
That would turn out to be a talent he'd wield again and again throughout
the band's history.
My gateway drug for Queen was A Day at the
Races, which I bought early in 1977. Once that record had its hooks in
me, I quickly backtracked through their earlier works, and it didn't
take long for me to take special notice of Queen II. They were right
about that cover drawing attention. Looking at it filled my teenage
imagination with thoughts about what these people were like. It was
like they'd been preserved in some kind of stasis for centuries, only to
be released from their suspension to unleash this glorious thrashing of
musical bombast. It's the album that, nearly a half century later, I
return to most often when I need a fix of their music. It satisfies
from the first note to the last. It's the album that most perfectly
captures their talents in their most pristine form.
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