QUEEN II @ 50

 

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.