Queen
Four members each wrote hit songs — a rare kind of band. They put opera and hard rock on the same stage and turned stadiums into giant choirs.
At a glance 🔭💭
Some coordinates adapted from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) · Pleiades (CC BY 3.0)
Members and companions ⏳🌊
- MemberFreddie Mercury
On vocals and piano, he wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody” and was Queen's face on stage. He died in 1991.
- MemberBrian May
The guitarist who shaped Queen's sound with the Red Special, a guitar he built with his father; he wrote “We Will Rock You.”
- MemberRoger Taylor
He played drums and sang the top falsetto in the harmonies, and wrote “Radio Ga Ga.”
- MemberJohn Deacon
Took on bass and wrote “Another One Bites the Dust,” then withdrew from public life in 1997.
- ProducerRoy Thomas Baker
Produced the first four albums and 1978’s “Jazz,” refining the band’s densely layered choral sound.
- FriendshipDavid Bowie
In Montreux in 1981, an improvised jam with Queen gave rise to “Under Pressure.”
I. Four separate roots · 1946–1971
(Formation) The band was formed in London in 1970. Its name came from vocalist Freddie Mercury. He was born Farrokh Bulsara in September 1946 in Zanzibar, then a British protectorate (today part of Tanzania). His father, Bomi, and his mother, Jer, came from a Zoroastrian Parsi family. The boy learned piano at a boarding school in Panchgani, India. In 1964 the family fled the Zanzibar Revolution for Feltham, west of London, where he studied graphic design at Ealing Art College. (Guitar) Guitarist Brian May was born in 1947 in Hampton, on the outskirts of London. As a teenager he built his own guitar with his father, Harold, an electronics engineer, carving it from the wood of an old fireplace mantel. This “Red Special” became his instrument for life. May studied physics and astronomy at Imperial College. In 1968 he formed the band Smile with singer and bassist Tim Staffell, taking on as drummer Roger Taylor, a dental student raised in Cornwall. (Joining) Bulsara, Staffell’s friend from art college, was an ardent fan of Smile. When Staffell left the band in 1970, he stepped in. He renamed the band Queen and changed his own surname to Mercury. Putting his design training to use, he also drew a crest-shaped logo himself, weaving in the members’ zodiac signs. A string of bassists came and went. Only in 1971, when John Deacon, an electronics student from Leicester, joined did the foursome finally take shape. Quiet and meticulous, Deacon not only played but also took charge of tending the amps and equipment.
II. The midnight studio · 1971–1974
(Trident) Queen poured its energy into recording before performing. In 1972 the band signed with the brothers Norman and Barry Sheffield, who ran Trident Studios in London’s Soho. The terms were that they could record only in the empty late-night hours when no other musicians were using the rooms. With producer Roy Thomas Baker, whom they met there, they refined Queen’s signature method of laying voices and guitars, one coat at a time, over sound already on tape (overdubbing). Their first album, “Queen,” released through EMI in 1973, drew little notice. (Black and white) “Queen II,” released the following year, divided the record into a white side and a black side. The white side, carrying mostly May’s songs, was lyrical. The black side, filled by Mercury, unfolded a world of fairy tale and fantasy like an opera. Photographer Mick Rock’s portrait of the four members’ faces would later come back to life as the opening shot of the “Bohemian Rhapsody” video. When David Bowie’s video wasn’t ready, a slot opened up on the BBC’s “Top of the Pops,” and Queen appeared in his place. Thanks to that, the single “Seven Seas of Rhye” reached the charts for the first time. (Money) The same year, Queen went out as the support act on Mott the Hoople’s American tour. But May fell ill and was hospitalized, and the band had to come home early. “Killer Queen,” from “Sheer Heart Attack,” released in November, climbed to number 2 on the British chart and made the band’s name. Even so, the members’ pockets were still empty.
Of all their albums, this is the one that bears the deepest traces of the late-night Trident sessions, when they stacked voices and guitars over and over again. The contrast between the white side and the black side lays bare the difference in temperament between its two songwriters, May and Mercury.
- The song chosen for this card’s video is their first hit, “Seven Seas of Rhye.” Listen from the very opening, where Mercury’s piano scatters a chord swiftly, one note at a time (arpeggio).
- On the black side, “The March of the Black Queen” keeps changing meter and mood, as if several short pieces had been stitched together. Critics see in it the first trial of the multi-part structure of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
- A chorus built from the same voice recorded many times over (overdubbing) spreads wide from left to right. On headphones you can hear different layers of voices trading back and forth between the left and right channels.
- May overdubbed many lines of guitar so that they sounded like a string ensemble. The liner-note line “Once again, nobody played synthesizer” was a declaration that every one of these sounds was guitar.
The song is like a portrait of a sophisticated woman of high society. Shedding the hard-rock-band label, it became their first song to reach the upper ranks of the British chart, making a name for a band that had been scraping by without money.
- The intro sets off lightly, cabaret-style, with finger snaps and Mercury’s piano. The liner notes also separately credit a piano doctored to give a jangling tone (jangle piano).
- May’s guitar solo is not a single melodic line but a structure in which several guitars take it up in turn. May explained that he had several guitars sound the same notes at staggered intervals so that they spread out like ringing bells. Follow the notes moving between the left and right channels midway through the solo.
- The chorus harmonies are the voices of Mercury, May and Taylor overdubbed many times. The top layer belongs to Taylor’s high head voice (falsetto).
- Mercury’s vocal is sly and theatrical, as if he were introducing a character. He said that, unlike the usual Queen, this was a dandified song.
III. A night of opera · 1975–1976
(Independence) In 1975, with the help of lawyer Jim Beach, the band extricated itself from its Trident contract. As its new manager it took on John Reid, who had managed Elton John. Breaking the contract had cost a great deal of money, so the next album had to succeed. Mercury poured his anger at the old management into “Death on Two Legs.” Norman Sheffield, it is said, believed the song was aimed at him and threatened legal action. (Opera) That November, “A Night at the Opera” came out. Made while shuttling among several studios, including Rockfield in Wales, it was among the most expensive albums of its day. The fact that all four members wrote songs for it revealed the band’s very constitution. Deacon wrote “You’re My Best Friend,” which became his first hit. May, the astronomy student, wrote “’39,” a time-travel story drawing on the theory of relativity, and Taylor turned his love of cars into a song. The nearly six-minute “Bohemian Rhapsody” ran into objections that it was unfit for radio. But their friend, the DJ Kenny Everett, played it on air again and again, and the song stayed at number 1 on the British chart for nine weeks. (Friendship) For many years Mercury lived with Mary Austin, whom he had met around 1970. Even after their romance ended, he called Austin his closest friend. “Love of My Life,” from the same album, is counted among Mercury’s signature love songs. In September 1976, more than 150,000 people gathered for a free concert in London’s Hyde Park. “A Day at the Races,” released at year’s end, was the first album the band produced themselves.
At the heart of an album on which they had staked everything after leaving Trident, Mercury joined together fragments of songs he had long carried with him. Overcoming objections that it was unfit for radio, it held the top of the British chart for nine weeks.
- The song moves in turn through an unaccompanied choral opening (a cappella), a piano ballad, a guitar solo, an opera section, hard rock and a quiet close. Its very structure, running nearly six minutes without a chorus, broke with everything a single was supposed to be at the time.
- The guitar solo at the end of the ballad is the sound May drew by plugging the Red Special into a Vox AC30 amp (an amplifier that boosts the guitar’s sound). May said he worked out its singing, flowing melody in advance, almost as if composing it.
- The opera section was built by layering the three men’s voices again and again. Baker and May recalled that the tape was run so many times it wore thin enough to see through. Listen for Taylor’s highest falsetto bursting out at the very top.
- Only when the hard-rock section arrives do Deacon’s bass and Taylor’s drums push forward with real weight for the first time. A great stroke of the gong at the end closes the song.
- The opera section could not be reproduced onstage. So in concert, the recording was played for this passage while the members briefly left the stage.
IV. The stadium chorus · 1977–1982
(Chorus) By around 1977, Queen’s concerts had become vast choirs, with audiences singing along from first note to last. May resolved to write a song the crowd could take part in, and so came “We Will Rock You,” its beat laid down by nothing but stamping feet and handclaps. Mercury put “We Are the Champions” on the same album, “News of the World.” With these two songs, rock on an arena scale, designed for tens of thousands to sing together (stadium rock), was complete. At Wessex Studios in London, where they were recording the album, Queen ran into the Sex Pistols in the next room. The story goes that when Sid Vicious tried to provoke Mercury, Mercury coolly brushed him off by twisting his name. (Munich) From 1978, tax problems kept the members working outside Britain for a time. Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, where they recorded “Jazz” that year, was bought by the band the following year. From 1979 they worked with producer Mack (Reinhold Mack) at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany. The band that had once declared in its liner notes that no synthesizers were used embraced, on “The Game,” a keyboard instrument that creates sound with electronic circuits (synthesizer) for the first time. Deacon’s “Another One Bites the Dust” reached number 1 on the American chart. Mercury plunged deep into Munich’s club culture, and its dancing rhythms seeped into Queen’s music from then on. (South America) On their 1981 South American tour, Queen drew a little over 130,000 people in a single night to Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo, Brazil. That same year, jamming with David Bowie, who had stopped by Montreux, they created “Under Pressure.” “Hot Space,” released the next year, leaned toward disco and the Black music driven by sticky bass-and-drum grooves (funk), and it sold poorly in America. The members later recalled that Mercury’s personal manager, Paul Prenter, had pushed them in that direction.
This song gives direct form to May’s idea of making the audience part of the song. It marked the moment Queen set down the grammar of stadium rock, and it went on to become an anthem in stadiums around the world.
- There is no drum kit and no bass. The band members rolled across the wooden floor of Wessex Studios and clapped their hands, and those sounds were recorded in layer upon layer. May explained that short echoes (delays), each set to a different length so they would never interlock, made it sound like a vast crowd making noise together.
- Mercury's vocal is closer to recitation than to singing. Across three verses, a story sweeping through one person's boyhood, youth and old age is laid crisply, word by word, on top of the beat.
- The guitar does not come in until the song is nearly over. May's solo releases in a single burst the tension built over the preceding 2 minutes, and then the song simply ends.
- In concert the band sometimes opened the show with a sped-up rock version. Both versions can be compared on the 1979 live album “Live Killers.”
The song comes from the period when the band was embracing synthesizers and a new producer in Munich. Deacon poured a deep love of funk into it and handed Queen their best-selling single.
- The star of the song is a short repeated bass phrase (riff) written by Deacon. Many have noted the influence of Chic's “Good Times.” Deacon played not only bass but also rhythm guitar and piano.
- Taylor's drums were recorded with as little resonance as possible, dry and tight. The same beat repeats with mechanical precision, creating the flow that makes you dance (groove).
- In the middle section, effects made from piano and cymbal sounds played backward, along with strange guitar noises conjured by May, travel between the left and right channels. Where a guitar solo would go, the effects fill the space.
- According to the band members' recollections, Michael Jackson, after coming to one of their shows, urged them to release the song as a single.
V. Twenty minutes at Wembley · 1983–1986
(Hiatus) In 1983 the band took their first long break. In Los Angeles, May recorded the “Star Fleet Project” with Eddie Van Halen and others. In Munich, Mercury made a first solo album, “Mr. Bad Guy.” Reunited in 1984, Queen recovered their early rock sound on “The Works.” Taylor's “Radio Ga Ga” carried a note of regret at the fading of the radio age and the screen taking music's place. In the video for Deacon's “I Want to Break Free,” the band members dressed in drag to parody the British soap “Coronation Street.” The very British joke did not land in America, and MTV declined to air the video. (Live Aid) On July 13, 1985, at Live Aid, the African famine-relief concert organized by Bob Geldof, Queen took the stage at London's Wembley Stadium for just over 20 minutes. Their set was a tightly woven chain of hits. Mercury traded calls with some 70,000 in the crowd, conducting the entire stadium. The performance has been widely hailed as the brightest moment of the day. Above all, it gave a weary band a reason to move forward together again. (The last tour) The following year Queen released “A Kind of Magic,” an album that doubled as music for the film “Highlander,” and set out on the Magic Tour. In July they played a stadium in Budapest, Hungary, then part of the Eastern Bloc. The August 9 concert at Knebworth Park in England became Mercury's last performance with Queen. At the time, no one knew it would be the last.
Released by the band after they regrouped from their hiatus, the song is something like a farewell to the age of radio. It found its completion the following year at Live Aid, meeting the clapping hands of 70,000 people.
- Taylor wrote the song on a synthesizer. The bouncy electronic tones of the intro and the crisp, even electronic beat create a texture unmistakably of the 1980s.
- The double clap in the chorus was a move first tried out on extras playing the audience at the music video shoot. In the Live Aid footage, look for the moment when the whole stadium claps overhead in unison.
- Mercury begins the verses low, almost in a whisper, then throws the chorus wide open. The tone is that of someone speaking tenderly to an old friend, the radio.
- May's guitar mostly stays in the background. It clearly shows how Queen, once a guitar-led band, had shifted toward keyboards and electronic sounds.
VI. Singing to the end · 1987–1991
(Diagnosis) Around 1987, Mercury was diagnosed with HIV. Mercury kept this from the world to the very end, living quietly at Garden Lodge, a mansion in Kensington, London, with partner Jim Hutton and longtime friends. In 1988 Mercury released the album “Barcelona” with the Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballé. For someone who had loved opera since childhood, it was the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream. (Shared credit) Starting with “The Miracle” in 1989, Queen credited every song to Queen rather than to individual members. The decision was meant to end a long-running tug-of-war over whose songs would be released as singles. Taylor is said to have welcomed it. It was around this time, reportedly, that the members heard about the illness directly from Mercury. From then on, the four threw themselves into recording, as if trying to hold on to the time that remained. (Farewell) “Innuendo,” released in February 1991, was recorded largely in Montreux. Physically weakened, Mercury came into the studio on good days and sang as much as strength allowed. May finished the closing track, “The Show Must Go On,” with Mercury's voice in mind. The video for “These Are the Days of Our Lives,” shot in May, became Mercury's last time before the camera. On November 23, a public statement from Mercury confirmed the AIDS diagnosis. The next day, the 24th, Mercury died at Garden Lodge of bronchial pneumonia, a complication of AIDS. Mercury was forty-five. Much of the house and estate was left to Mary Austin.
The closing track of “Innuendo,” into which Mercury poured every last ounce of strength. It captures the resolve of someone who hides the pain backstage and carries the show through to the end.
- The recurring chord progression grew out of something Taylor and Deacon had been playing. May completed the melody and lyrics together with Mercury.
- May worried that the notes were too high for Mercury to sing. But, May recalled, Mercury downed some vodka and nailed it in a few takes. Follow the range as it soars toward the final chorus.
- Midway through, there is a passage that changes key (modulation). As the song steps up a level, the tension rises further.
- Over the broad, stately resonance of the keyboards rests a short, weighty guitar solo in May's signature singing style.
VII. Those who remained · 1992–2026
(Tribute) On April 20, 1992, the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert was held at Wembley Stadium. Metallica's James Hetfield sang “Stone Cold Crazy” backed by May, Taylor and Deacon. Metallica had won a Grammy for their cover of the song just the year before. Guns N' Roses' Axl Rose shared “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Elton John, and guitarist Slash took the stage as well. U2 joined via satellite from a venue in Sacramento, California. The proceeds went to the Mercury Phoenix Trust, established to fight AIDS. (Posthumous release) “Made in Heaven,” released in 1995, was an album the surviving members completed by setting their playing around the last vocals Mercury had recorded in Montreux. After “No-One but You,” recorded in 1997 as a trio with May and Taylor, Deacon withdrew from public life. May and Taylor have kept touring under the Queen name, with Paul Rodgers from 2004 and with the American singer Adam Lambert since 2011. The musical “We Will Rock You,” which opened in London in 2002, ran for 12 years. Queen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. (Rediscovery) The 2018 film “Bohemian Rhapsody” introduced Queen to a new generation. In Korea alone it drew more than 9.9 million viewers, and sing-along screenings sprang up across the country. Amid that fervor, in January 2020, Queen and Adam Lambert took the stage at Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome. In 2007, May completed a doctorate in astrophysics that had been put on hold for some 30 years because of the band.
Lesser-known stories
Around 1972, Deacon built a small amplifier out of a discarded circuit board. The band called it the “Deacy Amp.” Plugging the Red Special into it, May mimicked wind instruments such as the clarinet and trombone on guitar. On “Good Company,” from “A Night at the Opera,” May re-created the full lineup of a 1920s jazz band with a single guitar. Apart from a brief credit in the liner notes, it received almost no attention, yet behind the declaration that no synthesizers were used stood this palm-sized device. In interviews, Mercury rarely spoke of a childhood spent in Zanzibar and India or of the family's Parsi roots. The British press, too, portrayed Mercury only as a glamorous London rock star. Mercury's origins became known in detail only posthumously, as biographies appeared. That Mercury, at boarding school in Panchgani, had formed a band called the Hectics with friends and played piano is one of the details that came to light this way. The funeral was conducted by Parsi priests according to Zoroastrian rites. On December 1, 1976, Queen was originally scheduled to appear on “Today,” the evening program on London's Thames Television. When the appearance was canceled because of Mercury's dental appointment, the Sex Pistols, newcomers on the same EMI label, went on instead. Their rough exchange that evening with the host, Bill Grundy, caused an uproar across Britain. That Queen stood at the starting point of this incident, which became a symbol of the punk explosion, survives only as a footnote, since the two bands came to be remembered as opposite symbols.
Glossary notes 📚🔎
Overdubbing
(Meaning) A blend of over and dub (to add a recording), meaning to lay new sound on top of sound already recorded. (In rock) A technique of recording another instrument or voice, layer by layer, while listening to a performance recorded earlier. Queen stacked three voices dozens of times so they sounded like a choir of hundreds. If you have ever recorded yourself singing on your phone, then played it back and sung a harmony on top, that is overdubbing.
Falsetto
(Meaning) Gaseong (假聲) literally means 'false (假) voice (聲).' The Italian falsetto likewise comes from falso, meaning false. (In rock) A light tone produced by thinning the vocal folds to reach notes far higher than one's speaking voice. In Queen, Taylor took the very top of the harmonies in falsetto, making the choruses sparkle. When a boy imitates a high voice and it suddenly flips into something lighter, that sound is falsetto.
Synthesizer
(Meaning) From the English synthesize, meaning to combine: an instrument that creates sound by synthesizing it electrically. (In rock) When a key is pressed, an electronic circuit generates sound waves, producing all kinds of sounds a piano cannot. Queen pointedly noted in the liner notes of their early albums that no synthesizers were used. That was because people had mistaken May's layered guitars for synthesizers. Queen first used a synthesizer only on “The Game” in 1980. It is like using a game's sound-effect maker to reshape a sound this way and that until something new emerges.
Amp
(Meaning) Short for amplifier, from the Latin amplus, meaning large or wide. (In rock) The vibration of an electric guitar's strings produces only a tiny electrical signal. The amp boosts that signal and sends it out through a speaker. Depending on how the amp is set, the tone can range widely, from clean to rough and torn. May used several Vox AC30s together, and Deacon even built a small amp from discarded parts. The loudspeaker that magnifies the principal's voice at a morning assembly on the school field works on the same principle.
Stadium rock
(Meaning) Stadium comes from stadion, an ancient Greek unit of racecourse length, and today means a large sports arena. (In rock) Rock performed in arenas that hold tens of thousands, or music written with that scale in mind. It often features simple, powerful choruses, clapping and stomping so that even the back row can join in. “We Will Rock You” is the classic example. When a whole class sings a cheer in one voice on sports day, it carries a power completely unlike singing alone, and this is music that aims for exactly that power.
Funk
(In rock) A genre that emerged from African American music of the 1960s and 70s, putting the sticky, repetitive rhythm of bass and drums ahead of melody. Every instrument slices the beat finely and interlocks with the others, making the body move on its own. Though spelled the same way in Korean as punk, it is an entirely different music. The way your body bounces on its own to the rhythm of a long jump rope turned by friends resembles the rhythm of funk. (Elsewhere) In everyday English, funk can also mean a gloomy, low-spirited state.
Modulation
(Meaning) Jeonjo (轉調) means to change (轉) the key (調). (In rock) It means taking the note at the heart of a song, the note that is, so to speak, the home the song returns to and rests in, and moving it to a different pitch. Even with the same melody, singing it one step higher gives the listener a far more heightened feeling. At karaoke, when you raise the key a notch just before the final chorus, the room suddenly catches fire, and that is precisely modulation.