Queen: 40 Years On

Whenever I hear Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," I am reminded of a warm spring afternoon, riding shotgun with my best friend in her gleaming Camaro on the day of our senior prom. We had time to kill before we had to gussy up, and so we spent it cruising our hometown. Car windows down, volume cranked, my bare feet up on the dash, the two of us rode around singing Freddie Mercury's wonderfully absurd lyrics, trading off baritone and falsetto, and leaving a pompous trail of Queen in our wake.

Some decades later, whenever my kids hear the song, they listen with bemused looks on their faces. Not so much at the sight of their mother's unabashed headbanging (they get it, they've seen Wayne's World), but at the sheer bizarreness and utter grandiosity of "Bohemian Rhapsody": the odd mix of the macho and the fey; the unconventional length and lack of structure of a song that is part ballad/part opera with a rock bridge between the two; the sumptuous language of Scaramouche and Bismillah and Beelzebub. Galileo, Figaro, magnifico.

Queen rewrote the rock 'n' roll rule book 40 years ago. With album sales of more than 170 million worldwide (some estimates have that figure as high as 300 million), a spot in both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters Halls of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, over 700 concerts performed in every corner of the world including their historic appearance at Live Aid, and a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most successful UK album chart act in history, Queen have cast a mighty long shadow over the decades. They've influenced bands from Metallica to Smashing Pumpkins and artists from Axl Rose and Dave Grohl to Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, who took her name from the band's song "Radio Ga Ga."

The story of Queen begins like so many other rock stories do—in college, London's Imperial College to be exact, where guitarist Brian May was enrolled as a physics and mathematics major. May, who couldn't afford a guitar, built one instead with his father out of a piece of a century-old fireplace and household items such as a filed down piece of his mother's knitting needle for a whammy bar. Both men relished the challenge of making an electric guitar. "I designed the instrument from scratch," Brian says, "with the intention that it would have a capability beyond anything that was out there, more tunable, with a greater range of pitches and sounds, with a better tremolo, and with a capability of feeding back through the air in a 'good' way, i.e. in a self-sustaining mode." After two years of working on the guitar in their spare time, the result was the instrument May calls his "Red Special"—or the "Old Lady." He's used the hand built guitar for all of his years in Queen, in both live performance and studio work.

May and his friend, bassist and singer Tim Staffell, who was studying graphic design at the Ealing College of Art and Design, had started a band called 1984 while both were students at a London boys' school. When the group disbanded shortly after the start of college, the two decided to pick up the pieces and carry on. They advertised around campus for a "Ginger Baker/Mitch Mitchell type drummer" and landed dental student Roger Taylor. In October 1968, the trio formed a hard rock/psychedelic group they called Smile.

Smile spent the remainder of 1968 and the early half of 1969 playing around England, opening for acts such as Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and Yes, and they performed at the Royal Albert Hall alongside Free and Joe Cocker. In June 1969, the band recorded three tracks at Trident Studios in London—"Earth," "Step on Me," which would later be released as the group's only single, albeit a promo-only in the US, and "Doing Alright," written by Tim and Brian and later re-recorded by Queen for their debut album in 1973.

Smile went into De Lane Lea Studios in London in September 1969 to record three more tracks—"April Lady," "Polar Bear," and "Blag," which was primarily a showcase for Brian May's guitar prowess. The track later evolved into "Brighton Rock" from Queen's 1974 album, Sheer Heart Attack.

While at Ealing, Staffell befriend fellow art student, the Zanzibar-born Farookh Bulsara, who went by the name Freddie. Bulsara liked Smile's sound and followed the band around on their gigs throughout England. When Staffell became frustrated by their lack of success, he departed the group in March 1970 to join a band called Humpy Bong. The charismatic Freddie, with his four-octave vocal range and flamboyant stage persona, filled the void left by Tim and assumed the role of the band's lead singer. He changed his last name from Bulsara to Mercury and the group's name from Smile to Queen, despite his bandmates' reservations. "I thought up the name Queen," Mercury said. "It's just a name, but it's very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid. It's a strong name, very universal and immediate. It had a lot of visual potential and was open to all sorts of interpretations. I was certainly aware of gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it." With the addition in 1971 of bassist John Deacon, who was studying electronics at Chelsea College at the time, the quintessential Queen lineup was locked in and would remain intact for the next two decades.

Over the next couple years, as all four band members completed college, Queen simply rehearsed, playing only a handful of gigs. By 1973, May, Mercury, Deacon and Taylor were ready to give the band their undivided attention. Queen released their self-titled debut album that year and headed out on the road for their first tour.

As more or less a straight metal album, Queen failed to connect, but the band's second outing, Queen II, became an unexpected hit in Britain in early 1974, aided by the band's performance of "Seven Seas of Rhye" on the BBC televised music program, Top of the Pops. Queen II reached the #5 slot on UK charts, but it wasn't until their first American tour supporting Mott the Hoople that the album made US charts, landing at the #43 position.

Queen released their third album, Sheer Heart Attack, before the end of 1974. The vaudeville-meets-Zeppelin song "Killer Queen" drove the album to #2 in the UK and made some inroads in the States as well, setting the stage for their 1975 breakthrough, A Night at the Opera. The band labored long and hard over the record that put them on the map with many reports calling A Night at the Opera the most expensive rock album ever made at the time of its release.

The first single from the record was "Bohemian Rhapsody." With its bombastic, mock-operatic structure punctuated by heavy metal riffing, it was unlike anything out there at the time. The song shot to #1 in England and entered the Top Ten in the States, driving A Night at the Opera to platinum status. "Bohemian Rhapsody" became the band's signature song and made superstars of Queen.

The group continued to work at a brisk pace, releasing an album nearly every year. In the summer of 1976, they performed a free concert at London's Hyde Park which drew a crowd of over 150,000, one of the largest audiences for any concert in London. A few months later, Queen released "Somebody to Love" from their fifth album, A Day at the Races, a bookend to A Night at the Opera, both of which were named after films by the Marx Brothers. The band scored again when A Day at the Races reached #1 in the UK and #5 in the US.

Although scorned by the rock press, Queen were adored by their fans, most especially in Britain. Glitz, glamor, the dressing up and all the outrageous theatricality that was a mix of ballet, vaudeville, opera, and rockstar set Queen apart from their peers. The band continued to pile up hit singles on both sides of the pond over the next five years as each of their subsequent albums made it into the Top Ten and went either gold or platinum. Queen released their sixth album, News of the World, in 1977. The monster singles "We are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You" continued Queen's winning streak, as did "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Bicycle Race" from 1978's Jazz.

Queen were at the pinnacle of their success when they released The Game in 1980. Their most diverse album to date, The Game popped two #1 singles—the campy rockabilly "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and the anthem of the betrothed, "Another One Bites the Dust." The record became Queen's first #1 album in America. That same year they wrote the soundtrack to the film Flash Gordon and teamed up with David Bowie on the single "Under Pressure," which gave them their first #1 hit in the UK since "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Queen followed up on the Bowie collaboration with their tenth studio album, Hot Space. Released in May 1982, the album marked a notable shift in direction for the band with its elements of disco, pop, R&B and dance music. Fans didn't take to the new sound, however, and Queen returned to their rock roots on their next outing, 1984's The Works. Unfortunately, it too proved a minor hit with only "Radio Ga Ga" receiving much attention.

Faced with their waning popularity in the US and to a lesser degree in Britain, Queen began touring foreign markets, cultivating a large, dedicated fan base in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, continents that most rock groups ignored. The band headlined two nights of Brazil's first Rock in Rio Festival in 1985, playing in front of over 300,000 people each night. And then along came Live Aid, a benefit to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. The concert was held at Wembley Stadium on July 13, 1985, where Queen performed some of their greatest hits to a capacity crowd of 72,000 and a televised audience of 1.9 billion. The show's organizer, Bob Geldof, as well as fellow musicians such as Elton John and Dave Grohl and various music journalists said that Queen stole the show. An industry poll in 2005 named it the greatest rock performance of all time.

The now revitalized Queen saw a spike in record sales. They would go on to release three more albums—A Kind of Magic (1986), The Miracle (1989), and Innuendo (1991)—all of which fared well in both the US and the UK, before the band drastically scaled back their activity amid rumors concerning Freddie's health. On November 24, 1991, just one day after publicly acknowledging that he had contracted AIDS, Freddie Mercury died of bronchopneumonia brought on by the disease.

This year marks the 40th Anniversary of Queen's formation. In honor of the occasion, a relatively low key celebration has been going on all year that began with the kick off in February of "Stormtroopers in Stilettos: Queen, The Early Years." The first ever major Queen exhibit to take a comprehensive look at the early part of the band's career—from before their inception in 1971, when band members were dreaming of success while still attending college, right up to their spectacular gig in Hyde Park in 1976—the exhibition was scheduled to coincide with the band's actual anniversary date of March 1. It was housed in a huge warehouse in the heart of London's East End and featured some unique items including Freddie Mercury's legendary ballet pumps, May's iconic Zandra Rhodes winged top and Roger Taylor's original drum kit. Although it wrapped in March, there are plans to take the exhibition global. Check out http://www.stormtroopersinstilettos.com for further information.

Also in March came the re-release of Queen's first five albums. Queen, Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night at the Opera, and A Day at the Races have all been specially remastered for a crisper, fresher sound. Each has been released as a standard CD as well as a deluxe 2-disc set which features new bonus content.

The BBC aired a two-part documentary on the band in May called Queen: Days of Our Lives. The film, which featured May and Taylor talking about the group's history, included unseen footage of their performance on Top of the Pops, their first ever television appearance. There's also a Hollywood movie on Queen in the works, which is set to begin filming this year. The screenplay is being written by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) and will focus on the band's history up until the famous Live Aid concert in 1985. Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen is signed to play Freddie. No information has been given yet on a possible release date.

There have been two Queen biographies released this year as well. Is This the Real Life? The Untold Story of Queen is an unauthorized bio by British author, Mark Blake. The book draws on eyewitness testimonies from former producers and managers, ex-girlfriends and boyfriends, and just about anyone else Blake could get to talk with him. And just released this month is 40 Years of Queen, which was written by esteemed music journalist, Harry Doherty. Fully approved by the band, this tribute gives fans unprecedented access to Queen through intimate memorabilia including backstage passes, handwritten lyrics, ultra-rare posters, original tour itineraries, handwritten letters, limited-edition records, invites to tour parties, a CD of all four members talking about the band, and more.

For those of you looking to "ditch the day job and become a rockstar," Queen are currently looking to put together a live touring band to celebrate and pay tribute to the songs and the vision that made them one of the world's biggest rock bands. If you sing, play guitar, drums, bass or keyboards then check out http://www.queenextravaganza.com for information on how you can audition to join "The Queen Extravaganza," which will begin touring North America in 2012. The band promise the process is humiliation free.

And finally, for old times sake, here's a link to the "Bohemian Rhapsody" video, which is often credited for launching the MTV age. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ. You can also check out The Making of Bohemian Rhapsody at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtrhcECdItk.