The 500 - #231 - A Night At The Opera - Queen

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #231
Album Title: A Night At The Opera
Artist: Queen
Genre: Rock, Progressive Rock, Pop, Avant-Pop
Recorded: Five Studios, London, U.K. 

Released: November, 1975
My age at release: 10
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at 128, moving up 103 spots since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: '39

When I embarked on this writing journey five years ago (January, 2019) my biggest concern was writing about records of which I knew nothing. How would I "share a story or personal connection" to records I knew nothing about? If anything was going to derail this project, I thought it would be finding an engaging way to post something meaningful about records such as OutKast's Stankonia, Sound of Silver from LCD Soundsystem or 69 Love Songs from Magnetic Fields?

This isn't true. Discovering new music, I find, creates its own story. Sometimes, the inspiration comes during research or while listening to the accompanying episode of The 500 Podcast. On the other hand, familiarity can be overwhelming, leading to writer's block. Choices need to be made, such as where to start, and what information should be included in my post. Case in point: A Night At The Opera, the fourth studio record from British progressive rock band Queen.

Queen in 1975, (l-r) Roger Taylor, John Deacon,
Freddie Mercury and Brian May.

It's a feeling similar to the psychological phenomenon known as "The Tyranny of Choice", outlined in Barry Schwartz' book The Paradox Of Choice. Simply put, logic suggests that an individual provided with many options from which to choose would be happy. However, studies show that too many choices can actually lead to discomfort and even misery. That is, "Too many options make you feel like all of them are wrong and that you are wrong if you choose any of them". (Susan Orlean)

A Night at the Opera is a record that I have listened to hundreds of times. It is my favourite from their catalogue which is named after The Marx Brothers’ movie of the same name.  In 1985, my support for the band bordered on obsessiveness as I painstakingly collected every record from the group I could find.

Like most people of my vintage (Late Generation Jones, Early Generation X, born 1963-1970), I discovered Queen in elementary school. For me, it was the release of Queen's 1977 album, News Of The World which featured the single, We Are The Champions, with the B-side, We Will Rock You. Both were ubiquitous on radio stations. Many of my friends purchased the single, the album or both and collectively, we helped rocket Queen to the Canadian Top 10 that winter.

The first Queen record I acquired was The Game, released in 1980. I am surprised it is not on The 500 list. It was their biggest selling record, a critical success and featured five singles, including the monster hits Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Another One Bites The Dust.

Album cover The Game (1980).

The winter of 1985 wasn't a great one. I had dropped out of university after a disastrous start. I was working an assortment of mind-numbingly boring jobs. I was a custodian at a community centre and arena, as well clerking midnights at a Mac's Milk convenience store. Adding to my misery were three short-lived attempts at relationships, each failing heartbreakingly quicker than the last. Throughout it all, Queen was a big part of the soundtrack.

Mac's Milk logos through the decades. I worked around
the time of the middle one.

I'm not sure what supercharged my Queen fandom that year. I think it might have been a melancholy moment listening to Somebody To Love from their 1976 record A Day At The Races (another record with a title taken from a Marx Brothers' film). I was a bit of a hopeless romantic at the time -- which, in retrospect, hastened the collapse of those three ill-fated relationships. Regardless, I decided to take my sizable portion of disposable income (I was living at home) and invest in the entire Queen discography.

Album cover for A Day At The Races (1976).

By March, 1986, I owned every Queen record on vinyl and had recorded them to cassette for playing in my car and on my portable stereo player (A JVC version of a Walkman). There were twelve records, everything from their first self-titled release to their 1984 album, The Works, as well as the incredible 1979 concert record, Live Killers. I'd even tracked down the elusive Star Fleet Project record, a solo effort from Queen guitarist Brian May which also featured legendary axeman Eddie Van Halen. I wish I would have kept that one; it sells for over $50 on Ebay

Album Cover for Star Fleet Project from Brian May & Friends (1984).

There are many stories and trivia about Queen that  are all well documented. After all, Queen has had a global presence in pop culture and music for five decades and has sold 300 million records. Their singer, Freddie Mercury, and his powerful, four-octave vocal range, is often cited as the greatest frontman of all time. His life, and the story of Queen, was immortalized in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. The title was taken from the final track on A Night At The Opera album and has the distinction of being the only song to hit the top of the charts in three decades as it is discovered by a new generation of fans. It is also, currently, the most streamed song from the 20th Century.

Poster for the film Bohemian Rhapsody.

Despite the popularity of Bohemian Rhapsody, I selected the song 39, sung not by Mercury but by guitarist May, for my own The 500 Playlist. It is one of those deeper cuts that often found its way onto mixed cassettes I made for people in the ‘80s. The song tells the story of a group of space explorers who embark on an interstellar journey that, to them, seems to take a year.  However, due to the time dilation effect (proven in Einstein's special theory of relativity) they return to find their loved ones have grown old or died. May, who was fascinated by time travel, later completed his PhD thesis defence in astrophysics.

May graduating with his PhD in Astrophysics in 2007.

I can relate. My conventional time-travelling journey has taken me from adolescent fandom in 1976 to obsessive devotion in 1985 to a deep respect and a nostalgic love for Queen today. Relistening to anything from their catalogue transports me back in time and I can remember inhabiting the body of a confused and hopelessly romantic 20-year-old who thought he'd lost his way. He didn't. Life would be amazing by September, 1986, which I’ll get to with Paul Simon’s Graceland (#71 on The 500) in about three years.

"Don't you hear my call though you're many years away?
Don't you hear me calling you?
All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand
For my life
Still ahead
Pity me" 

39 Queen (1975)