A Night at the Opera Review

Queen made what was reputedly the most expensive record of its day and spent the budget on voices. Roy Thomas Baker's production stacks guitars and harmonies into something orchestral without a synthesiser in sight, and the band use the studio as an instrument rather than a crutch. Freddie Mercury opens with Death on Two Legs, a character assassination of the band's former manager and still one of the most venomous first tracks in rock. Then the record goes everywhere: John Deacon's You're My Best Friend, Brian May's '39, a skiffle song about space travellers coming home to a world that has aged without them, the eight minute storm of The Prophet's Song, the fragile Love of My Life.

Bohemian Rhapsody moves from ballad to mock opera to hard rock in six minutes without once feeling like a stunt. The eclecticism is the point and occasionally the problem. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon and Seaside Rendezvous are music hall whimsy, Sweet Lady is filler, and a few of the lighter songs feel like studio tricks in search of a tune. The peaks are high enough that it does not matter much.