A Night at the Opera
Nothing succeeds like excess--at least that's the case with Queen's breakthrough classic,A Night at the Opera. On one level, the title is a reference to the band's operatic pretensions, best in evidence here on the classic "Bohemian Rhapsody," which was championed by headbangers a generation before being revived by theWayne's Worldset. Of course,A Night at the Operawas also the title of a Marx Brothers movie, and the reference isn't lost on Queen, who seldom scaled the heights of pomprock without a knowing wink. The album is remembered for its meticulously produced bombast, but the truth is that there's a wide variety of material here, from the gorgeous piano-based "You're My Best Friend" and the McCartneyesque "39" to the music-hall-style "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" and the pedal-to-the-metal rockers "Death on Two Legs" and "I'm in Love with My Car."A Night at the Operais viewed by most as the quintessential Queen album, and justifiably so.--Daniel Durchholz