Talk:A Night at the Opera (Queen album)

message: Is Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon Queen's shortest song?
:Yes. TheStig 13:25, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope.  “Yeah” is their shortest with 4 seconds 98.116.218.68 (talk) 17:50, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lazing on a sunday afternoon 

message: Freddies piano solo on "Death on..." is described as "wonderful" Not exactly NPOV :p Grymsqueaker
"There are some very nice backing vocals by Freddie as well as very high and fairly low harmonies by Roger, and some falsettos by Brian." doesn't seem to be very NPOV either... humanoidboogie
People tend to gush when it comes to a band this awesome. lol 65.248.164.214 (talk) 22:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV? 

message: ...as they say... No Synthesisers! (Just massive overdubbing.) I would not call it prog. --Fantailfan 12:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Prog and synth are NOT synonymous. At all. Seriously. I'd say this is progressive rock, or at least art rock. Awesomebriks (talk) 18:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

text: For me, only the two epics, Bo Rhap and Prophet's Song are actually prog songs. However, the album certainly exhibits prog influences in other places too, as Stephen Lambe's book acknowledges. AllMusic states that 39 is prog, but that appears to be more due to its mystical subject matter than anything else. Rodericksilly (talk) 22:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Queen prog or not? 

message: Re this quote:
"There are no pauses between the songs. This gives the album as a whole a collage effect. The songs seem to play continuously without stopping in between."
Is this just the original vinyl version?  Both the remastered casette and CD versions definitely have pauses between the tracks, except between "The Prophets' Song" and "Love of my life".  Can anyone provide any back-up for this? Stejsmith 06:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No pauses? 

message: Not sure if this is necessarily true, but it seems pretty obvious from what I've heard of the song: The Prophet's song was written about May's dream of The Great Flood (or the story of Noah, hence the dove). I've read this somewhere, but I can't remember where, but it makes sense. I'm pretty sure, but not sure enough to write it in.
MaddenedMan 09:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prophet's Song 

message: "The title was apparently chosen because if the tracks on Queen's original studio albums are numbered in sequential order starting with their first, this would be the 39th song in the sequence."
The band denies this on their website.  They say the fact that it was their 39th studio song was merely a coincidence they noticed after the album had been released.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.82.35.51 (talk • contribs).
"39 does indeed appear to deal with the time-dilation effect of near-lightspeed travel. However, at risk of being a little pedantic, there is nothing in the lyrics to suggest that 100 years have passed (tried to include link but spam-filtered, so find your own...). It is not even explicitly stated that the narrator's loved one is dead - the reprise of the line "Don't you hear my call though you're many years away" could suggest this, but then "your mother's eyes in your eyes cry to me" merely suggests a gap of a generation or so (which would still scupper most relationships!). All somewhat subjective admittedly."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.202.145 (talk) 09:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong 

message: Shouldn't it be "A Night At The Opera" the way it's written on the album cover? 84.108.245.222 18:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Album and song titles and band names. – Candyfloss 22:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Name

message: :Image:Queen A Night At The Opera.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 10:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Donny (talk) 14:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Queen A Night At The Opera.png

message: A number of well known albums such as Led Zeppelin IV and The Beatles' White Album have a page for every song. As this is widely considered Queen's Magnum Opus, would you reckon it would be deserving for the same to happen with this album? It's a very popular album as the article suggests, and I think it should.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.32.41.11 (talk) 01:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In general, a song should only have its own article if it fulfills the notability criteria for songs. If you plan to write an article for a given song, be prepared to argument for its notability. – IbLeo (talk) 07:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: None of the songs on the album are just 'typical' in any way, all of them have something unique or notable about them. For further detail, I've written out my reasonings below.
* Death on Two Legs: Meaning of the song caused controversy which is a notable topic.
* Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon: Used a very creative recording process and is one of Queen's most unique works, commentary is notable.
* I'm In Love With my Car: B-side. 'nuff said.
* You're My Best Friend: single.
* '39: B-side.
* Sweet Lady: Eventually evolved into the faster version of "We Will Rock You", so such an article would be necessary to give that commentary in an appropriate place, and is a very notable topic.
* Seaside Rendezvous: A very intricate recording process using Mercury's and Taylor's voices for an a capella segment. Notable topic with a lot to say about it, too much for just a sub-section in this article.
* The Prophet's Song: Was originally to be released as a single for this album, and is quite an epic number with plenty of notable commentary to go with it.
* Love of My Life: Is an explanation really necessary?
* Good Company: Similar reasoning to Prophet's Song and Seaside Rendezvous.
* Bohemian Rhapsody: ...
* God Save the Queen: Notable because of its role in Queen's live shows.
TheStigt·c 23:47, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Full song writing list

message: is someone vandalizing this page? The pages for Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...), Lazing o a Sunday Afternoon, I'm in Love with My Car, 39, Sweet Lady, Seaside Rendezvous, The Prophet's Song, Good Company, and God Save the Queen are gone completly.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.56.253.215 (talk) 01:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, that's not vandalism. Second, yes. If you look at the page history, Wiki libs removed them yesterday. The links didn't go anywhere. They just redirected back to this page. Friginator (talk) 02:13, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism? 

message: Dear all,
I noticed that there is no Charts section/table like the one in, e.g., the Innuendo or The Miracle article (with chart peak position by country, platinum/gold certification and sales). Does anyone else feel like this is missing? Should we work on adding this?
Looking forward to your opinions,
Ben
--Georgepauljohnringo (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 19:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charts section/table? 

message: I first had A Night at the Opera on a UK release cassette so it came as a surprise when I later had the LP and CD releases and Good Company and Seaside Rendezvous had swapped positions in the track listing (I always preferred the track listing the way I first heard it).  This perhaps ought to be noted on the main page but I don't know whether this different track listing was widespread or just on certain releases. Grunson (talk) 20:01, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Track listing isn't correct for all cassette releases. 

message: During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
* http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5938174/the_rs_500_greatest_albums_of_all_time/3
** In Doolittle (album) on 2011-03-17 14:34:47, 404 Not Found
** In Grateful Dead on 2011-03-22 12:07:44, 404 Not Found
** In A Night at the Opera (Queen album) on 2011-06-20 02:17:19, 404 Not Found
--JeffGBot (talk) 02:18, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead link 

message: Hello, I deleted the reference to Mägo de Oz as I don't think it's related to the said song. The creator may link his article to this section, but I don't think it's necessary to include this on the article. Thanks. Lynisganda01 (talk) 23:49, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  '39 

message: All the tracks from this album currently have their own articles, and I'm wondering whether some of these are actually worth keeping as individual articles, or whether it would be better to merge them into this one. For example, "Good Company" contains just two references, one of which is to confirm John Deacon as bass guitarist (big deal!). The quotes by Brian May about the song are fascinating and would be worthy of keeping, but they are unsourced – anybody know where they are from? If you look at "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)" or "'39" most of the discussion of the song's meaning is essentially replicated in this album article, and the only extra information is about when the song has been played live. It appears that many of the song articles were created by  and his reasoning for them is given in Talk:A Night at the Opera (Queen album)#Full song writing list above.
As an important album there's a good case for the individual song articles to be kept, but they need to be improved and the substantial overlap removed. It goes without saying that "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "You're My Best Friend" should keep their own articles, as the singles from the album and with their own chart placings, certifications, etc. Pinging , , ,  and anyone else interested in this article for their thoughts. Richard3120 (talk) 20:46, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible merger of individual track articles into album article? 

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replies: text: Richard3120 (talk) 05:23, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Substituted at 06:18, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: Do we have a reliable source that says the album was released on 21 November 1975? It charted w/e 13 December, which would actually suggest a release date a week later on 28 November, because at the time fifteen days was the standard difference between release date and chart date. Richard3120 (talk) 17:40, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Release date 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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replies: text: Richard3120 (talk) 15:16, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

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replies: text: Richard3120 (talk) 15:14, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've had a look in the British Library for reviews of A Night at the Opera from the four major UK music magazines of the time (NME, Melody Maker, Sounds and Record Mirror), and astonishingly, it doesn't seem to have been reviewed in any of them. Whether this was because EMI refused to send copies of the album to the media for review, or whether the generally anti-Queen UK music press simply didn't bother, I have no idea – there's a review in Rolling Stone from early 1976, but I think most reviews for the "critical reception" section are going to have to be legacy ones. Richard3120 (talk) 16:55, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  No contemporary UK reviews 

message: I don't believe the review in the "Reception and legacy" section comes from Melody Maker in 1975. Firstly, it's obvious from reading the first sentence in the source ("Queen was well-known at the time of this album's debut for hard rock") that the use of the past tense shows that this is a legacy review. Secondly, the majority of the review focuses on the quality of the new mix. This isn't the type of thing Melody Maker would have covered, either in 1975 or on a subsequent reissue, despite where the source claims the article has come from – it's far more likely that this review has come from Record Collector or a specialist audiophile magazine such as Hi-Fi Choice. Richard3120 (talk) 21:24, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Found it – I knew it was from an audiophile magazine by the way they were talking... in this case, Audio Video Revolution: http://www.avrev.com/music-disc-reviews/dvd-audio/queen-a-night-at-the-opera-2.html. Richard3120 (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Melody Maker'' review 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I don't understand why was pop genre added to this album and "A Day At The Races". All the same, the source says that the genre of the album is pop in the sense that it is more a mass product, not in terms of the musical component. Alex katsenelson (talk) 00:11, 07 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Genre

message: Un-referenced material, non-encyclopedic language, etc., etc.  Where to start fixing this atrocity of an article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.44.55 (talk • contribs) 10:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Really? Would you like to be more specific about where the problems are? What would you do to improve it? Because the only section which is generally full of unreferenced or poorly-referenced material is the "Songs" section - I agree that this should be cut down a lot to take out the unsourced material and that many of the songs do not deserve their own individual articles. But otherwise I don't see much evidence of POV, OR or unencyclopedic writing. Richard3120 (talk) 13:41, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  You could start as I've just done, trimming the song entries down to simply "Side one" and "Side two" (with a sub-section for "Bohemian Rhapsody" which I think is unavoidable - but none of the other songs warrant such an in-depth examination based on the sources), adding some decent book sources and trimming out a load of fancruft. More to come, I suspect. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:18, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  excellent work, thank you. I still feel there's a lot of unsourced and trivial material in the "Songs" section, especially the parts discussing on which tours each track was subsequently performed... is this really notable? And I think apart from the two singles, most of the other songs could be redirected to this article – the individual song articles mostly just repeat what is already here, padded out with unsourced OR or non-RS fansite sources. Richard3120 (talk) 16:33, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  full of Original Research and fan-boy POV 

message: I suggested in the "Release date" thread above that 28 November was a more likely release date than 21 November for this album, based on charting date, and now I see the Sounds review also states that the album would be released on 28 November. Unless someone can provide a source for 21 November being the release date (which isn't sourced anywhere in the article), I'm going to change it to 28 November and cite the source. Richard3120 (talk) 17:38, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Release date (part 2)