July 23, 2008
Life Changing Albums - A Night At The Opera
The first in a new series from the lovely lady lascivious
It's one of the greatest feelings in the world: you discover (or re-discover) a fucking great album. One that rocks your world, one that makes you question how you ever lived your life without it. One that changes the way you look at the artist, at music in general, at the world around you, and at yourself. This is that album.
Then, as often happens, you listen to nothing but that album for days. Weeks. Months, even. Sure, you may be forced to choke down some smooth jazz in the elevator every morning, trying not to picture Seals & Croft lounging in the jasmine. And occasionally you'll find yourself gettin down a little with Elton and Kiki in the supermarket. But if given a choice, you MUST listen to this album and
Then it begins. One day, you turn it off. And for some bizarre reason, you don't want to turn it back on. And the album that changed your life forever falls out of rotation, lays idly on the shelf, victim of the cruel fate of being overplayed.
This is not that album.
No matter how many times I listen to A Night At The Opera, I don't get tired of it. I'll show my age here by saying that this album was released almost a decade before I was born, and I've been listening to some of these songs since I was in nappies. Do I still love em? Hell yeah I do. Now let me say that I don't listen to the entire album all the way through once a day, I'm not that neurotic (yet). But I equate it with watching a favorite TV show...sometimes, I might have the time and desire to plop my ass on the couch and watch ALL of Dr. Who Season 27, but most of the time I'll wander into the living room thinking "Oh man, remember that episode with the kid in the gas mask? That was creepy, I'm gonna watch it again." And I'll spend the rest of the afternoon wandering up to strangers, asking "Are you my mummy?", then scuttling away giggling and humming "Moonlight Serenade".
Much like the resilient Doctor, this album will not go away. It's infectious. It runs itself around and around in your head and you can't help but love it. It's got everything: songs for when you're pissed, when you're happy, when you're depressed, when you're depressed but want to be happy, when you're sentimental, or when you're feeling naughty. Let's examine the breakdown:
1. Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...) - apparently "dedicated to" their ex-manager Norman Sheffield, this song is the perfect "fuck you" to your recent ex-whatever. Mercury pens some stingers, my personal favorite being "You're a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride." BURN!!
2. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon - one reason I love Freddie Mercury is little ditties like this one. It feels like Brighton in 1940, or something you'd hear playing on an old Victor drifting down an alley. Now THAT'S classic rock.
3. I'm In Love With My Car - this is the song that (further) convinced me that 6/8 is by far the sexiest of the time signatures. Grease guns, pumping pistons, cruising in overdrive...this song just oozes testosterone and I want a piece of the action.
4. You're My Best Friend - one of Queen's most popular singles for sure. Dripping with sugar-sweet sentiments, some people like to scandal it up and claim Freddie is singing about repressed feelings towards a male friend. Sorry guys, John Deacon wrote this one for his wife, who he's still married to. Can't we just have a really sweet love song on a badass rock album? What's so wrong with that?
5. '39 - at first glance, a lovely folk song about brave volunteers shipping off to war. Then it gets better when you find out that it's a sci-fi story written by Brian May about space explorers who leave for what is, to them, a year long journey, but 100 years pass on Earth and the loved ones they left behind are all dead. The nerd in me wants to hug this song.
6. Sweet Lady - another May gem, some consider it a sequel to "Tie Your Mother Down", both in style and subject. It's ballsy, it's bitter, it rocks.
7. Seaside Rendezvous - another Mercury rag that is guaranteed to make your mood perk up. C'mon, how could you not be happy when you're listening to a burlesque kazoo solo? C'mon!!
8. The Prophet's Song - maybe the closest Queen ever got to really going prog, and boy did they do it right! Running well over eight minutes, it's an opus in and of itself; lyrics hint at elements of death and destruction caused by the biblical Great Flood, and there are an abundance of truly awesome vocal overlays.
9. Love of My Life - one of Mercury's sob story ballads, and I mean that in the best way possible. This song has been covered by tons of bands, including the Scorpions (allmusic that shit, I was surprised how not terrible it is). It's a beautiful number and reminds me of the ballads on Sheer Heart Attack ("Dear Friends", "In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited").
10. Good Company - a pleasant little skiffle number with two valuable lessons: a. bro's before ho's; and b. working hard all your life will just leave you old and lonely. My favorite thing about this song is Brian May's instrument, the banjolele...it's exactly what it sounds like, and I want one.
11. Bohemian Rhapsody - I'm sure I don't have to say anything about this one, but I'm going to anyways cuz that's my job. While it is probably in the Top 3 of Queens most widely-known songs and one of the most played songs in radio history (alright, I made that last part up, but I wouldn't be surprised...), it's still badass. And if you think you're tired of hearing it, give it another listen. A really good one. If you're not doing the Wayne's World headbang by the end, you must not have a soul.
12. God Save The Queen - this is the British equivalent of Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner", and May has even admitted that he got the idea from Hendrix. Except May didn't burn out at 28 and actually got to play his rendition on top of Buckingham Palace for the Queen in 2002.
So you see, each song individually scores way high on the badassness scale. So when you add them all up into one glorious album, the ground shakes and the scale explodes and it rains badassness onto all the villagers. Now, I try to be tolerant and understanding of other people's tastes (hey, I'm not a total bitch...usually). But if you don't at least acknowledge the genius of A Night At The Opera, there'll probably be a stabbing.