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3.1. QUEEN
Queen is a classic rock band born in London, England in 1970 by the already dead Freddie Mercury.
For a lot of People, Queen is considered as the best musical group; it is recognized as the most
successful British band of the last three decades.
The band is well known for its great musical diversity not only vocally but also instrumentally.
It was formed by Freddie Mercury (voice, guitar, keyboards), Brian May (guitar), Roger Taylor
(drums, voices, percution), John Deakon (bass, double bass and keyboards).
It all started in 1968 when Brian May and Tim Staffel, Two students at the imperial college formed a
band called “Smile”. Then Roger Taylor joined them on the drums.
In 1969 they recorded six songs but only two of them were edited. Unfortunately the simple failed,
Tim Staffel decided to leave the band and recommended his partner and fan of the band Farouk
Bulsara, who had changed his name into Freddie Mercury because it sounded stronger.
He joined the band and changed its name into “Queen”. A year later John Deacon joined the band as
the bassist and the band was completed.
After several rehearsals the band recorded its first album in 1973 called “Queen”, the songs mixed the
spirituality of Freddie with the typical rock in its original style.
After a tour as the backing group of “Moot The Hoople” They recorded
their second LP, “Queen 2”. They went on another tour around Britain
and also started their first tour around U.S.A., again as backing group of
“Moot the hoople”. Then they recorded a new album, “Sheer Heart
Attack”, in 1974, which had a great success and acknowledgement in the
world.
In 1975 they started their first tour as a leader band in the U.S.A., having
to play two daily shows because of their success. In April they went on a
tour around Japan, where thousands of fans were waiting for them at the
airport.
The same year they launched the single “Bohemian Rhapsody”,
which turned into a big success; as the number one on the music
charts for nine weeks and for fifty weeks at all when the LP “A
Night At The Opera” was launched, letting them win the first
platinum disk.
In 1976 they made a week disk “A
Day At The Races” and in October
1977 their fan club members were
called to take part in one of their
videos, “We Are The Champions”,
recorded in New London theatre.
After the filming, the band gave a free concert to the fans to thank
them.
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In October 1977 they released “News of the world” and a year
later “Jazz”.
In 1979 they launched their first live album “The game”, the first
one using synthesizers. It was launched in June 1980 and it was
very well sold, the same as “Another One Bits The Dust”, which
was the best sold single in the world.
In 1981 they went on a tour around several countries of South
America breaking the records of attendance in countries such as
Brazil and Argentina. In October 1981 they launched “Greatest
Hits”, “Greatest Flix” (video collection) and “Greatest Pix” (a
biographic book with pictures of the group).
In 1982 they launched “Hot Space” and in 1984 “The Works”, whose song
“Radio Ga Ga” turned into a big success, such as “I Want To Break Free”
video in which the members of the band appeared being dressed up as women,
in order to ridicule a series of British T.V.
In 1985 the Rock Festival in Río took place, the most important one till
nowadays, in which queen participated being the great winner.
On 13th of July they participated in another festival, the “Live Aid”; the first
on being realized against AIDS. Before the concert the members of Queen had decided to separate, but
because of the enormous success they had achieved in the concert they changed their minds and
decided to continue with more energy.
In 1986 they released “A Kind Of Magic” which was the sound track
for the movie “Highlander” in December of the same year they
released “Live Magic”, their second live disk.
The opera singer Montserrat Caballé, one of the loyal fans of Freddie,
met him in her house in Barcelona. There they made great friends and
agreed to record a disk together.
Freddie wrote a song in Barcelona according to the voice of caballé.
The single appeared in Spain in September 1987 and quickly the
Spanish Olympic committee adopted it as the official anthem of the
Olympics that were going to be celebrated in Barcelona in 1992. The LP was released in October
1988.
In 1989 a new Queen album appeared; “The Miracle” which soon achieved a big success. At that time
Freddie already knew that he was dying. By the end of the decade, Queen was elected as the best
group of the 80’s.
In 1991 they released a new single, “Innuendo”, of almost seven minutes.
Needless to say, it was on the music charts all over the world. The album
“Innuendo” was launched some time later and followed the steps of the
single.
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Freddie Mercury’s disease influenced the disk that the band released and their lyrics talked about the
coming to an end that only Freddie experienced.
At the end of 1991 they released the “Greatest Hits 2” On 23rd of November Freddie announced to the
world that he had AIDS. On the following day he died at home surrounded by friends and family. His
death left his fans shocked because they did not know about his disease till the end.
As homage to Mercury they launched a single with two tracks: “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “These Are
The Days Of Our Lives” the money collected were the proceeds of the campaign against AIDS
organization.
On 20th of April 1992 there was a big concert homage to Freddie. The
scenery was the Wembley Stadium, in London, and 72,000 tickets
were sold in just six hours without even knowing who were going to
play. The concert was aired live to more than one thousand million of
people all over the world.
In 1995, after four years of work, it was launched the last project of
the band with Freddie Mercury. Its title was “Made in Heaven” and
Freddie had helped with his voice in the last months of his life.
At the end of 1995 they launched the last album of the band,
“Ultimate Queen”, a box with twenty disks by Queen, Few months later they released their last disk,
“Queen Rocks”, with a song dedicated to Freddie, “No One But You (Only The Good Dies Young)”.
Discography:
1973 – Queen – EMI
1974 – Queen 2 – EMI
1974 – Sheer Heart Attack – EMI
1975 – A Night At The Opera – EMI
1976 – A Day At The Races – EMI
1977 – News Of The World – EMI
1978 – Jazz – EMI
1980 – The Game – EMI
1980 – Flash Gordon – EMI
1982 – Hot Space – EMI
1984 – The Works – EMI
1986 – A Kind Of Magic – EMI
1989 – The Miracle – EMI
1991 – Innuendo – EMI
1995 – Made In Heaven – EMI
Live Disks:
1979 – Live Killers – EMI
1986 – Live Magic – EMI
1992 – Live at Wembley ’86 – EMI
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2004 – Queen on Fire-Live at The Bowl – EMI
2005 – Return of the Champions – EMI
2007 - Queen Rock Montreal – EMI