Originally Posted by
Sean
For me, the best Queen is the first four albums. THAT is the stuff that really sounds like what I expect Queen to sound like. A wall of harmonized guitars, operatic vocal flourishes, and meaty riffs that practically foretell the coming of metal. Death On Two Legs is maybe my fave of all the tunes I discovered. That whole first side of Sheer Heartattack is among my fave tracks as well. After that they either tried to do more of the same (Day At The Races) or went for a stripped down sound that lacked a lot of the character and drama the first four albums offered. From News of the World onward they were trying different things and trying to sound different, and some worked better than others. Jazz was a temporary bounce back in the right direction, but then came disco and it's effects. Hot Space is where it peaked, though I didn't find that one particularly offensive. Side two wasn't disco at all and was about as good an album side they would offer up in the 80s on any of the albums that came later. Each had a couple tracks that stood out and a lot of filler. They really didn't make a solid, rocking album again until Innuendo. One interesting thing, Roger's tracks really grew on me. They don't really seem like Queen tracks so much as they sound like Roger songs with Queen on them. At least until he started letting Freddie sing them instead of him.
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