Album Anniversaries: 50 Years Since Queen’s Transcendent ‘A Night at the Opera’

Even 50 years after releasing A Night at the Opera, Queen continues to reign by way of this legendary album. Not only did it birth the timelessly brilliant "Bohemian Rhapsody,” it also reinvented rock music as a genre.   

Written by Rachel Yost

Illustrated by Ariel Gallegos

Fifty years ago, in 1975, Queen created an album of musical virtuosity. The colossal success of A Night at the Opera, the band’s fourth studio album, permanently implanted Queen’s spot on rock and roll’s list of legends. Tonal diversity, sonic layering, and varied musical styles are just a few of the elements that shape this album’s notoriety. Sitting at an even 12 tracks, this album endeavors into a plethora of genres. While it is predominantly rock, the band also ventures onto the avenues of folk, opera, and classical ballads. The album spans from topics of the deepest hatred to the most extreme love. It encapsulates the expansivity of emotion during a human life in the most abundant and flamboyant way while still maintaining its characterizing relatability. Despite its genre-hopping, cohesion is never lost. By masterfully blending nostalgia and novelty, Queen created an authentically original piece, cementing its evergreen legacy. Although international audiences praised Queen’s previous albums Sheer Heart Attack and Queen II, the band found itself in an unexplained debt of at least tens of thousands of pounds. "We were broke and we wanted to know why,” frankly proclaimed Roger Taylor, Queen’s drummer. The answer was corrupt management. The band’s record deal with Trident Studios and the employment of its manager Norman Sheffield, resulted in little to no money gained from these two immensely profitable albums. Furious and out of money, Queen had a newfound motivation to seek justice the best way they knew how, through more music. Thus, the opening track of A Night at the Opera, “Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…),” was born. Freddie Mercury, Queen’s lead singer and pianist, wrote the song as a message of contempt. While the song’s plain hatred and creatively cruel insults left lead guitarist Brian May feeling “bad for singing them,” such an impassioned opener is only appropriate for one of the most tremendous albums in rock music’s history.  

Rapidly paced piano begins the opening track. While initially the song sounds elegant and innocent, this tone is quickly broken by May’s ominous guitar line. Mercury’s sharp and vindictive lyrics begin, clearly telling the listener that this is a song of built-up anger. In a frustrated and raspy voice, he sings, “You’ve taken all my money / And you want more / Misguided old mule / With your pigheaded rules,” clarifying who exactly this song is dedicated to. As the song’s complexity builds, so does its malice and hostility. Amidst the brief layered harmonies and after May’s rollercoaster guitar solo, Mercury spews that Sheffield is “a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride.” After this searing lyric, the track ends with the victorious declaration “I feel good,” making it clear to Sheffield that his treatment did not leave the band broken. A song full of such viciousness and disgust might make it seem impossible for the band to shift the tone of this album, but Queen’s mastery proves otherwise. 

Just three songs later, Queen swaps its spiteful voice for one of nostalgia, love, and admiration in “You’re My Best Friend.” Bassist John Deacon wrote this song to include a plethora of literal representations of happiness. Compared to the darkness and malice present in “Death on Two Legs (Dedicated To…),” this song is pure light. Its nostalgic sound arises from group harmonies that mimic a barbershop quartet. Combined with lively piano, drum, and lyrics like “You’re my sunshine” and “You’re my only one,” the sonics create a moment of pure optimism amidst an album full of explosive emotions. 

One of the most distinguishing elements to A Night at the Opera is its vast genre diversity. Just in the first half, the album adds greatly to its dimension and magneticism, including rock, pop, and folk sounds. The inarguably folksy “39” comes right after “You’re My Best Friend.” The song begins with twangy acoustic guitar strumming backed by a harmonizing choir. An electric guitar riff then mimics this vocal harmonization. The distant echoes of May’s voice then emerge. In traditional folk fashion, he reminisces on the past, longing for “the land that our grandchildren knew.” While not necessarily aligning with the  intensity of “Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…)” nor the positivity of “You’re My Best Friend,” it arrives at a median point, carrying a contentness somehow both sad and hopeful. This beautifully cohesive yet non-redundant style continues into the album’s latter half, shifting from shorter upbeat songs to longer emotive tracks.

Two uncommonly lengthy songs are jammed into the second half of the album. Additionally, the overall sound of this half is much sadder and stranger, two descriptors that barely begin to describe the album’s longest track, “The Prophet’s Song.” At eight minutes and 13 seconds, this piece acts as an extensive message of warning. Presumably written from a prophet’s perspective, Queen explores themes like religious-induced fear and mania. Layered, whispering lyrics tell the listener to both “Listen to the wise man” and “Listen to the mad man,” commenting on Christianity’s contradictory epistles, like the message to “love thy neighbor” while simultaneously deeming certain characteristics as “sinful.” About six minutes into the song, Deacon, Taylor, and May break into a groovy instrumental segment that includes twangy, reverberated electric guitar and isolated drum drum beats. This shifts the focus of the song to rock as it begins to finish. At the very end, May plucks the toy koto, a traditional Japanese instrument, angelically transitioning into the album’s next track, “Love of My Life.” The piano picks up the same melody established by the toy koto seamlessly, which immediately sets a somber tone. In longingly drawn out vocals, Mercury despairingly speaks of heartbreak over his love hurting and carelessly leaving him, singing, “Don’t take it away from me / Because you don’t know what it means to me.” This tale of unrequited love is one of the most vulnerable songs on the album. It’s clear that whoever the addressee is does not love the speaker nearly as much as the speaker loves them. “Love of My Life” serves as a necessary breath before the illustrious and explosive conglomeration of emotion just two songs later.

It seems impossible to detail the legacy of this album without mentioning its most famous piece: “Bohemian Rhapsody.” According to writer Robert Greenberg, Mercury stated that the song was “basically three songs that I wanted to put out and I just put the three songs together.” The stylistic distinctions in the song are part of the reason why it still has such a grasp on listeners. Just as the album shifts styles while still sustaining a dramatic tone, so does this song. “Bohemian Rhapsody” scratches the listener’s itch for simultaneous novelty and familiarity. It begins with questions “Is this the real life? / Is this just fantasy?” sung in reverberated harmonies before quickly transitioning into the ballad segment. A sorrowfully descending piano melody accompanies the confessional and guilt ridden lyrics “Mama / Just killed a man / Put a gun against his head / Pulled the trigger, now he’s dead.” Here, Mercury proclaims a consistent message that “Nothing really matters,” which seems contradictory due to the extravagance of the piece itself. If truly nothing mattered, then what would be the point of creating such a lavish and complicated song? Queen simultaneously contributes to music history and questions its relevance when there is always a multitude of social issues afoot. 

At about the halfway mark, May’s iconic guitar solo concludes the ballad portion and signifies the start of a theatrical opera segment. The primary instrumentation during this segment is the piano and drum that alters between being precarious and impassioned. Thrashing between the meek question of “Will you let me go?” and the firm refusal of “We will not let you go,” the tension builds to a culminating break in the song. Defiance and rebellion permeate the closing rock section, which of course calls for a hyper electric guitar line. The technicality of the musical backing is astounding, as May scales through notes effortlessly, and Taylor maintains control on the drums while still fostering a heavy metal sound. As it begins to taper out, the song returns to the hopeless sentiment that “Nothing really matters.” The final strung out lyric — “Any way the wind blows” —   leaves the listener with an ominously ambiguous feeling. The line could mean a multitude of things, but here, it intends to remind the listener that despite this tremendous piece of musical artistry, it should not distract from real world issues. One of which was the growing stigma around the queer community, especially due to the AIDS epidemic. Mercury himself was queer, and passed away in 1991 due to AIDS-related pneumonia. Though the song was written before his diagnosis, his lyrics accumulate more meaning knowing he wrote them from a personally queer perspective. They express guilt, but then later defiant and intense self acceptance. The song’s lingering message is that no matter which way the cookie crumbles, nothing material really matters as long as such turbulence continues to leave society disconnected.   

The enduring lifespan of A Night at the Opera has everything to do with its defiance of the norm. Musically, it does not fit into one category. Going beyond just one genre, the album mixes musical elements of opera, folk, rock, reverberated harmonies, and more. Its exploration of a myriad of genres is representative of its unconventionally risky nature. Out of what was almost a necessity, Queen took a gamble with releasing an untraditional album, and it paid off. The band could have opted for a secure option and stuck to classic rock, but it didn’t. The courage emanating from that choice is the album’s legacy. It continues to inspire originality and bravery  in an age where those two qualities are so highly valued.. A Night at the Opera will forever reign as a crucial piece of musical history. It commands society to reject fear of the unexpected and instead embrace the possibility it holds.