Shane’s Rock Challenge: QUEEN – 1974 – Queen II

Shane | 8 April 2014 | Reply

Shane’s Music Challenge: QUEEN – 1974 – Queen II
6.5/10

After their debut – an album recorded in snatched hours when the studios weren’t busy – Queen were adamant that their next effort would better reflect the grand vision for the band that they held in their fertile imaginations.

Brian May & Freddie Mercury stretched the limits of Trident Studio’s equipment, overdubbing choruses of vocals and guitars to make sounds that had never been heard before.

A huge improvement on Queen I, Queen II still didn’t have their signature sound fully formed, but the sheer bravado of the band’s vision and production technique (by Roy Thomas Baker & Robin Cable with the band) is stunning to this day, and has influenced a million performers, including the likes of Billy Corgan and Axl Rose.

Song wise, Seven Seas Of Rhye is the only undisputed winner, and upon reaching #10 in the UK, it became the first if their incredible run of hit singles.

May’s White Queen (As It Begins) and Some Day One Day are solid fantasy epics, Roger Taylor’s The Loser In The End shows the style that would evolve into his I’m In Love With My Car and the like, and Mercury provides plenty of burlesque on The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke and March Of The Black Queen.

In hindsight it’s easy to see that Queen I and Queen II were the sound of a wildly ambitious band throwing a million ideas at the wall and seeing what worked and what didn’t. They would not have long to wait for global domination, though.

By Shane Pinnegar