History of Hard Rock/Heavy Metal: Queen

Few bands embodied the pure excess of the '70s like Queen. Embracing the exaggerated pomp of prog rock and heavy metal, as well as vaudevillian music hall, the British quartet delved deeply into camp and bombast, creating a huge, mock-operatic sound with layered guitars and overdubbed vocals.

Queen's music was a bizarre yet highly accessible fusion of the macho and the fey. For years, their albums boasted the motto "no synthesizers were used on this record," signaling their allegiance with the legions of post-Led Zeppelin hard rock bands. But vocalist Freddie Mercury brought an extravagant sense of camp to the band, pushing them toward kitschy humor and pseudo-classical arrangements, as epitomized on their best-known song, "Bohemian Rhapsody."

The origins of Queen lay in the hard rock psychedelic group Smile, which guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor joined in 1967. Following the departure of Smile's lead vocalist, Tim Staffell, in 1971, May and Taylor formed a group with Freddie Mercury, the former lead singer for Wreckage. Within a few months, bassist John Deacon joined them, and they began rehearsing. Over the next two years, as all four members completed college, they simply rehearsed, playing just a handful of gigs.

By 1973, they had begun to concentrate on their career, releasing the Roy Thomas Baker-produced Queen that year and setting out on their first tour. Queen was more or less a straight metal album and failed to receive much acclaim, but Queen II became an unexpected British breakthrough early in 1974.

Queen released their third album, Sheer Heart Attack, before the end of 1974. The music hall meets Zeppelin "Killer Queen" climbed to number two on the U.K. charts, taking the album to number two as well. Sheer Heart Attack made some inroads in America as well, setting the stage for the breakthrough of 1975's A Night at the Opera. Queen labored long and hard over the record; according to many reports, it was the most expensive rock record ever made at the time of its release.

The first single from the record, "Bohemian Rhapsody," became Queen's signature song, and with its bombastic, mock-operatic structure punctuated by heavy metal riffing, it encapsulates their music. It also is the symbol for their musical excesses — the song took three weeks to record, and there were so many vocal overdubs on the record that it was possible see through the tape at certain points. To support "Bohemian Rhapsody," Queen shot one of the first conceptual music videos, and the gamble paid off as the single spent nine weeks at number one in the England, breaking the record for the longest run at number one. The song and A Night at the Opera were equally successful in America, as the album climbed into the Top Ten and quickly went platinum.

Queen were now superstars and produced a string of hit albums that lasted into the middle part of the eighties. The popularity of the band began to wane by the late 80s and into the 90s and then tragedy struck.

By 1991, Queen had drastically scaled back their activity, causing many rumors to circulate about Freddie Mercury's health. On November 23, he issued a statement confirming that he was stricken with AIDS; he died the next day. The following spring, the remaining members of Queen held a memorial concert at Wembley Stadium, which was broadcast to an international audience of more than one billion.

In 2005 the Queen name was revived but this time with "+ Paul Rodgers" appended to it. Rodgers, the former lead singer of Free and Bad Company, joined Brian May and Roger Taylor — John Deacon remained retired — for some live shows, one of which was documented on 2005's Return of the Champions, a double disc on the Hollywood label.