Released on 28 November 1975 "A Night At The Opera" was the 4th., studio album by the British rock band Queen. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen, it was reportedly the most expensive album ever recorded at the time of its release, the album spawned two singles "Bohemian Rhapsody" & "You're My Best Friend".
Named after the Marx Brothers' film of the same name, A Night at the Opera was recorded at various studios across a four-month period in 1975. Due to management issues, Queen had received almost none of the money they earned for their previous albums. Subsequently, they ended their contract with Trident Studios and did not use their studios for the album (the sole exception being "God Save the Queen", which had been recorded the previous year). They employed a complex production that extensively used multitrack recording, and the songs incorporated a wide range of styles, such as ballads, music hall, sea shanties, dixieland, hard rock and progressive rock influences. Aside from their usual equipment, Queen also utilised a diverse range of instruments such as a double bass, harp, ukulele and more.
It also produced the band's most successful single in the UK, "Bohemian Rhapsody", which became their first number-one song in the country. Despite being twice as long as the average length of singles during the 1970s, the song became immensely popular worldwide.
Queen's previous album, Sheer Heart Attack, had obtained commercial success and brought the band mainstream attention, with the single "Killer Queen" reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart. Despite this success, the band was broke at the time, largely due to a contract they had signed which meant that they would produce albums for a production company, who would then sell the album to a record label. This meant that Queen saw almost none of the money they earned, as Trident Studios paid them £60 weekly. Guitarist Brian May was living in a bedsit in Earls Court, West London while frontman Freddie Mercury lived in a flat in Kensington that suffered from rising damp. The matter eventually reached a turning point when bassist John Deacon, who had recently married, was denied a cash advance of £4,000 by manager Norman Sheffield to put a deposit on a house. This increasing frustration led to Mercury writing the song "Death on Two Legs", which would serve as the opening track to A Night at the Opera.
In December 1974, the band hired Jim Beach as their lawyer and began negotiating their way out of Trident. While Beach studied the group's contracts, the group continued touring. They began their first tour of Japan in April 1975, where thousands of fans met them at Haneda Airport and they played two sold out shows at the Nippon Budokan, Tokyo. After a nine-month dispute, Queen were finally free of Trident and signed directly with EMI Records in the UK and Elektra Records in North America. They regained control of their back catalogue, while their former publishing company, Feldman, was taken over by EMI. Because Trident had invested over £200,000 in promoting Queen, the group were required to pay half that to buy out their contracts, and they had to give Trident 1% royalties from their next six albums. Additionally, a tour of America scheduled for September 1975 had to be cancelled as it had been organised by Jack Nelson, who was associated with Trident, despite the already booked venues and sold tickets. This tour was necessary for regaining funds, and its cancellation was a major setback.
Queen worked with producer Roy Thomas Baker, who had also split from Trident, and engineer Mike Stone. It was the last time they would work with Baker until 1978's Jazz. Gary Langan, then 19 years old and who had been a tape operator on two of Sheer Heart Attack's songs, was promoted to an assistant engineer on the album. It was reportedly the most expensive album ever made at the time, with the estimated cost being £40,000.
The album was recorded at seven different studios over a period of four months. Queen spent a month during the summer of 1975 rehearsing in a barn at what would become Ridge Farm Studio in Surrey. The group then had a three-week writing and rehearsing session in a rented house near Kington, Herefordshire before recording began. From August to September 1975, the group worked at Rockfield in Monmouthshire. For the remainder of recording sessions, which lasted until November, the group recorded at Lansdowne, Sarm Studios, Roundhouse, Scorpio Sound and Olympic Sound Studios. As their deal with Trident had ended, Trident Studios was not used during recording. The only song on the album recorded at Trident was "God Save the Queen", which had been recorded on 27 October the previous year, shortly before the band embarked on their Sheer Heart Attack Tour.
The group required multi-tracking for their complex vocal harmonies which typically consisted of May singing lower registers, Mercury singing middle registers and Taylor performing the higher parts (Deacon did not sing). Unlike their first three albums, which had used 16-track tape, A Night at the Opera was recorded using 24-track tape. Their vocal harmonies are particularly notable on the song "Bohemian Rhapsody", which features an elaborate opera sequence dominated by multitracked vocals. Similarly, "The Prophet's Song" has an a capella middle section that utilises delay on Mercury's vocals. For their self-titled "guitar orchestrations", May overdubbed his homemade Red Special guitar through an amplifier built by Deacon, known as the Deacy Amp, later released commercially as the "Brian May" amplifier by Vox. Guitar layering is one of May's distinctive techniques as a rock guitarist. He has said that the technique was developed whilst looking for a violin sound.
Aside from their usual equipment, the group used various instruments on the album. Mercury used a grand piano for most of the songs, contributing a jangle piano on "Seaside Rendezvous", while Taylor used a timpani and gong on "Bohemian Rhapsody". Deacon played double bass on "'39" and Wurlitzer Electric Piano on "You're My Best Friend". In the album liner notes, May was credited to "orchestral backdrops" – a reference to the fact that he played a number of instruments not typically found in Queen songs. He played an acoustic guitar on "Love of My Life" and "'39", as well a harp on "Love of My Life", and a toy koto on "The Prophet's Song". The song "Good Company" also features May recreating a Dixieland jazz band, which was done on his Red Special.
The album has been affiliated with progressive rock, pop, heavy metal, hard rock and avant-pop. It contains a diverse range of influences including folk, skiffle, British camp and music hall, jazz and opera. Each member wrote at least one song: Mercury wrote five of the songs, May wrote four, and Taylor and Deacon wrote one song each. The closing track was an instrumental cover of "God Save the Queen", the British national anthem, for which May was credited as the arranger.
For their first two albums, much of Queen's songwriting combined contemporary progressive rock and heavy metal, which led to a "Led Zeppelin meets Yes" description of the band. Starting with Sheer Heart Attack, Queen began drawing inspiration from their everyday lives, and embraced more mainstream musical styles, a trend which A Night at the Opera would continue. Lyrical themes ranged from science fiction and fantasy to heartbreak and romance, often with a tongue in cheek sense of humour.
The album opened with "Death On Two Legs" considered to be Mercury's hate letter to Queen's first manager, Norman Sheffield, who for some years was reputed to have mistreated the band and abused his role as their manager from 1972 to 1975. "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon" was another song by Mercury, the lead vocal was sung in the studio and reproduced through headphones in a tin bucket elsewhere in the studio. "I'm In Love With My Car", was written and sung by Taylor. The song was initially taken as a joke by May, who thought that Taylor was not serious when he heard a demo recording. The revving sounds at the conclusion of the song were recorded by Taylor's then current car, an Alfa Romeo. "You're My Best Friend" was the second song and first Queen single to be written by John Deacon. He composed it while he was learning to play piano, and played the Wurlitzer electric piano (which Mercury disliked) on the recording and overdubbed the bass guitar afterwards. The song was written for his wife, Veronica. "39" was May's attempt to do a 'lover's pirate shanty.' It relates the tale of a group of space explorers who embark on what is, from their perspective, a year-long voyage. Upon their return, however, they realise that a hundred years have passed, because of the time dilation effect in Einstein's theory of relativity, and the loved ones they left behind are now all dead or aged. "Sweet Lady" was a fast rocker written by May. and then "Seaside Rendezvous" written by Mercury, has a mock-instrumental bridge section which begins at around 0:51 into the song. The section is performed entirely by Mercury and Taylor using their voices alone.
The second part started with "The Prophet's Song" it was composed by May. He explained that he wrote the song after a dream he had had about The Great Flood and his fears about the human race and its general lack of empathy. He spent several days assembling the song, and it includes a vocal canon sung by Mercury. The vocal, and later instrumental canon was produced by early tape delay devices. "Love Of My Life" was one of Queen's most covered songs it was such a concert favourite that Mercury frequently stopped singing and allowed the audience to take over. "Good Company" was written and sung by May, who sang all vocals and played ukulele. The recording features a recreation of a Dixieland-style jazz band using May's Red Special guitar and Deacy Amp. Then the masterpiece "Bohemian Rhapsody" was written by Mercury with the first guitar solo composed by May. All piano, bass and drum parts, as well as the vocal arrangements, were thought up by Mercury on a daily basis and written down "in blocks" (using note names instead of sheets) on a phonebook. The operatic section was originally intended to be only a short interlude of "Galileos" that connected the ballad and hard rock portions of the song. The interlude is full of "obscure classical characters: Scaramouche, a clown from the Commedia dell'arte; astronomer Galileo; Figaro, the principal character in Beaumarchais' The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro; and Beelzebub, identified in the Christian New Testament as Satan, Prince of Demons, but in Arabic as "Lord of the Flies". Also in Arabic the word Bismillah', which is a noun from a phrase in the Qur'an; "Bismi-llahi r-rahmani r-rahiim", meaning "In the name of God, most gracious, most merciful". "God Save The Queen" the British national anthem, on 27 October 1974 at Trident Studios before their Sheer Heart Attack tour. He played a guide piano which was edited out later and added several layers of guitars. After the song was completed it was played as a coda at virtually every Queen concert.
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