In this era of mp3 digital downloading of music, sometimes all you are able to get is literally a bare-bones, low-fi presentation of the music itself. If you’re lucky, you might be able to get some liner notes concerning the song titles, cover art, and a list of musicians who played on the album.
For the casual listener or musician who wants to know more about a standout record, Eagle Rock Entertainment has produced a fine set of DVDs known as “Classic Albums” that fills in the gaps. Classic Albums – Queen: The Making of A Night at the Opera, is one of the best documentaries in the series, along with Classic Albums: The Doors - The Doors, Classic Albums: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Damn the Torpedoes, and Classic Albums: Pink Floyd - The Making of Dark Side of the Moon, just to name a few.
While The Beatles were the first rock band to use the recording studio as almost another musical instrument, you realize that Queen (and Pink Floyd before them) basically picked up where The Beatles left off. In 1974, Queen engineer Mike Stone and producer Roy Thomas Baker (Journey, The Cars) used various studio effects and recording techniques to create a very distinctive and unique sounding record that still resonates with the public today.
In fact, this documentary reveals that although Queen’s first three albums were very popular in the U.K., and “Killer Queen” (from Sheer Heart Attack) charted well in the U.S., A Night at the Opera is the album that served as the springboard to worldwide popularity for the band. This album spawned two hit singles, Freddie Mercury’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and John Deacon’s “You’re My Best Friend." But the DVD addresses each song on the album in order of appearance.and contains interviews with executives from their U.S. record label (Joe Smith and Jac Holtzman of Elektra Records) and Baker.
The majority of the disc features new interviews with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, mixed in with archival clips of the late Freddie Mercury. While bassist John Deacon declined an offer to participate in this project, May and Taylor go to great lengths to let the viewers know that John Deacon was an integral part of the band’s sound and their ultimate success. Taylor explains that Deacon was encouraged to submit songs and was rather coy and shy about doing so. He was somewhat fearful of a negative reaction to “You’re My Best Friend," but his colleagues embraced the song right away. It subsequently became one of the band’s biggest hits of all time.
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