Music / Queen (1973)

"(Modern times) rock 'n' roll!"

"Keep yourself alive,
Keep yourself alive,
Take you all your time and your money,
Honey, you'll survive!"

—"Keep Yourself Alive"

Queen is the debut album by British Glam Rock band Queen, released on 13 July 1973 by EMI Records in Britain and Elektra Records in the United States. There were influences of Progressive Rock and heavy metal that were budding, which would be taken further in the followup album.

Tracklist

Side One

1. "Keep Yourself Alive" (3:46)
2. "Doing All Right" (4:10)
3. "Great King Rat" (5:41)
4. "My Fairy King" (4:07)

Side Two

1. "Liar" (6:26)
2. "The Night Comes Down" (4:24)
3. "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll" (1:48)
4. "Son and Daughter" (3:19)
5. "Jesus" (3:45)

Principal members:

• John Deacon - bass
• Brian May - guitars, piano, backing vocals
• Freddie Mercury - lead vocals (except "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll"), piano, Hammond Organ, backing vocals
• Roger Taylor - drums, percussion, lead vocals ("Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll"), backing vocals

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Got a feeling I should be troping all right. Troping all right:

• Call-and-Response Song: During "Keep Yourself Alive":
  Do you think you're better every day?
  No, I just think I'm two steps nearer to my grave.
• Cover Version: "Doin' All Right" is a song that was originally done by Brian May's previous band Smile, so past member Tim Staffell also demanded royalties.
• Dirty Old Man: The title character in "Great King Rat" is described as one in the lyrics.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The album ends with a shorter instrumental version of "Seven Seas Of Rhye", which would appear in full on the next album.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The album sounds more like Hard Rock than the sound the band became well known for, at times bordering on Prog Rock.
• Epic Rocking: "Liar" runs for 6:26.
• Heavy Meta: "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll", which is essentially Roger Taylor's attempt to out-rock Led Zeppelin.
• Heavy Mithril: The album features a big fantasy angle, with song like "Great King Rat" and "My Fairy King".
• Ironic Nursery Rhyme: "Great King Rat", a surreal song describing the less than savoury life of the title character, has a chorus based on "Old King Cole": "Great King Rat was a dirty old man and a dirty old man was he."
• Jesus Was Way Cool: The aptly-titled "Jesus" is a driving Hard Rock sound about how Jesus was a powerful and charismatic "leader of man" who drew adoration from the people around him.
• Precision F-Strike: "Son and Daughter" features the line "The world expects a man to buckle down and shovel shit". The word was never uttered in live versions; they truncated the sentence at "shovel" or said "it" instead.
• Self-Titled Album: As seen above.
• Step Up to the Microphone: In "Liar", John Deacon gladly joins Freddie Mercury in singing the "All day long" parts.
• Unreliable Narrator. "Liar". Maybe.

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