Queen II | Sheer Heart Attack | A Night at the Opera | A Day at the Races | News of the World | Jazz
The Game | Hot Space | The Works | A Kind of Magic | The Miracle | Innuendo
- And You Thought It Would Fail: While Queen was already a beloved band in the U.K., Britain had a very negative stigma towards Progressive Rock at the time because of them seeing it as "pretentious" by proxy of Tall Poppy Syndrome. So, when Queen pitched the idea of "Bohemian Rhapsody", executives were extremely skeptical of its prog rock approach, expecting it to flop. ...Not this time.
- Cargo Ship: "I'm in Love with My Car" is a canon example:With my hand on your grease gunOh, it's like a disease, son
- Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Most of the dissections and analyses of "Bohemian Rhapsody" tend to veer off into this category.
- Fan Nickname: 'Bo Rhap' for "Bohemian Rhapsody" (acknowledge by Freddie in some concerts and interviews).
- Genius Bonus: "'39" makes a lot more sense if you understand Relativity...and remember that Brian May was studying for a degree in Astrophysics when the band was formed, and now has his doctorate. note
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- Some of the lyrics of "Bohemian Rhapsody", especially the ones relating the impending death of Freddie Mercury's character.
- "Good Company," after Brian May's wife divorced him and he was nearly Driven to Suicide as a result.
- Iron Woobie: The titular character in "Bohemian Rhapsody", who is apparently "a poor boy who needs no sympathy" and nobody loves. He kills a man and feels bad for it, yet at the same time "nothing really matters to [him]" and he decides to face his fate.
- Memetic Mutation: "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a an example of a classically successful meme
. - Older Than They Think:
- It's not uncommon to find people under the impression that "Bohemian Rhapsody" was originally written and recorded for Wayne's World in 1992, which happens to be a year after Freddie's death.
- "Bohemian Rhapsody" is frequently thought to be the first "real" Music Video, but The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other groups did plenty of music videos throughout the 60s and 70s. Queen themselves had a few videos before that as well. Making videos as part of their marketing strategy wasn't by any means as widespread as it'd become later (thanks, in no small part, to "Bohemian Rhapsody"), but they were certainly common enough back then to already be in common parlance (they were called "pop-promos").
- One-Scene Wonder: The half-minute operatic section on "Bohemian Rhapsody" is arguably one of the first things people recall about Queen in spite of being very different to 99% of things the band did before or since.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some fans of the band's earlier albums, which tended more towards Heavy Mithril, were put off by the different genres of the new album, and Queen would rarely produce whole albums as heavy as their earlier work again, although the occasional track — "Tie Your Mother Down" or "Hammer To Fall" for example — would emerge.
- Tough Act to Follow: Though some die-hard fans do prefer the more rocking angle of A Day at the Races and consider it an improvement, it didn't sell as well as its predecessor. Once its tour was over, the band, by sheer coincidence, decided to drop the over-layered approach and go back to basics.
- Values Dissonance: In "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)", the narrator encourages the subject to commit suicide, something that will get most users banned from social media services today.
