Post Description

"Keep Yourself Alive" and "Great King Rat" highlight this 1973 release

Part of a six-album SHM-SACD reissue series celebrating Queen's 40th anniversary and featuring albums Queen I, Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night At The Opera, A Day At The Races and News Of The World

Over the course of its career, Queen released 18 albums and 18 No. 1 singles and sold more than 300 million albums worldwide. The band was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003 and the U.K. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. The band received its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in October 2002.

Queen formed in late 1970, when singer Freddie Mercury (late of art school) joined up with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor (late of the Cream-ish band Smile). Bassist John Deacon joined the following year, and the newly dubbed Queen played shows, rehearsed, and recorded this, their self-titled debut. "Though they had to wait a couple of years for a release, Queen is quite clearly the work of an assured group of young men. May's album opener 'Keep Yourself Alive' was an early anthem and showcase for his multi-tracked guitar. It didn't really have the operatic flair of the band's later hits, but it was catchy, well-produced, and just ridiculously easy to fist-pump along to in concert. Mercury-penned songs like 'Great King Rat' and 'My Fairy King' offered ample evidence where Queen's more precocious interests lie, though even then, the songs rocked way harder than their titles let on. Indeed, a song like 'Son and Daughter' is like the lovechild of Black Sabbath and Ziggy Stardust, taking the most potent attributes of both, and refusing to tone down anything in favor of a harmonious mix. And they were just getting started." - Pitchfork