Sheer Heart Attack
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| Sheer Heart Attack | ||
| Image:Queen Sheer Heart Attack.png | ||
| Studio album by Queen | ||
| Released | 8 November 1974 (UK) 12 November 1974 (USA) | |
| Recorded | July-September 1974 at Trident, Wessex, Rockfield and Air Studios | |
| Genre | Rock Progressive rock Hard rock Heavy metal | |
| Length | 39:09 | |
| Label | EMI, Parlophone (Europe) Elektra, Hollywood Records (US) | |
| Producer(s) | Roy Thomas Baker and Queen | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Queen chronology | ||
| Image:Queen Queen II.png Queen II (1974) | Image:Queen Sheer Heart Attack.png Sheer Heart Attack (1974) | Image:Queen A Night At The Opera.png A Night at the Opera (1975)
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Sheer Heart Attack is a Queen album from 1974. This was their first commercial success, after the relatively lukewarm response to the first two albums, Queen, and Queen II. It was produced by Queen and Roy Thomas Baker for EMI in the UK, and Elektra in the US.
The first single, "Killer Queen" reached #2 in the British charts and provided Queen with their first US Top 20 hit peaking at #12 on the Billboard singles chart. Several songs from this album harken back to the earliest days of Queen and their predecessors Smile and Wreckage. "Brighton Rock" houses a guitar solo by Brian May, which began its life in the Smile song "Blag", then floated around in the live and BBC versions of the song "Son And Daughter", before finding its home in on the opening track here. The track begins with someone whistling the short melody "I do like to be beside the seaside", featured on "Seven Seas of Rhye", the last track from their previous album. "Stone Cold Crazy" was the first song credited to all four members of Queen but it had been played by Mercury's early band Wreckage. The original working title for "Tenement Funster" song was "Tin Dreams". "Misfire" is John Deacon's first composition to appear on a Queen album.
During Queen's first North American Tour (as a support band for Mott The Hoople) Brian felt ill and recording the forthcoming album was very difficult for him. He was sick with hepatitis (he had been infected with an unclean needle during a vaccination before the Australian tour), but he still was able to work in hospital. When he was fit, the work continued in studio, but then he fell ill again, this time with a stomach ulcer. When he was recovering after an operation, the next tour had been cancelled. Brian felt guilty, and was a bit nervous that someone would replace him in the band. Much to his relief, no one in the group had even thought about it. All three members were continuing on recording without Brian at the time. Poor production had a left a lot of spaces in the songs for Brian's solos. When he felt well enough, he came back and completed the tracks with guitar solos and backing vocals. "She Makes Me" used night-life recordings from New York. "Now I'm Here", released also as a single, was an idea of Brian in hospital, when he was thinking about touring with Mott The Hoople.
Drummer Roger Taylor was not satisfied with his hair on the original photograph, so the photographer used fake extensions, much to the band's amusement.
Sheer Heart Attack was Queen's first album to hit the US Top 20 peaking at #12 in 1975 and was certified Gold in sales by the R.I.A.A. in 1975
[edit] Track listing
- Side One
- "Brighton Rock" (May) - 5:08
- "Killer Queen" (Mercury) - 2:57
- "Tenement Funster" (Taylor) - 2:48
- "Flick of the Wrist" (Mercury) - 3:46
- "Lily of the Valley" (Mercury) - 1:43
- "Now I'm Here" (May) - 4:10
- Side Two
- "In the Lap of the Gods" (Mercury) - 3:20
- "Stone Cold Crazy" (Deacon/May/Mercury/Taylor) - 2:12
- "Dear Friends" (May) - 1:07
- "Misfire" (Deacon) - 1:50
- "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" (Mercury) - 2:13
- "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettos)" (May) - 4:08
- "In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited" (Mercury) - 3:42
1991 Hollywood Records bonus track (US reissue):
- "Stone Cold Crazy (1991 Bonus Remix by Michael Wagener)" (Deacon/May/Mercury/Taylor)
[edit] Brighton Rock
Brian May wrote "Brighton Rock" in 1973 but they couldn't finish recording it for the second album so they did it in the third. It tells the story of two young lovers meeting in Brighton on a public holiday.
The song is probably best-known for its lengthy guitar solo interlude. This featured May's technique of using multiple echos to used to build up guitar harmony and contrapuntal melodic lines. The studio version only contains one "main" guitar and one "echoed" guitar for a short section, but live, he would usually split his guitar signal into "main" and two "echoed", with each going to a separate bank of amplifiers.
Variations of this solo often featured during live Queen concerts, either as part of a rendition of Brighton Rock, a medley of it with some other songs (as witnessed on the News of the World tour where it segued after Freddie Mercury's multiple echoed vocal solo at the end of White Man and Brian May's solo would segue into "The Prophet's Song" or "Now I'm Here"), or on its own as a guitar solo.
Originally the solo was part of the song "Blag", from May and Roger Taylor's previous band Smile. May would then play it live in the Queen song "Son and Daughter", and this arrangement also appeared on a session for the BBC in late 1973. Later, the first half of "Brighton Rock" segued, via the guitar solo, to the closing section of "Son and Daughter", and as of the 1977 A Day at the Races tour was eventually played as a track in its own right until 1979. However, during the News of the World tour of 1977 and 1978, a shortened version of the song was played without the lengthy guitar solo during the beginning of the concert. Proof of that can be heard on bootlegs from the tour.
In the late seventies, the guitar solo was adapted to include some bass and drums, including a timpani solo by Taylor (from October, 1978 to November, 1981). In 1980 and 1981, the solo was included as a medley with Keep Yourself Alive, before becoming a performance in its own right. During the recent tour of Queen + Paul Rodgers, a modified version, incorporating bits of "Chinese Torture" (from the album The Miracle) was featured in the concerts. The live piece is often between nine and sixteen minutes long.
[edit] Killer Queen
"Killer Queen" was written by Freddie Mercury and it was the band's first international hit. It's one of the few songs by Mercury where he wrote the lyrics first. They did the song without Brian May at first, leaving spaces for whenever he felt better. Mercury played jangle piano instead of a grand one.
[edit] Tenement Funster
"Tenement Funster" is Roger Taylor's song in the album. He sang the lead vocals. Backing track consisted of Taylor's drums, Mercury's piano, John Deacon's bass and May's guitar. It's a typical Taylor track about youth and rebellion.
[edit] Flick of the Wrist
"Flick of the Wrist" was the double A-side of "Killer Queen" but it was much less promoted and therefore it's not very popular outside the fandom. Mercury did some octave vocals there. May hadn't heard the song when he got to record his guitars and backing voices.
[edit] Lily of the Valley
"Lily of the Valley" is one of May's favourite songs by Mercury. Mercury played piano and did all of the vocals.
[edit] Now I'm Here
"Now I'm Here" is the band's second single in the album. Written by May while at the hospital, it was recorded during the last week of the sessions, with May playing piano and Mercury playing organ. The song relies a lot on delay machines, foreshadowing "The Prophet's Song".
[edit] In the Lap of the Gods
"In the Lap of the Gods" is, according to Mercury himself, the direct prelude to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the 'A Night at the Opera' album in general. There are fast piano arpeggios as in "Death on Two Legs" and some multi-tracked harmonies. Taylor provided the screams, which he proved weren't artificially created when he did them every night during their world tour.
[edit] Stone Cold Crazy
"Stone Cold Crazy" had been written by Mercury before he co-founded Queen. For some unknown reasons the credit is shared.
The song was written during Mercury's time with a short-lived college band called Wreckage. Queen played it live as early as 1972, apparently as the first song they performed on stage[1] and, in late 1974, they finally decided to record it on an album.
The lyrics are about gangsters - Al Capone is even mentioned in the song. The song was unusually fast: it was probably the fastest song in Queen's repertoire, and, even considering rock and roll in general in 1974, "Stone Cold Crazy" was uncommonly fast.
"Stone Cold Crazy" is a precursor to the metal sub-genres of speed and thrash metal. Even beyond the fast tempo, May's stacatto riffs and Taylor's jackhammer drums are similar to later metal styles. Songs such as this one influenced metal bands for years to come--in fact, Metallica covered this song in 1990 and subsequently won a Grammy Award for their version.
[edit] Dear Friends
"Dear Friends" was May's song featuring him on the piano, and Mercury doing all of the vocals. Quite a short ballad demonstrating May's versatility.
[edit] Misfire
"Misfire" was John Deacon's first composition. He played most of the guitars including the solo, and Mercury sang all the vocals.
[edit] Bring Back That Leroy Brown
"Bring Back That Leroy Brown" was written by Mercury and features him doing all the vocals (with production techniques using tape speed to make it sound really low in the harmonies) as well as grand piano and jangle piano. May played ukelele-banjo and Deacon did a line with a double-bass.
[edit] She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettos)
"She Makes Me" was written by May. He sang all the vocals on it. John Deacon played acoustic guitars.
[edit] In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited
"In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited" is in many ways a forerunner to "We Are The Champions".[citation needed] It ends with an explosion achieved through tape-saturation.
[edit] Personnel
As it appeared on the album.
- Freddie Mercury: Vocals, Piano, Jangle Piano, Vocal Extravaganzas.
- Roger Taylor: Drums, Vocals, Percussion, Screams.
- John Deacon: Bass Guitar, Double Bass, Acoustic Guitar.
- Brian May: Guitars, Vocals, Piano, Genuine George Formby Ukelele-Banjo.
- No synthesizers
[edit] Queen about the record
| I have the feeling that the whole thing is getting a bit more professional all round. We are, after all, on our third album.
I've got more confidence in the group now than ever before. I was possibly the one person who could look at it from the outside because I was the fourth person to join the band. I knew there was something there but I wasn't so convinced of it. Till possibly this album. | ||
| —John Deacon | ||
| Sheer Heart Attack is one of my favorites, the album. | ||
| —Roger Taylor | ||
| With Sheer Heart Attack, I was able to see the group from the outside, and was pretty excited by what I saw. We'd done a few things before I was ill, but when I came back they'd done a load more, including a couple of backing tracks of songs by Freddie which I hadn't heard like 'Flick Of The Wrist', which excited me and gave me a lot of inspiration to get back in there and do some writing - 'Now I'm Here' was done in that period. That song's about experiences on the American tour, which really blew me away. I was bowled over by the amazing aura rock music has in America. 'Brighton Rock' showed how my style was evolving, particularly with the solo bit in the middle, which I'd been doing on the Mott The Hoople tour and has gradually evolved since. That involved using the repeat device in time with and original guitar phrase, which I don't think had been done before.
We weren't going for hits, because we always thought of ourselves as an album group, but we did think perhaps we'd dished up a bit too much on Queen II. | ||
| —Brian May | ||
| Not a collection of singles, dear - although we might draw another one off later for a single. I'm not absolutely sure about that, though. No, not all the numbers last for ages. There were just so many songs we wanted to do. And it makes a change to have short numbers. It's so varied that we were able to go to extremes. I only had about two weeks to write my songs so we've been working f..... hard. | ||
| —Freddie Mercury | ||
[edit] Press reviews
- New Musical Express: „A feast. No duffers, and four songs that will just run and run: Killer Queen, Flick Of The Wrist, Now I'm Here and In The Lap Of The Gods...revisited. Even the track I don't like, Brighton Rock, includes May's Echoplex solo, still a vibrant, thrilling experience whether you hear it live or on record.“<ref>Quoted in Jacky Gunn, Jim Jenkins. Queen. As It Began. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1992, p. 84. ISBN 0-283-06052-2</ref>
- Winnipeg Free Press: "The more I listen to Sheer Heart Attack, the third album from Queen, the more I realize how much I under-rated it a few months back when it was first released. Side one in particular is a delight, with Brian May's multi-tracked guitar, Freddie Mercury's stunning vocalizing and Roy Thomas Baker's dynamic production work teaming up in a no-holds barred, full-scale attack on the senses."<ref>Winnipeg Free Press, 5 July 1975 (Queen Archives)</ref>
[edit] Charts
| Country | Charts | Sales | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peak position | Weeks | Certification | ||
| United Kingdom | 2 | 42 | Platinum | 500.000 |
| United States | 12 | 32 | Gold | 850.000 |
| Netherlands | 6 | |||
| Norway | 9 | |||
| Japan | 23 | Gold | 105.000 | |
[edit] The song
"Sheer Heart Attack" is also the name of a song written by Roger Taylor featured on the Queen album News of the World. The song was originally written for the album of the same name but was not completed for three years.
During this time, the punk rock movement went into full effect, and this song was viewed as something of a jab at the musicians who felt bands like Queen were too self-indulgent. Of note is the lyric "I feel so inarticulate", and the fact that Taylor stated in interviews that he thought many of the 1970s punk bands had very little talent.
[edit] References
<references />
| Queen |
| John Deacon | Brian May | Freddie Mercury | Roger Taylor History | Live performances | Songs |
| Discography |
|---|
| Studio albums: Queen | Queen II | Sheer Heart Attack | A Night at the Opera | A Day at the Races | News of the World | Jazz | The Game | Flash Gordon | Hot Space | The Works | A Kind of Magic | The Miracle | Innuendo | Made in Heaven |
| Live albums: Live Killers | Live Magic | Live at Wembley '86 | Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl | Return of the Champions |
| Compilation albums: Greatest Hits | At the Beeb | Greatest Hits II | Classic Queen | Queen Rocks | Greatest Hits III | Stone Cold Classics |
| DVDs: We Will Rock You | The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert | Greatest Video Hits 1 | Live at Wembley Stadium | Greatest Video Hits 2 | Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl | Return of the Champions | Super Live in Japan |
| Related Articles |
| Queen + Paul Rodgers | Smile | The Cross |
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