It opens with “Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…),” a barely veiled and acerbic open letter to a businessman contact, which was actually given its finishing touches immediately before release. Queen made the most of the 24 track set-ups Baker brought to the table, and along with the engineer, the late Mike Stone who sadly passed away in 2002, they collectively created a great sounding record. This is an album that should be listened to in its entirety rather than through the unpredictability of random play and shuffle. The 12 tracks that make up A Night At The Opera comfortably broke the 43-minute mark, and like its predecessor, the sequencing of this record creates its own dynamic. The band later worked in five more studios (Roundhouse, Sarm East, Scorpio, Lansdowne, and Olympic) in their pursuit of perfection, and in so doing, their own self-belief was fully justified. They then decamped over the Welsh Marches once more to Rockfield. John, Roger, Brian, and Freddie took much-needed holidays before work on the new project began in earnest with a three-week writing and playing session in a rented Herefordshire house. Listen to A Night At The Opera right now. Everything from its title (one that is borrowed from The Marx Brothers 1935 movie) to the music, the album’s artwork, and the whole pomp and circumstance of the entire package is majestic. A Night At The Opera, as we all now know, is a masterpiece. Work on Queen’s fourth album, another co-produced by the band along with Roy Thomas Baker, began in August 1975, and it was only finished shortly before the opening date of their tour at Liverpool’s Empire Theatre on November 14. Between the band’s return and the start of another UK tour on November 14, 1975, Queen recorded the album that would turn them from big stars to superstars. The UK tour to support the release of Sheer Heart Attack got underway during the autumn of 1974, and after taking in Europe and America, it finished at the Budokan in Tokyo, Japan, on May 1, 1975.

Queen a night at the opera