Queen - A Night at the Opera

Title: A Night at the Opera
Artist: Queen
Label: Elektra 7E-1053
Released: 1975

I remember buying this because I wanted to hear The Prophet's Song really bad. I've got to say that after listening to it the other day, I can't believe I ever actually wanted to hear this. This album is a stone cold turd. I know I'm supposed to love this record, but I just don't. Death on Two Legs is a nice start and I forgot my love/hate feelings towards Brian May's guitar sound. He gets some nice, firm crunchiness I like on this song and even the backing vocals work okay for me. Then it ends and goes into Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon, and I can't stand that kind of British Dance Hall crap that so many British bands have foisted on us over the years (I'm talking to you Beatles and Kinks!). It's corny and while it's not poorly played or anything, it's just horrid and has no place in my rock n' roll.

I'm in Love With My Car steers us back on track, but it's just not enough. The side bogs down with songs like 39 and the absolutely turgid Seaside Rendezvous. I know, it's campy, and fun, but I think it's stupid. It's just too corny. Sweet Lady might have turned into something, but it seems like a better idea than what it turned into.

Then when I go to flip the record over, I'm thinking that it's gonna kick off with The Prophet's Song and it's gonna redeem itself totally. Man, was I wrong! How could I have wanted to hear that? It's just too much. Too many "breaks" with nonsense a' capella silliness. It's too long overall, and the good part is about thirty seconds long. I literally started laughing at it. The rest of it gets worse. Love of My Life doesn't belong anywhere near a rock n' roll album, and we've all heard Bohemian Rhapsody enough, haven't we? I think that one works because the first attempt at that kind of rock theatrical trick on this album, The Prophet's Song is so laughably bad.

I know it's popular and I don't mean to skewer someone's sacred cow here, but A Night at the Opera just doesn't do it for me. I think I'll be putting it in the pile to trade in during my next purge.

About This Blog

I did an mp3 blog for awhile, but then some douche at Fox got it shut down thanks to some mp3 blog aggregator. Believe me, as this goes on you'll see that no one gives a crap what I listen to. When I started surfing The Internets a long time ago I used to look high and low for review sites for Rock Music. All I ever seemed to find were either people reviewing albums I already knew everything I wanted to know about them, or albums I never would care about anyway. There's some that I still look for now and again, but mostly I just do things on my own. No one sends me records and I doubt I'd play them if they did. I like finding the stuff I like in the ways I've always done it. I'm not a musician, and I'm no expert. I know what I like and I know what I don't, and that's about it.

I've always wanted a database of my music, and I haven't found anything I like for doing that. I just want something I can see wherever I am, and that I can tell my friends about when they ask what I think they should check out. Since the last debacle I learned my lesson and you have to find the music itself on your own. I'm sure the bands aren't too thrilled about that because I won't always give you links. You found me, how fucking hard can it be to find a band? They're actually trying to be found. So this will just wind up being a slowly developing album review page, and I still look for those and have a good time reading them. Some of them will (hopefully) be funny and some of them will be fawning. There won't be many bad ones because these are the cd's and records I have here, and when I don't like something I get rid of it.

Dropped for Negligible Interest is from a part of Robert Christgau's site. He has something about one of his books and apparently he put some reviews of things that didn't make it in the book for that specific reason on there. Here's a thought - until long after we're all dead and gone, why would anyone buy a book full of reviews of music played constantly on Clear Channel's shitty radio stations? Does anyone look for a review of the hamburger they're currently feeding their face with? I think we all know what a Big Mac tastes like, so what's the point in writing about it? It seems the same to me for the latest U2 album. I'm not saying I don't have any popular things, but it may take me awhile to get to them because I kind of get fascinated with whatever I'm listening to at the moment. But I promise I've listened to all of these albums carefully and own the actual cd or lp's. I'm not prejudiced against mp3's, but they're really not for serious listening if you ask me. Anyway, if Christgau is dropping things because not enough people care, then I think he's doing a shitty job. He should be trying to interest us in new things, or even old things we don't remember or missed out on.

Not that I'm after his job or anything. I just want a kind of database of my stuff that's the way I want it. You're welcome to use it any way you want.