Queen
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Review by John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, March 1975
HAVING BEEN duly, uh, blown away by the opening tracks on their previous two albums, I prepared to savor the first cut on Queen's Sheer ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1979
FOR A FEW weeks in 1978, an FM radio station in New York City was trying, earnestly and imaginatively, to create rock 'n' roll counter-programming. ...
Audio interviews
Queen's Freddie Mercury (1976)
Interview by Robert Duncan, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1976
The fabulously flamboyant Queen frontman on 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and how it's gained them a new audience; on forming the band and getting established in the UK; on management problems and becoming more adept at business; on Queen's academic backgrounds and its blend of personalities; on his pleasure in their diverse audience; on the music press and criticism; on the 'Rhapsody' video, the band's live show and their songwriting.
File format: mp3; file size: 57.5mb, interview length: 59' 50" sound quality: ***
Interview by Ian Ravendale, Rock's Backpages Audio, 4 December 1979
The regal sticksman talks about why they did a live album; 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'; plans for the next album; their rep for perfectionism; keeping to the original line-up, and refutes rumours of a split.
File format: mp3; file size: 7.2mb, interview length: 7' 49" sound quality: *****
Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 1982
The poodle-headed plank-spanker talks about the making of Queen's latest album Hot Space: its slightly torturous recording process; the influence of black music and the Isley Brothers in particular; the failure of 'Body Language' as a UK single; their success in Argentina at the time of the Falklands War; the abuse suffered by support act Bow Wow Wow from Queen fans on tour; making 'Under Pressure' with David Bowie, and their upcoming plans.
File format: mp3; file size: 32.7mb, interview length: 34' 02" sound quality: *****
List of articles in the library
Sweet: The Sweet (Bell); Queen: Queen (Elektra)
Review by Jon Tiven, Zoo World, 11 October 1973
(FANFARE) HERE they are (blast of fuzzbox trumpets) the NEW (cannon-fire) ENGLISH (fireworks explode to form a Union Jack) HEAVIES! ...
Interview by Jon Tiven, Zoo World, 20 December 1973
ALL OF ENGLAND is abuzz with the news of a hot group with all the majesty of Led Zeppelin, a group that delivers superstar appeal ...
Queen: Britain's Biggest Unknowns
Profile and Interview by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 5 January 1974
QUEEN ARE being hailed as the natural successors to Led Zeppelin on the other side of the Atlantic. This may cause an outburst of derisive ...
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 26 January 1974
MAKES YOU SICK how desperate some folks are getting when it comes down to basic rock 'n' roll hype. ...
Live Review by Pete Makowski, Sounds, 9 March 1974
IT WAS A bad night for Queen at Friars Hall, Aylesbury, last Saturday, but this was not completely their fault. For a start one of ...
Queen: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 6 April 1974
FREDDIE MERCURY glares thunderously from beneath the beam of the spotlight. Anger and hostility ooze from his mouth. He pumps his right fist vigorously skywards ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Zoo World, 18 July 1974
ABOVE ALL else, Queen excels. They excel at playing highly visceral rock 'n roll, they excel at bringing mythological elements into their music and appeal, ...
Report and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 9 November 1974
"PEOPLE THINK I'm an ogre at times. Some girls hissed at me in the street...'You devil.' They think we're really nasty. But that's only on ...
Live Review by Philip Norman, The Times, 21 November 1974
THAT REAL music should issue from a band named Queen – featuring a singer named Freddy Mercury – is sufficiently intriguing. ...
Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 21 December 1974
THERE'S NOTHING like a dearth of hero-stars to make a media industry writhe with despondency. Film moguls, unable to find successors to Monroe and Gable, ...
Queen: Helpful Boy Scout Transforms into Werewolf
Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 18 January 1975
Well, perhaps that's putting it a little strongly... let's just say he transforms into a demon who pushes old ladies under oil tankers. But WHO ...
Queen: The Very Fabulous Freddie Was Born To Rule
Interview by David Hancock, Record Mirror, 1 February 1975
THE QUICK SILVER Girl has style, but it's not just cultivated, it stems back to those balmy days in East Africa. ...
Queen's Four-Fold Strategy for Global Conquest
Report and Interview by Ron Ross, Circus Raves, March 1975
FROM A SINISTER MOAN, like a furious fiend lurking in a deep cave, Brian May's fed-back power chords slid up to a piercing demonic howl. ...
Queen: Avery Fisher Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 1 March 1975
Queen steam to new success ...
Interview by Jon Tiven, Circus, April 1975
ACCOLADES SUCH AS "greatest single long-playing achievement since Sgt. Pepper" and "the most important record album ever made" fall over Queen's latest album as easily ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 8 May 1975
TWO OF THe MOST liberated and ambitious of the "fun" oriented British bands beginning to make their mark in the States are the updated war-horses ...
Interview by Ray Fox-Cumming, Record Mirror, 24 May 1975
A FEW MONTHS ago Queen were the band everyone was talking about and the only reason why their name hasn't been on everyone's lips just ...
Interview by Lenny Kaye, Rock Scene, July 1975
AFTER SIX concerts in four days, Freddie Mercury is immobile in the sack. Each time he's been awakened, he's successfully managed to roll over (Beethoven) ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 27 September 1975
Jonh Ingham shares an eggburger with Queen's Brian May... ...
Queen: A Night At The Opera (EMI) *****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 20 November 1975
AS IMPLIED BY THEIR 'Bohemian' extravaganza Queen have really gone for it, the meisterwerk, the magnum opus even. ...
Queen: A Night At The Opera (EMI)
Review by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 22 November 1975
Studio shares rocket as Queen connect ...
Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 22 November 1975
I'M P---- OFF listening to the bloody album," mutters a weary Roger Taylor, confronted once more with hearing a new Queen album, four months ...
A Riot At The Opera: Queen Triumphant
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 29 November 1975
QUEEN ARE the type of group that make a man want to abandon rock writing. They pose questions and never provide answers. They exist in ...
Brian May – The Power Behind Queen's Throne
Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 6 December 1975
FREDDIE MERCURY steps out of the spotlight, Brian May moves in to seize the opportunity to deliver the most sizzling guitar solo. ...
Queen: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 6 December 1975
MAYBE QUEEN'S act is just the dry-ice run for America. ...
Queen: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 13 December 1975
‘BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY’ as a single is astonishingly close to a true expression of the character of Queen in any setting. ...
Queen: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 17 January 1976
IT'S DIFFICULT, YOU know, keeping up with all the fickle shifts in credibility and acceptability. ...
Mercury Rising: The Queen Interview
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 31 January 1976
AND SO IT CAME to pass that the Santa Claus single this Yuletide season was a spaghetti-melodrama of Love and Death, by that most British ...
Queen: The New British Invasion
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, March 1976
"YOU'RE NOT going to ask me to interpret ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, are you?" ...
Queen: Four Queens Beat Opera Flush
Report and Interview by Steve Turner, Rolling Stone, 11 March 1976
Cashing In on a Rock Rhapsody ...
Queen: The Greatest Show In The World
Report by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 11 September 1976
"EXCUSE ME, are you with Queen?" was the question. ...
Profile and Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 18 September 1976
BRIAN MAY remembers Queen's first-ever free gig well. It was in London, five years ago, when the band invited 120 people along to a lecture ...
Live Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 25 September 1976
AT LAST, the Seventies have arrived, and in majestic style, when, at London's Hyde Park on Saturday, Queen, born of this decade's rock generation, played ...
Queen: A Day At The Races (EMI)
Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 4 December 1976
QUEEN: A Day At The Races (EMI EMTC 104). Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano), Brian May (guitars, vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals), John Deacon (bass). Produced ...
Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 18 December 1976
THE OFFICE outside has been a-buzzing of late with the latest report concerning the whole punk conspiracy – the to-ings, and fro-ings, of the Sex ...
Interview by Mick Houghton, Sounds, 22 January 1977
QUEEN ARE a much maligned group. There can't be any criticism that hasn't been hurled at them during their lifespan. Certainly it's to be expected ...
A Day at the Races Is A Self-Made Masterpiece
Report and Interview by Wesley Strick, Circus, 31 January 1977
IT WAS SOME WEEKS BACK, and Europe's biggest rock band had four months' studio time behind them, and two weeks ahead. "It feels like we've ...
The Year Queen Lizzy Shook America
Report and Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 19 February 1977
THE WINTER of 1977 was fierce on the East Coast of the USA, a thick layer of snow engulfing the territory between Boston and New ...
Queen: A Day At The Races (Elektra)
Review by Wesley Strick, Circus, 28 February 1977
OKAY, SO they're effete, flaky, fey. And proud. So what? This (sort-of) sequel (self-produced) to A Night at the Opera reeks of arch naivete. Freddie Mercury warbles ...
The Queen Tapes Part 1: Brian May
Interview by Mick Houghton, Circus, 28 February 1977
Stargazing Guitarist Brian May Turns the Telescope on Himself and Talks About What He Sees ...
Fit to be Crowned: Queen's Mercury Rising
Report and Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, 5 May 1977
NEW YORK — Queen's Freddie Mercury just loves to be pampered. He says it conserves his energies for more important things. And, anyway, he likes ...
Freddie Mercury: Is This Man a Prat?
Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 18 June 1977
FREDDIE MERCURY has always liked to dance the Millionaire's Waltz. There's a story about him, dating back to his days as an impoverished student, which ...
Interview by Penny Valentine, Creem, April 1978
Roger Taylor: We Will Trump you!"Blokes in the audience...think he (Freddie) is just weird, very weird." ...
Queen: Empire Pool, Wembley, London
Live Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 20 May 1978
Queen bee ...
Singles: PiL, Cabaret Voltaire, X-Ray Spex, Chris Bell, The Cars et al
Review by Hugh Jarse, ZigZag, November 1978
PUBLIC IMAGE: 'Public Image' (Virgin) 'ELLO, A LOW-key re-emergence which grows on ya. I know everybody was expecting another anthem but here ya go, this ...
Queen: Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 December 1978
IT'S BEEN five years or so since Queen last played in New Orleans and the fans, having heard the glowing reports of last year's US ...
Report and Interview by Tim Lott, Daily Mail, Spring 1978
FREDDIE MERCURY appears on stage like a writhing python, stalking the boards in the black leotard he normally wears. Looking rather like an Edwardian one-piece ...
Queen: Live Killers (EMI)/KISS: Dynasty (Casablanca)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 30 June 1979
PROFESSIONAL ENTERTAINMENT! It's the best, it never quits, there's nothing like it. It's the real thing! It's sound and light and colour and spectacle to ...
Queen: Oakland Auditorium, Oakland CA
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 2 August 1980
HALF WAY through this show, Freddie Mercury finds a pack of disposable razors that someone has lobbed on stage, a fairly unsubtle hint as to ...
Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, September 1980
OVER THE course of eight albums Queen has scaled all the heights and plumbed all the depths. ...
Roger Taylor: Fun In Space (Elektra)
Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, September 1981
YOU ALL KNOW Roger Taylor: he’s the skinman who powers Queen from megamonster hit to megamonster hit. His credentials as a singer/songwriter on past Queen ...
Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, October 1982
OK, SO MAYBE I'm a little late with this one — but that's the point! Let's face it: there ain't nothing I could've said about ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Guitar Greats (BBC Books), 1983
AT THE START of the 1980s, the rock band which was generally accepted, if not as the most popular group in the world, then as ...
Brian May Brings Out the Stars
Interview by Steven Rosen, Guitar World, March 1984
The Queen guitarist brought together some heavies with Eddie Van Halen on guitar and Phil Chen on bass – for his Star Fleet Project. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, March 1984
SO HERE I am back in the giant Ajax can on Vine Street and waiting for Brian May. I look at my watch; the little ...
Royal Gum-Up: Queen: The Works (Capitol)
Review by J. Kordosh, Creem, June 1984
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH — a thing I'm not addicted to, by the way — I've been a professional liar when it comes to ...
Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 14 March 1985
Ten-day event comes off with few hitches ...
Interview by William Shaw, Smash Hits, 26 March 1986
Were they wrong to play in Sun City? Did the cash in on Live Aid with their single 'One Vision'? At last their gracious majesties ...
Queen: A Kind Of Magic (EMI) **½
Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 7 June 1986
TO DISMISS this out of hand would be as thoughtless as giving a cigarette to a man dying of cancer. There must be something to ...
Report and Interview by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 9 August 1986
David Quantick travels to Hungary as a representative of notorious bastard rock rag NME, and Queen pick up the tab! Not that they consent to ...
Freddie Mercury: Bravo Sir Frederick!
Report and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, December 1988
NEVER HAVING been one to opt for the outrageous when the downright preposterous will do, Freddie Mercury concludes his operatic concert by attempting to blow ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1991
Mostly victorious, the reign of Queen has seen two decades of pomp and bombast, outsized gestures and theatrical flamboyance. But, as Phil Sutcliffe discovers, even ...
Queen: Innuendo (Hollywood) ***
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, 7 March 1991
ONE WAY TO CONFIRM that Queen never consisted of your typically haughty progressive-rock snobs is to consider the following: In the late Seventies, Emerson, Lake ...
Metallica: Het's Induction Hour
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 2 May 1992
JAMES HETFIELD likes weapons, Queen, women who aren't brain-surgeons, hates rap and looking like Lemmy, doesn't know all the words to 'Bohemian Rhapsody' but feels ...
Queen: Made In Heaven (Parlophone)
Review by David Sinclair, Q, November 1995
MADE IN Heaven is an album so heavily freighted with emotional resonance that it is quite impossible to disentangle the music from the unique historical ...
The Hard Life of Brian: Brian May
Interview by Ian Fortnam, unpublished, April 1998
It's quite a spread – set in the majestic, green sward Jerusalem of the Home Counties' stockbroker belt, and surrounded by idyllic gardens painstakingly landscaped ...
Mercury Rising: We Will Rock You
Comment by Pete Paphides, The Guardian, 11 May 2002
A new West End musical, We Will Rock You, plunders Queen's back catalogue for tunes. But, says Peter Paphides, it misses the chance to tell ...
Queen: Brixton Academy, London *
Live Review by David Bennun, Mail On Sunday, 2005
"CAN YOU BELIEVE," says Brian May, "that we're doing this?" ...
Retrospective by Jon Wilde, Uncut, March 2005
They're responsible for the nation's favourite song, 'Bohemian Rhapsody', as well as its favourite live performance — Live Aid in '85. Now, more than a ...
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Inside Entertainment, 2007
WHAT A DIFFERENCE a few decades make. When Queen first came to prominence in the early 1970s, the British band was panned for its bombastic ...
Queen: Fifty Years of Great British Music: The '70s
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, March 2008
It wasn't all operatic rock and theatrical excess. As guitarist Brian May recalls, transsexual strippers played a part, too. ...
Queen Of Nude Orleans: 1978, October 31
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Classic Rock, October 2011
IT WAS THE aftershow party to end all aftershow parties. The champagne flowed like water, couples coupled under the tables and the entertainment included strippers, ...
Queen: Bismillah! We Will Not Let You Go!
Retrospective and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Word, October 2011
At the age of 11, Kate Mossman began a manic seven-year obsession with the baroque fantasies of Queen – but thought she'd now made a ...
Queen and Adam Lambert: Arena, Newcastle
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 14 January 2015
AS FANCIFUL AS IT SOUNDS, in Lambert the legendary rock band have found a flamboyant showman with the Freddie factor ...
Queen and Adam Lambert: Echo Arena, Liverpool
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 30 November 2017
The real star is the high-tech production which distracts when formerly lithe, lusty hits show their creaky jointed age. ...
Queen & Adam Lambert: O2, London
Live Review by Rick Pearson, The Evening Standard, 13 December 2017
HOW DO YOU replace the greatest rock singer of all time? That was the issue facing Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor when Freddie Mercury ...
Brian May: The Show Must Go On
Interview by Henry Yates, Classic Rock, October 2018
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the original version of the interview submitted to Classic Rock. * ...
The cartoon unreality of Bohemian Rhapsody reveals how Queen see themselves
Film/DVD/TV Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 25 October 2018
This is a group who wrote their songs not for personal reasons but with tens of thousands of people in mind. ...
Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody Is Now the Biggest Music Biopic Ever. It's Also Total Bullshit.
Comment by Jason King, Pitchfork, 21 February 2019
The classic rock band has always been savvy about its own branding and legacy, but their Oscar-nominated film takes things too far. ...
see also Adam Lambert
see also Brian May
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