Queen II

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Released: March 8th, 1974
Recorded: August 1973 at Trident Studios
Genre: Rock
Length: 40:42
Label: EMI, Parlophone (UK), Elektra, Hollywood (US)
Producer: Roy Thomas Baker, Queen, Robin Geoffrey Cable



Personnel:
·         Freddie Mercury: lead vocals, background vocals, piano, harpsichord
·         Brian May: guitars, bells on “The March of the Black Queen”, lead vocals on “Some Day One Day”, background vocals, piano and organ on “Father to Son”
·         Roger Taylor: drums, gong, marimba, background vocals, lead vocals & rhythm guitar on “The Loser in the End”, additional vocalist on “The March of the Black Queen”
·         John Deacon: bass guitar, acoustic guitar
·         Roy Thomas Baker: castanets on “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke”
·         Robin Cable: piano effects (with Mercury) on Nevermore

Singles:
Seven Seas of Rhye, released February 23rd 1974

Interesting Facts:
This album had sides ‘white’ (mainly Brian songs) and ‘black’ (mainly Freddie songs) instead of ‘A’ and ‘B’, with corresponding pictures of the band dressed in either black or white.
White Queen (As it Began) was composed by Brian May. It concerns his feelings about a girl whom he had a crush on; he never had the courage to express his feelings to her.
The beginning of the song “Ogre Battle” is the end of the song played backwards including the final gong which when played backwards at the start of the song creates the building wave sound.

Track Listing:
Side White:
1.       Procession (May)—1:12
2.       Father to Son (May)—6:14
3.       White Queen (As It Began) (May)—4:33
4.       Some Day One Day (May)—4:21
5.       The Loser in  the End (Taylor)—4:01
Side Black:
1.       Ogre Battle (Mercury)—4:08
2.       The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (Mercury)—2:41
3.       Nevermore (Mercury)—1:17
4.       The March of the Black Queen (Mercury)—6:33
5.       Funny How Love Is (Mercury)—2:48
6.       Seven Seas of Rhye (Mercury)—2:48
1991 Hollywood Record Bonus Tracks
1.       See What a Fool I’ve Been (May)--4:38 - original B-side
2.       Ogre Battle (1991 Bonus Remix by Nicholas Sansano)—3:29
3.       Seven Seas of Rhye (1991 Bonus Remix by Freddy Bastone)—6:35

Queen about the Record
“For some strange reason, we seemed to get a rather different feel on the album because of the way we were forced to record, and even allowing for the problems we had, none of us were really displease with the result.
Led Zeppelin and The Who are probably in there somewhere, because they were among our favourite groups, but what we are trying to do differently from either of those groups [is] this sort of layered sound. The Who had the open chord guitar sound, and there’s a bit of that in “Father to Son”, but out sound is more based on the overdriven guitar sound, which is used for the main bulk of the song… but I also wanted to build up textures behind the main melody lines. To me, Queen II was the sort of emotional music we’d always wanted to be able to play, although we couldn’t play most of it onstage because it was too complicated. We were trying to push studio techniques to a new limit for rock groups—it was fulfilling all our dreams, because we didn’t have much opportunity for that on the first album. It went through our minds to call the album Over the Top. —Brian May

 
“We took so much trouble over that album, possibly too much, but when we finished we felt really proud. Immediately it got really bad reviews, so I took it home to listen to and thought, ‘Christ, are they right?’ But after hearing it a few weeks later, I still like it. I think it’s great. We’ll stick by it.Considering the abuse we’ve had lately, I’m surprised that the new LP has done so well. I suppose it’s basically because people like the band.”—Roger Taylor

“Well… that was a concept that we develop in that time was… it doesn’t have, any special meaning. But we were fascinated with this type of things… the wardrobe that we used at the time described it perfectly well…”
—Freddie Mercury

 


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