Tag: Brian May

Queen Album Review – Queen II

Note: This is a detailed track-by-track review of the original album. For my review of the 2026 Collector’s Edition, click here.

Following on from my in-depth review of Queen’s debut album, we now move on to the imaginatively titled Queen II, released in 1974. It’s not a very well known album amongst casual greatest hits consumers, but there are many in the Queen fanbase who regard it as their favourite of all the band’s studio releases. It’s certainly one of mine, it’s amazing.

Artists including Axl Rose and Steve Vai have cited the album as an influence on their own work. And Brian May once told Classic Rock Magazine that it was his favourite album for a long time too, only superseded by Made In Heaven decades later. So the band themselves are very fond of it. They certainly prefer it to their first LP, which they were never fully happy with.

Centre booklet spread from the Queen 2 album. The 4 band members are dressed in white against a white background, so only their heads are visible. Again they're in a diamond formation - Brian at the top, Freddie at the bottom, Roger on the left and John on the right.

And it’s easy to see (or indeed hear) why Queen II gets so much love, because this is where things really start to get interesting, with its intricately arranged, artistically multilayered and beautifully harmonic compositions in a mixture of styles. It’s essential to listen to the album with headphones to fully appreciate how much work and perfectionism went into it. And they had more of a structure to the album this time, with a White side containing more emotional songs (4 written by Brian and 1 by Roger), and a Black side presenting songs in more of a fantasy vein (all written by Freddie).

Queen were ready to experiment, explore and be excessive. They were keen to push the boundaries and the technology, even wearing the oxide layers off the tapes as they added more and more musical layers to get a grand orchestral effect. And they were determined not to be bossed around or fit in with any expected norms. Yet remarkably they completed the recording within a month. Check out this clip from the Days Of Our Lives documentary for an insight into how it came together.

This was their moment. They needed to stand out from the crowd if they were to have any chance of success. And they did. The album reached number 5 in the UK, staying in the charts for 29 weeks and achieving Gold status, a significant improvement over their debut. Their dominance of overseas markets was still yet to come, but they were already doing a bit better there too, peaking at number 49 in America.

So here’s my review of each of the tracks, including a look at alternate versions, live performances, covers and more that I’m aware of, as explained in my previous post. And as I’ve said before, I’m not a music expert, just a very keen fan, and I’m sure there will be other Queen fans who disagree with some of my opinions, which is fine. Ultimately, this is all just for fun. So I hope you enjoy!

A black drawing of the Queen crest on a white background, below the album's title Queen 2. The crest has a large phoenix with outstretched wings looking over a large letter Q. A royal crown sits inside the Q, on the bottom, while a small crab sits on top of the Q. 2 lions and 2 fairies complete the picture, 1 of each sitting on each side of the Q and facing towards it.
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Queen Album Review – Debut Album

Note: This is a detailed track-by-track review of the original album. For my review of the 2024 Collector’s Edition, click here.

Queen are my favourite band of all time. Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon produced such incredible songs, albums, videos and live performances throughout their reign, with their own exceptional and wonderful sound, gifting us a magical legacy that will live on forever. Their music always makes me feel good, or in tougher times it makes me feel supported, and I never tire of listening to them.

Freddie’s premature passing will forever remain a heartbreaking loss, as nobody else has (or ever will) be able to match him. Yes, of course there are many other fabulously talented singers and musicians whom I also love, but Freddie was very much a one-off, in the best possible way. There was even a scientific study analysing his amazing voice a few years ago.

It’s also essential to credit the contributions of Brian, Roger and John too, of course, all of whom are awesome musicians in their own right. And as well as being great performers, Queen are the only band where every member has composed more than one chart-topping single, and all 4 members were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. And there are many other impressive sales figures and single statistics out there, including 50 incredible facts from the Official Charts, if further proof were needed,

I first discovered Queen back in the 1990s when I went to see a tribute act in concert with some school friends. I already knew a few of their biggest hits, naturally, but the show opened my ears to so much more. I immediately got Queen’s Greatest Hits compilations, then in later years dug deeper to explore their albums and videos, and have continued to be in love with them ever since.

And we’re now approaching a highly significant milestone, as it will soon be Queen’s 50th anniversary – although exactly when you celebrate it depends on which date you use. They first performed under that name on 18 July 1970, hence I’m posting this exactly 50 years on from that date, as it’s as good a reason as any. However, the lineup was only finalised when John Deacon joined the band on 1 March 1971. So the latter is really more appropriate, and for that reason Queen are going to be officially celebrating their 50th in 2021. But hey, as our actual Queen has 2 birthdays every year, I think her majestic musical namesake can have 2 as well, right?

With that in mind, therefore, and because I have plenty of time to kill given the current worldwide situation, it’s the perfect opportunity for me to start taking a deep dive into their work and write some reviews. After all, there’s so much to explore, with such a wonderful variety to their music, and they weren’t afraid to be ambitious and experimental. Even now I sometimes discover new things that I hadn’t noticed before.

It’s clearly going take me a long while, and I don’t know how frequent my posts will be or how many I’ll have the time to do, but we’ll see how far I get. It’ll just be fun to go through their output in detail, and I hope you enjoy coming on the journey with me!

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Lockdown Favourites – Weeks 9-12

Hello again, I hope you’re continuing to keep safe and well. It’s been a strange few weeks for me. It started with the loss of my uncle over the Bank Holiday weekend, although fortunately he didn’t have the virus, and my mother and I are hoping to go to the funeral to support my aunt if the rules allow. And then of course we’ve had the Dominic Cummings scandal, which I’m not going to rant about, suffice to say there’s been a major misjudgement of the public mood by him and the government, they’ve lost a lot of trust and goodwill.

On the plus side, however, our lockdown has been eased in various ways, including the re-opening of non-essential shops, the compulsory use of face coverings on public transport, and the partial re-opening of schools. But many scientists feel too much is being done too soon – and if the experts are wary then so am I, because I trust their judgement the most. So I’m happy to continue staying locked down, because I have no compelling reason to go out anyway, and my priority is still protecting Mum by not bringing the virus home.

Best wishes to my friends and followers in the USA as well, all our thoughts are with you right now. Black Lives Matter, and those taking advantage of peaceful protests to cause destruction and misery have no respect for peace and equality. I sincerely hope that stability and civility is restored very soon. We should all be pulling together at all times, but it’s more important than ever during this pandemic.

Anyway, apart from all that, I’m doing fine and have been quite productive, and I’ve continued to find lots of pleasant distractions. So let’s get into my latest post about what I’ve been enjoying, and there are accompanying videos for week 9, week 10 and weeks 11-12. Apart from the Def Leppard box set noted in the music section, nothing else is sponsored or gifted here, and all opinions are my own. So I hope you find it interesting!

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Kerry Ellis Album Reviews

Updated since original publication to include all of her albums and some other collaborations up to 2023.

Kerry Ellis is a renowned musical theatre star who I’ve admired for some years now, because she has a stunning voice and is very versatile, and I love musicals just like she does. So I was thrilled when I eventually had the good fortune to see her live at a Queen Machine Symphonic concert in September 2022 at the Hammersmith Apollo.

I first became aware of her through her work with Queen guitarist Brian May. She collaborated with him after starring in the We Will Rock You musical (which I eventually saw in March 2022), and since then she’s appeared in many major productions, as well as releasing a number of albums, with and without Brian’s involvement. I’ve also mentioned her many times in my Queen review posts, to highlight occasions where she’s covered their songs.

I was therefore very excited to receive a signed copy of her Feels Like Home album in 2020 (which, like all her records, I bought myself – none of this is sponsored or gifted). So as well as giving my thoughts on that, I thought I would also take the opportunity to give my opinions on her other releases as well. Hence this special post going through all her albums, along with a live concert on Blu-ray. I hope you enjoy!

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Lockdown Favourites – Weeks 1-4

Hello there. I hope you’re all keepinng safe and well, and that you had a nice break over Easter, with plenty of chocolate goodies or whatever you like to indulge on.

I think we’ve all earned a few treats at the moment, given that things have felt very strange since we went into lockdown on 23 March. Like everybody else, I was very anxious about the situation at first, and it’s still going to be a concern for a while, because all of the changes to our lives are a lot to get used to. But I know that we’re doing it for the right reasons, to save lives.

I do also feel that my mother and I have been adjusting as well as can be expected, we feel relatively relaxed at the moment. It also helps that I’m not checking news and social media updates as often as I was initially, and I’ve muted certain phrases and blocked various accounts to make browsing social media a calmer experience. Things like that certainly make a big difference to one’s mindset.

I’m already a homeworker too, so that’s made things easier. Although, as it happened, I didn’t fully go back to work straightaway, because by chance I had already booked the first 2 weeks of lockdown off to use up my annual leave quota (after an illness last year meant I couldn’t use as much holiday as I’d hoped). Granted, I couldn’t use that holiday time to go anywhere nice, except the local park, but the time was very useful to ensure that Mum and I were stocked up and could start settling into this temporary new way of living. So it’s only been the last couple of weeks that I’ve started getting into a proper routine again (and even then Easter ensured that I had 2 four-day weeks).

But of course, many people have far more important, difficult and stressful jobs than I do. So if you’re a key worker – including employees and volunteers in the health service, social care, retail sectors and local authorities, among many others – then thank you!

It’s a very uncertain time, and we don’t know how long this will last, but I want to keep myself occupied as best I can. There are certainly lots of options for things to do, so I’ll try my best not to get bored. Indeed, it feels like time is moving more quickly again, after the month of March felt like a year. Maybe it’s because I was already used to homeworking and spending a lot of time at home, and because I’m finding plenty of ways to stay busy and entertained.

So with that in mind, here’s my first lockdown post about the things that have been keeping me occupied. There are 3 videos to go with this – for weeks 1-2, week 3 & week 4 – because with more free time I’ve been able to produce videos a bit more frequently, at least for a little while. So I hope you enjoy looking through this selection.

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Journal – June 2006

Welcome to another set of entries from my journal. This month isn’t as eventful as the previous one, but there are still various bits and pieces to mention, including a training course at work, the World Cup, music downloads and DVD purchases, and other bits and bobs. So I hope you enjoy!

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Journal – June 2005

This has been a very busy month. At the end of May I was invited to spend a week with a couple of friends of mine in Exeter, while I was taking a bit of well-earned holiday from work. So that’s where we start off here, and there’s lots to mention about the various ways we enjoyed ourselves. Then there’s the usual mix of job updates, entertainment and other bits and bobs as well. So I hope you enjoy looking through it all!

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Journal – May 2005

Welcome to the next instalment of my journal posts. There’s plenty packed in here, including career updates, entertainment highlights, top 20 lists, little bits of news and sport, and the start of a fun little getaway. So I hope you enjoy!

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Journal – August 2004

Welcome to my next instalment of journal posts. Unusually for summer, I’ve had rather a lot to write about this month, as I got my full list of university results while I was continuing my search for work, Dad fell ill and had to go to hospital, we had some work done on the house, the Athens Olympics took place, I celebrated my birthday, and I continued to enjoy more new music and DVD purchases. So this is probably my longest journal post so far, and I hope you enjoy it!

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Journal – July 2004 (Graduation)

This latest batch of posts from my journal marks a significant moment in my life, as I’ve now graduated from university and have started looking for work. Plus there are the usual mentions of DVDs and music that I’ve continued to buy, and one or two other things that have caught my attention. So I hope you enjoy!

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