Sheer Heart Attack

After completing their second album, Queen embarked on their Queen II Tour as a support act for Mott the Hoople. After touring extensively throughout the UK, the two groups decided to tour together in the US, marking Queen's first tour in the country. The bands would remain on friendly terms for the rest of their career, with Ian Hunter performing "All the Young Dudes" at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. Queen played their first US show on 16 April 1974 in Denver, Colorado, as a support, which Freddie Mercury reportedly disliked, saying: "Being support is one of the most traumatic experiences of my life". In June, the band gathered together at Trident Studios to start rehearsing material for the album. Koh Hasebe interviewed Mercury, Roger Taylor and John Deacon when they were rehearsing on 13 June. At the beginning of July, May joined them for rehearsals. The band were just preparing to record, and on 7 July, they trekked three and a half hours to get to the Rockfield Studios in Wales, where they would record ten backing tracks, finishing on 28 July. At the start of August, work shifted to Wessex Sound Studios. Work there would not last long, however, as May, who was starting to feel uneasy, went to a specialist clinic on 2 August. He collapsed at the clinic, as a result of a duodenal ulcer, and would be operated on the following day, but discharged from the hospital soon after so he could recover at home. In the meantime, Taylor and Deacon made an appearance at an EMI/Radio Luxembourg motor rally at Brands Hatch on 11 August. By late August, May was working with the band again, and the rest of the band would add their parts to the songs he had recorded. There was still one song that needed to be recorded as the band worked into September, and that was "Now I'm Here". They recorded the backing track for this one at Wessex, and saved the rest to be completed during the mixing sessions. Mixing commenced in the middle of September. The band were still overdubbing at this point, so they hired someone to deliver tapes from recording studio to mixing studio via motorcycle. The heart of the mixing sessions took place at Trident Studios, and one or two days was spent mixing each of the majority of the songs. "Brighton Rock", on the other hand, took four days to mix, with six hours' worth of different mixes created during that time. Each song was mixed in little edited sections that were about fifteen to twenty seconds in length. At this point, Trident had just installed a 24-track machine in their studio that had been around since 1972, but was not functioning until 1974. In fact, the album was Trident's first 24-track project. Even though Trident had expanded their recording flexibility by eight tracks, this was still not enough to be able to mix each track individually. "Bring Back That Leroy Brown", for example, had 70 vocal tracks and had to be mixed down to work with the 24-track mixer. They mixed "Now I'm Here", which was the last thing to be mixed, on 22 October. May did an interview the next day (which was published on 26 October) that explained what finishing the album was like. In total, the band used four different studios in the making of Sheer Heart Attack: most of the backing tracks were recorded at Rockfield, two backing tracks and some guitar overdubs were recorded at AIR Studios, most of the overdubs and one backing track were recorded at Wessex, and the mixing was done at Trident. ==Songs==

The album noticeably shifts away from the progressive rock themes of its predecessors, and has been categorised as hard rock and glam rock. The Daily Vault described it as "an important transition album" because it showcased "what the band would soon become while giving a nod to their hard-rock past," Lyrically, it tells the story of two young lovers named Jenny and Jimmy, who meet in Brighton on a public holiday. Mods travelling to Brighton on bank holidays was a popular narrative at the time, as in the Who's Quadrophenia. The song includes a three-minute unaccompanied guitar solo interlude, The studio version of the solo only contains one "main" guitar and one "echoed" guitar for a short section, but, live, May would usually split his guitar signal into one "main" and two "echoed" guitars, with each going to a separate bank of amplifiers. In concert, the solo has been performed as part of "Brighton Rock", in a medley with another song, or as a standalone piece. For example, May performed some of it at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Considered one of May's finest solos, "Killer Queen" "Killer Queen" was written by Freddie Mercury and was the band's first international hit single. Mercury played a jangle piano as well as a grand piano on the recording. After it charted as a single, the band performed the song on Top of the Pops. "Tenement Funster"/"Flick of the Wrist"/"Lily of the Valley" Roger Taylor wrote "Tenement Funster" about youth and rebellion and sang lead vocals, while John Deacon played the song's prominent acoustic guitar parts in May's absence. It segues into Mercury's "Flick of the Wrist" (which was released, along with "Killer Queen", as a double A-sided single), and then into a softer, piano-based Mercury song, "Lily of the Valley", making the three songs continuous. "Now I'm Here" "Now I'm Here" was written by May while hospitalised, and recalls the group's early tour supporting Mott the Hoople. It was recorded during the last week of the sessions for the album, with May playing piano. "In the Lap of the Gods" "In the Lap of the Gods" was written by Mercury and featured multiple vocal overdubs from himself and Roger Taylor. It features one of the highest notes on the album, sung by Taylor. "Stone Cold Crazy" "Stone Cold Crazy" was one of the earliest tracks that Queen performed live, and had several different arrangements before being recorded for Sheer Heart Attack. No band member was able to remember who had written the lyrics when the album was released, so they shared the writing credit, the first of their songs to do so. The lyrics deal with gangsters and include a reference to Al Capone. The track has a fast tempo and heavy distortion, presaging speed metal. Music magazine Q described "Stone Cold Crazy" as "thrash metal before the term was invented", although this was not the first song in the style of "proto-thrash", with Deep Purple's "Hard Lovin' Man" predating it by four years. The song was played live at almost every Queen concert between 1974 and 1978 and also in the cut version during European leg of The Works Tour in 1984. Metallica covered the song as their contribution to the 1990 compilation album ''Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary''. This cover version won a Grammy Award in 1991; it also appeared on the band's compilation Garage Inc. "Dear Friends" "Dear Friends" is a ballad written by May and sung by Mercury. "Misfire" "Misfire" was John Deacon's first individual composition for the band, and featured him playing the guitar solo and all guitar parts on the track except for some parts at the end of the song, in which Brian's Red Special becomes more prominent. "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" The title of "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" alludes to the then-recent hit "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, who had died in a plane crash the previous year. Written by Mercury, "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" features him playing grand piano and jangle piano, as well as doing multiple vocal overdubs. May plays a short section on ukulele-banjo, and Deacon plays a line on the double bass. DRUM! Magazine commended Taylor's drum work on the song: "It really shows off Taylor’s versatility. He nails dozens of kicks throughout this fast and tricky song and proves that he could’ve been a big band drummer or ably fit into any theatrical pit band if Queen hadn’t worked out so well for him. Honky-tonk piano, upright bass, ukulele-banjo, and a smokin' drummer all add up to a rollicking good time." "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)" "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)" was written and sung by May with him and Deacon playing acoustic guitars. "In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited" "In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited" was one of Queen's set-closers from 1974 to 1977. During the 1986 Magic tour, it was performed again in a medley, where it segued into "Seven Seas of Rhye". ==Reception and legacy==

At the time of its release, NME called the album: "A feast. No duffers, and four songs that will just run and run: 'Killer Queen', 'Flick of the Wrist', 'Now I'm Here', and 'In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited'." The Winnipeg Free Press commended "Brian May's multi-tracked guitar, Freddie Mercury's stunning vocalising and Roy Thomas Baker's dynamic production work", calling the album "a no-holds barred, full-scale attack on the senses". Circus referred to the album as "perhaps the heaviest, rockingest assault on these shores we've enjoyed in some time". Rolling Stone awarded the album a positive rating of 3 stars and wrote: "If it's hard to love, it's hard not to admire: this band is skilled, after all, and it dares." John Mendelsohn, however, was unimpressed, writing: "I hunted all over both sides of this latest album for something, anything, even remotely as magnificent as 'Keep Yourself Alive' or 'Father to Son', only to end up empty-eared and bawling." and tied for 24th place on ''NME's'' end-of-year list. In a review for the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot awards the album a generally positive rating of 2 and a half stars, while noting that this album was where "...the songs became more concise" In a retrospective review, AllMusic said that "the theatricality is now wielded on everyday affairs, which ironically makes them sound larger than life. And this sense of scale, combined with the heavy guitars, pop hooks, and theatrical style, marks the true unveiling of Queen, making Sheer Heart Attack as the moment where they truly came into their own." Rock historian Paul Fowles wrote that Sheer Heart Attack "saw the band become increasingly focused on the emerging cult figure of Mercury" and his "unique brand of rock theater", especially on the single "Killer Queen". Accolades Mercury's appraisal 2011 reissue On 8 November 2010, record company Universal Music announced that a remastered and expanded reissue of the album would be released in May 2011, as part of a new deal between Queen and Universal Music, which meant the band's association with EMI Records would come to an end after almost 40 years. Queen's entire studio catalogue was reissued in 2011. ==Track listing==

Original release All lead vocals by Freddie Mercury unless noted. }} Universal Music reissue (2011) iTunes deluxe edition ==Personnel==

Personnel taken from Sheer Heart Attack liner notes. Queen • Freddie Mercury – vocals, piano, jangle piano • Brian May – guitars, vocals, piano on "Now I'm Here" and "Dear Friends", banjolele • Roger Taylor – drums, vocals, percussion • John Deacon – bass guitar, double bass, acoustic guitar, guitars on "Misfire" Production • Roy Thomas Baker – production • Queen – production, sleeve design • Mike Stone – engineering • Mick Rock – art direction, photography ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==