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Queen’s 1973 Debut Gets a Glorious Sonic Upgrade That Transforms It From Black-and-White to Living Color: Album Review
Queen's 1973 debut album originally suffered from a lifeless mix, but this deluxe new edition solves that problem with a vivid sonic overhaul.
Yes, it’s a vivid opening statement that set the stage for the glorious creativity and bombast — the heavenly voices, snarling guitars and baroque flourishes — that would peak with “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Night at the Opera” just over two years later. But the album suffered from a muddy mix that made it feel stiff and unfocused, a situation probably not helped by the fact that most of it was recorded on borrowed equipment in the middle of the night, when the studio owned by the unsigned band’s managers was available for free. While it’s remarkable to hear how far the songs would travel to reach their massively arranged final versions, most entertaining is the banter — cries of anguish or good-natured mockery over mistakes, like the tongue-in-cheek argument between the bandmembers over who messed up the first take of “Mad the Swine,” with Taylor mimicking Mercury in a Monty Pythonesque old-lady voice and May asking rhetorically, “What do you think this group’s called?” — someone replies “Queen Bitch!” (a then-new song from David Bowie’s “Hunky Dory” album).
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