QUEEN

The epitome of pomp-rock in the Seventies and Eighties, Queen rocked radio and sports stadiums alike with booming, highly produced anthems like "We Are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You." Onstage, the English quartet used elaborate sets smoke bombs, and flashpots — none of which were quite as captivating as the band's lead singer, Freddie Mercury, whose preening and over-the-top vocals helped make Queen wildly popular.

Queen's roots go back to 1967, when guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor joined singer Tim Staffell in a group called Smile. Staffell soon left to go solo, and the remaining two Smiles teamed up with Freddie Mercury (from a group called Wreckage) and later bassist John Deacon. They played very few gigs at the start, avoiding the club circuit and rehearsing for two years while they all remained in college. (May began work on a Ph.D. in astronomy; Taylor has a degree in biology; Deacon, a degree in electronics; and Mercury had one in illustration and design.) They began touring in 1973, when their debut album was released. After a second LP, the band made its U.S. tour debut, opening for Mott the Hoople.

Queen's sound combined showy glam rock, heavy metal, and intricate vocal harmonies produced by multi-tracking Mercury's voice. May's guitar was also thickly overdubbed. A Night at the Opera included "God Save the Queen" rendered as a chorale of lead guitar lines. (Until 1980's The Game, the quartet's albums boasted that "no synths" were used.) Queen's third LP, 1974's Sheer Heart Attack, featured "Killer Queen," its first U.S. Top Twenty hit. The LP also became its first U.S. gold.

Heavy-metal fans loved Queen (despite Freddie Mercury's onstage pseudo-dramatics, which had more to do with admitted influence Liza Minnelli than with Robert Plant), and the band's audience grew with its breakthrough LP, 1975's A Night at the Opera. It contained the six-minute masterpiece "Bohemian Rhapsody," which featured a campy, operatic section in which Mercury's voice was spread over dozens of tracks. "Bohemian Rhapsody" stayed at Number One in England for nine weeks, breaking the record Paul Anka had held since 1957 for his "Diana."

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