With three volumes of their Greatest Hits packed with globally adored bangers, from the sensation that is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to the pop perfection of ‘Killer Queen’ and ‘Radio Ga Ga’, to the funk of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, the killer groove of ‘Under Pressure’ or ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, the ultimate hymn to enjoying life, Queen have soundtracked our lives.
But many fans have still rarely ventured into their albums discography. So, for this guide to their long players (we stuck to studio outings – Queen live albums is another whole article for another day!), we’ve ranked all 15 albums from worst to best, picking some of our highlights and deep cuts along the way.
Queen albums ranked
15. The Miracle (1989)
By the late 1980s, it felt like Queen had run out of ideas. Opener ‘Party’ is awful, and the baffling ‘Khashoggi’s Ship’ doesn’t improve things much. Fortunately, singles ‘The Miracle’, ‘I Want It All’, ‘The Invisible Man’ and ‘Breakthrough’ lift things noticeably, but even then, we’re talking from rock bottom to the lower rungs of the ladder. This one is probably for completionists only.
14. Queen (1973)
Their 1973 debut is the sound of a band exploring who they are and where they might go. Largely heavy rock with equal doses of folk and progressive rock thrown into the mix, the album follows the contemporary trend of exploring Middle-Earth through rock music and, as such, sounds more dated than anything else they recorded.
‘Liar’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ and, especially, ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’, are the most enduring cuts and these alone make it worth checking out.
13. Flash Gordon (1980)
This movie soundtrack album is an interesting piece, if only to hear how Queen decided not to play it safe, but to explore different styles and tones to create something that matched the comic-book sci-fi of the film.
And it works – it’s arguably a better soundtrack than it was a movie, in fact. As a listen on its own, it has fairly obvious limitations, but as a period piece, stick it on and chuck a football at an evil alien villain while rocking. And why not?
12. A Kind Of Magic (1986)
The hits on their 1986 album were deservedly big ones – the title track came with a lively video in which hobo versions of Queen living in an abandoned theatre are brought to life by magician Mercury, while ‘One Vision’’s video shows them in their Munich studio putting together the song that would act as the opener on their Magic Tour.
‘Who Wants To Live Forever?’ is a touching song taken, as were several songs here, from the soundtrack to Highlander (1986). Sadly, the standard isn’t maintained throughout, and quality dips through side two to a disappointingly lacklustre end, but there’s more than enough worth coming back for.
11. Jazz (1978)
If you look at the singles on Jazz, it looks like it should be one of their finest records – ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ is magnificent, while ‘Bicycle Race’ shows how they could seemingly turn their hand to anything and make something memorable out of it. There’s plenty else to enjoy too – ‘Let Me Entertain You’ was rightly a staple of their live set for the next few years.
Beyond that, it’s diminishing returns. ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ may have been considered acceptable in 1978 but is hard to justify today. And ‘Fun It’, ‘In Seven Days’ and ‘Leaving Home Ain’t Easy’ are also rans.
10. Hot Space (1982)
Queen famously boasted "No synthesizers" on the sleeves of their albums in the 70s, although this was less down to any hatred of these emerging new instruments as to make it clear that, contrary to a review in the music press, the layers of processed sounds were actually produced by Brian May’s guitar. Regardless, they became known for only using so-called ‘real’ instruments.
Either way, by 1980’s The Game, they had begun to experiment with synths, but even then, nobody expected the synth and drum machine overload that would follow on Hot Space, the most bizarre album in their catalogue. It would be easy to say that opinion was divided, but actually, most listeners were universal in their dislike of a record ardent fans considered a sell-out.
Listening back today, it’s not without its merits – ‘Under Pressure’ is one of their finest tracks – and Michael Jackson named it as an influence on Thriller (1982). As an example of a rock band pushing the boundaries, looking to take on influences from disco, funk and electronics, it’s an admirable thing to do.
Does it all work? No, very much not so. Is it worth a listen? Sure, but only after you’ve listened to everything the comes higher in our list.
9. Innuendo (1991)
Thankfully, Innuendo was a great improvement on The Miracle (1989), with hindsight shedding an ominous light over an album made by the group knowing that Freddie Mercury was seriously ill.
The title track moves through the various stages of their career (at one stage, it sounds like Brian is launching into ‘Is This The World We Created?’) and the fusion of styles, while perhaps not as fluid as during their 70s pomp, shows that the imagination remains very active.
Singles ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’, ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’ and, especially, ‘The Show Must Go On’ are particularly poignant in light of Mercury’s condition.
8. Made In Heaven (1995)
Recorded during Freddie’s final days, Made In Heaven was completed by his bandmates some years after his death in 1991.
The finished album, released in 1995, featured those last songs Freddie had sung before his death, as well as reworkings of songs from his solo album Mr Bad Guy (1985), while various songs feature samples from key moments in the band’s career – most poignantly the reprise of ‘It’s A Beautiful Day’ at the end of the album, which contains a sample from ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’, the band’s first hit single.
7. The Works (1984)
With the disappointment of Hot Space (1982) still ringing in their ears, a resurgent Queen returned to their stride with The Works, the album that preceded their all-conquering Live Aid performance, and as such played a huge part in securing their deserved legacy as one of England’s finest bands ever.
‘Radio Ga-Ga’ and ‘I Want To Break Free’ are magnificent singles that stand with the best of their work, while ‘Hammer To Fall’ (such a triumph at Live Aid despite being relatively unknown) and ‘It’s A Hard Life’ are notable high points, but the quality is high throughout on their last truly excellent long player.
6. Queen II (1974)
Opinion is very firmly divided over Queen II. On the one side are those who proclaim it their only truly great album before they sold out their progressive, arty roots to become a pop/rock group; on the other side, the fans of one of England’s finest singles acts who find the axe-swinging and fairy dandies tickling fancies of ‘The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke’, and mighty fly-catching tongues and giant hands of ‘Ogre Battle’ simply too fantastic (and not in all senses).
Whichever side you fall on will leave you exasperated at where we’ve placed it in this article!
5. The Game (1980)
At the time, it seemed quite a bold step, but their eighth album was their first to feature the use of a synthesizer. It’s also perhaps the album that seems them forever dispense with any notions of experimental or progressive tendencies, repositioning Queen to be as much a pop act as a rock band.
‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ became their first US number one hit, quickly followed by ‘Another One Bites The Dust’.
The anthemic ‘Play The Game’, ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ and, especially, ‘Save Me’, would all become firm fan favourites, while ‘Dragon Attack’ followed the funk influence of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ that would point the direction towards the ultimately less-successful Hot Space (1982).
4. A Day At The Races (1976)
Perhaps being the younger sibling to 1975’s A Night At The Opera (both albums were named after Marx Brothers movies, with contrasting white/black artwork) has been unkind on Queen's 1976 offering – after all, being endlessly compared to one of their greatest works makes it hard not to feel like this is a lesser record. But on its own merit and viewed independently, this is a fabulous record.
Opener ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ remained a hugely popular part of their live act for the rest of their performing career, while fellow singles ‘Somebody To Love’ (a gospel-influenced tour de force) and the Vaudeville-tinted ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’ keep the standards up.
But throughout, there’s a huge amount to love – ‘You Take My Breath Away’ is one of their most tender, heartfelt love songs, for example.
3. News Of The World (1977)
So ubiquitous have they become that the pairing of ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ feel almost too big for an album, and, in hindsight, had they closed rather than opened this 1977 offering, the album would have flowed better towards a rightly majestic conclusion – which is what they did on their live act.
‘Sheer Heart Attack’, the full-blast follower, was originally the title track to their 1974 album but carried over, and there are echoes of that record’s genre-hopping throughout – such as the jaunty ‘Sleeping On The Sidewalk’, or the jazzy ‘Melancholy Blues’. And in ‘Spread Your Wings’ it includes one of their finest rock ballads.
2. A Night At The Opera (1975)
It seems almost churlish not to place an album that includes ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ top of the list, but that is testament to how good Sheer Heart Attack is. But 1975's A Night At The Opera does come a very close second on our list.
It kicks off in aggressive style with ‘Death On Two Legs’, generally perceived as an attack on erstwhile manager Norman Sheffield – sample lyric "You're a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride" (Sheffield sued and they settled out of court).
After this remarkable rant, the delightful ‘Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon’, all boaters, blazers and punts, points to the contrary nature of the album as a whole: Queen refuse to be pigeon-holed here and produce an album that defies categorisation.
‘You’re My Best Friend’ remains one of their most enduring singles, while ‘Love Of My Life’ became an integral part of their legendary live show, with fans all over the world taking over vocal duties from Mercury.
Sonic experiments continue throughout – nowhere more than on the epic ‘The Prophet’s Song’, and we can even forgive Roger Taylor’s over-indulgence on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ – assuming we take it with a large pinch of salt.
1. Sheer Heart Attack (1974)
Whichever version of Queen it is you love best, 1974's Sheer Heart Attack delivers. ‘Killer Queen’ is as good as piece of pop mastery as anything in their entire catalogue, and it’s easy to see why that, and Sheer Heart Attack as a whole, took them from being prog wannabes to mainstream big-time Charlies.
Given that Brian May was absent for large chunks of the album’s recording sessions after collapsing with a duodenal ulcer, it’s extraordinary how forefront his distinctive guitar is across the board (see the rollicking ‘Brighton Rock’ and ‘Now I’m Here’ for just two examples), but this also points to the sheer breadth of talent in the band.
Has any other band in history had four separate songwriters of such equally high calibre? It’s hard to think of any, and this must be one of the many unique aspects of the band.
More than any other Queen album, Sheer Heart Attack flows from track to track – sometimes literally, as in the divine segue from the punchy ‘Flick Of The Wrist’ into the delightful ‘Lily Of The Valley’, and in other ways less literally: the two songs titled In ‘The Lap Of The God’s (one ‘Revisited’) feel both related and separate.
We could go on, but the secret to its success is in the joy infused in its grooves. The band is having an absolute ball (Brian’s hospitalisation aside) and it shows.
All photos Getty Images / Album covers Amazon
Top image Queen pose for a photo, circa 1973
