News of the World: How Queen rose from the ashes

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Look out for the next issue of Classic Rock Magazine for a major piece on Queen’s “News of the World” album, which will be a cover story, ahead of the album’s 40th Anniversary on 28 October 2017.

In the meantime, here is a taster….

 

Freddie Mercury

 

CLASSIC ROCK
13 July 2017 by Mick Wall

In the autumn of 1977, it looked as if Queen’s reign might be over. Instead the band rose to the challenge, hit back with the globally successful News Of The World album and ruled once more.

Friday, October 28, 1977. It should have been the day that marked the end of Queen’s reign. The future of their sixth studio album, News Of The World, released that day, looked bleak at best. A year before, their previous album, A Day At The Races, had received such a critical battering that Freddie Mercury’s days of bringing opera to the masses, darling, now seemed decidedly numbered.

A Day At The Races, the follow-up to A Night At The Opera – their Bo Rap-containing 1975 breakthrough international hit – was considered flaccid by comparison. The moment where the group’s desire to push the musical envelope crumbled into self-indulgent parody. The worst accusation of all: that Queen in the studio had begun to tread water; that having found the magic formula for success they now simply joined the dots and offered up the same again – only not different… …

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