10 Perfect Rock Albums For Pop Fans
2. A Night at the Opera - Queen
Some of the biggest gateway drug songs for rock and roll tend to come from Queen. There's a good contingency of people who can't stand rock and hate it with every fiber of their being, only to be stamping along to the sounds of We Will Rock You or losing their minds to tracks like Another One Bites the Dust. Before reaching those heights though, Queen were completely broke and wanted to know why.
After going through some of the biggest highs of their career thus far like the song Killer Queen, the band had been stiffed by their manager and, after hiring a new staff, went in to make the best record that they've ever made. Bringing their sound to the stage, A Night at the Opera is a much more glossy affair than anything that Queen had done up until this point, with Freddie Mercury coming into his own as one of the boldest songwriters of his generation.
Even without the stage show working for him, hearing songs like Seaside Rendezvous and Sweet Lady conjure up the feeling of seeing a live show, whether it's a sweaty club or a softshoe number going on for the hell of it. As much as the other members' songs like 39 and You're My Best Friend are amazing in their own right, Bohemian Rhapsody is really the brainchild of everything the band worked toward, being a pop symphony that became a hit despite its 6 minute runtime. Theatrics have always been a part of Queen's DNA, and after a few years of mining their strengths, this is the kind of record that had a little something for everyone, from pop fans to rockers to classical enthusiasts.