Every Queen Album Ranked Worst To Best
2. The Works
11th studio album (1984); UK #2; US #23
Following some questionable creative reroutes in the early '80s, Queen needed to prove to their fans they hadn't completely abandoned their rock and operatic roots, whilst making music that could fit in with what radio and TV stations were playing at the time.
Enter The Works, the easiest Queen album to listen to, aided by the fact that half of its tracks were generation-defining hits: Radio Ga Ga was the first opening track since News Of The World's We Will Rock You to become one of the band's best known tunes; opera-inspired It's A Hard Life was praised as one of Freddie's best compositions; and I Want To Break Free came with one of the most iconic music videos of the MTV era. Despite giving us another hard rock project, the band never played the pop game better than they did with The Works.
Key Tracks: All of the above, plus Hammer To Fall and closing track Is This The World We Created...?
Fun Fact: No, it's not a coincidence - Lady Gaga, who has spent the last decade proving she's got the stuff that legends are made of, took her stage name from Queen's Radio Ga Ga.