The Dress Rehearsal

I

n 1974, Queen quickly followed up the small success that

their first studio outing had had with two new releases, the

first of which was ‘Queen II’, featuring hit single ‘Seven

Seas of Rhye’. Garnering the band a plethora of new fans, and

in spite of the album as a whole being highly experimental and

gaining little critical acclaim, ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ went to No.

5 in the charts, and the band were more than pleased with the

results.

Roger Taylor would pronounce, ‘We took so much trouble over

that album, possibly too much, but when we finished we felt really

proud. Immediately it got really bad reviews, so I took it home to

listen to and thought, “Christ, are they right?” But after hearing

it a few weeks later, I still like it. I think it’s great. We’ll stick by

it. Considering the abuse we’ve had lately, I’m surprised that the

new LP has done so well. I suppose it’s basically because people