Queen

Notable as the first album Queen produced themselves, A Day at the Races was the 1976 follow-up to A Night at the Opera and furthered the band's worldwide popularity on the strength of one of the group's biggest-ever hits, "Somebody to Love." "White Man," in which Freddie Mercury sings from the point of view of a Native American, and "Tie Your Mother Down" are the two heavy rockers. "The Millionaire Waltz" is another mini-opera similar (at least in spirit) to "Bohemian Rhapsody," but it's "Long Away," penned and sung by Brian May, that steals the show here.

The current consensus is that rock is well into its third generation. But the bands which
have pulled the music furthest from its roots remain critically dismissed. There are reasons
for such disdain. Lumped together as art-rock, such bands as the three above seem to
threaten the artistic stature of anything less complex, or more simple. But it is even harder
for hard-rock-oriented listeners to find rock at all in the styles of bands as divers... More >