Artist: QUEEN
Album: SHEER HEART ATTACK REMASTERED (CD)

Year: 1974/ 2011
EAN/UPS: 0602527644097
Media type: CD

The first single, "Killer Queen" reached #2 in the British charts and provided Queen with their first US Top 20 hit peaking at #12 on the Billboard singles chart. Several songs from this album harken back to the earliest days of Queen and their predecessors Smile and Wreckage. "Brighton Rock" houses a guitar solo by Brian May, which began its life in the Smile song "Blag", then floated around in the live and BBC versions of the song "Son And Daughter", before finding its home in on the opening track here. The track begins with someone whistling the short melody "I do like to be beside the seaside", featured on "Seven Seas of Rhye", the last track from their previous album. "Stone Cold Crazy" was the first song credited to all four members of Queen but it had been played by Mercury's early band Wreckage. The original working title for "Tenement Funster" song was "Tin Dreams". "Misfire" is John Deacon's first composition to appear on a Queen album.

During Queen's first North American Tour (as a support band for Mott the Hoople) Brian felt ill with hepatitis (he had been infected with an unclean needle during a vaccination before the Australian tour), but he continued to work from hospital. When he was fit, the work continued in studio, but then he fell ill again, this time with a stomach ulcer. When he was recovering after an operation, the next tour had been canceled. Brian felt guilty, and was a bit nervous that someone would replace him in the band. Much to his relief, no one in the group had even considered it. All three members were continuing on recording without Brian at the time. Poor production had left a lot of spaces in the songs for Brian's solos. When he felt well enough, he came back and completed the tracks with guitar solos and backing vocals. "She Makes Me" used night-life recordings from New York. "Now I'm Here", released also as a single, was an idea of Brian in hospital, when he was thinking about touring with Mott the Hoople.

The release of Sheer Heart Attack coincided with Queen's first tour of Japan, which caused country-wide hysteria with numerous Japanese fans watching the band's first tour in Asia.

Drummer Roger Taylor was not satisfied with his hair on the original photograph, so the photographer used fake extensions, much to the band's amusement.

Sheer Heart Attack was Queen's first album to hit the US Top 20 peaking at #12 in 1975 and was certified Gold in sales by the R.I.A.A. in 1975.

TRACKLIST:

"Brighton Rock" (May) – 5:08
"Killer Queen" (Mercury) – 3:01
"Tenement Funster" (Taylor) – 2:48
"Flick of the Wrist" (Mercury) – 3:19
"Lily of the Valley" (Mercury) – 1:43
"Now I'm Here" (May) – 4:10
Side two
"In the Lap of the Gods" (Mercury) – 3:20
"Stone Cold Crazy" (Deacon/May/Mercury/Taylor) – 2:12
"Dear Friends" (May) – 1:07
"Misfire" (Deacon) – 1:50
"Bring Back That Leroy Brown" (Mercury) – 2:13
"She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettos)" (May) – 4:08
"In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited" (Mercury) – 3:42

LINE-UP:

Freddie Mercury: Vocals, Piano, Organ, Jangle Piano
Brian May: Vocals, Electric Guitars, Piano, Ukelele-Banjo
Roger Taylor: Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Screams
John Deacon: Bass, Electric Guitars, Acoustic Guitars