Hail to Queen

Smoke machines flood the stage with a primordial haze. Colored lights flash, and chain-mail costumes shine in the gloom. A guitar swoops through a sonic blizzard that might have been whipped up by Led Zeppelin. Whirling at the center of this musical maelstrom is a lanky, dark-haired lout. He shouts in a girlish tenor, drops his kimono, strips to hot pants and tosses roses to adoring teenyboppers.

Could it be The Who? David Bowie, perhaps? Or a Ken Russellized version of Liberace? None of the above. "We're just Queen," says Freddie Mercury, 29, the group's lead singer, pianist and songwriter. Adds Guitarist Brian May: "We're not styled on anybody."

For five years Mercury and May and their two colleagues, Drummer Roger Meddows Taylor and Bass Guitarist John Deacon, did not have much to show for their declared independence. They suffered from what Taylor describes as "a distinct lack of money." But lately Queen's fortunes have been rising fast. Under the guidance of Manager John Reid, 26, who also handles Elton John, Queen has become the monarch of British rock. A few weeks ago, Bohemian Rhapsody, a six-minute cut that mingles introspection with Gilbert and Sullivan operatics, hit the top of the British music charts. Queen's fourth LP, A Night At The Opera (Elektra), has passed the million-seller mark worldwide. Last week the group began a six-week tour of 21 U.S. cities.

Once they absorb Queen's campy style, American audiences will be dazzled by the sound: gleaming a cappella vocal harmonies that arise from such pieces as The Prophet's Song. Words emerge with a cut-glass clarity that is rare in rock. Unfortunately, Queen's lyrics are not the stuff of sonnets. In Death On Two Legs, Mercury hurls a series of enunciated curses: "You suck my blood like a leech ... you're a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride." The song, Mercury says with a smile, shows him in "one of my docile moods."

Mercury writes most of the songs and sets the outrageously sexual onstage style. That includes not only his lyrics but also the tight, satiny gear. "I'm thinking of being carried onstage by Nubian slaves and being fanned by them," Mercury tells interviewers. "In fact, I'm holding auditions now--but where to find a slave?" Parents groan, kids applaud, a new rock superact is born.

Bizarre Stagery. It must surprise the parents to learn that Queen is an uncommonly educated lot. Mercury has a degree in graphics and illustration, and May has done graduate work in astronomy; Taylor studied biology and Deacon won first-class honors in electronics. Behind the bizarre stagery, in fact, Queen's musicianship is solid. Mercury plays the piano with competence. Although many of his songs suggest raw aggression, a gentler side can be heard in Seaside Rendezvous, a coy confection of muted harmonies and polite French phrases that is slyly reminiscent of potted palms and '20s hotel orchestras. The new album also includes Drummer Taylor's wry valentine to his auto: I'm In Love With My Car:

Told my girl I just had to forget her.

Rather buy me a new carburettor,

So she made tracks saying this is the end now,

Cars don't talk back--they're just four-wheeled friends now.

Queen prides itself on not using synthesizers to fill out its sound. Guitarist May's complex overdubbings of electric guitar with varied amplifiers can simulate an entire orchestra. Queen's retinue includes technicians, roadies, sound and lighting engineers--needed to manage tons of equipment, including a dry-ice smoke generator and a bubble-blowing machine. Heavy rock, indeed.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.