Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: The Rehearsal Room 1
1 What Did Queen Do before They Were Queen? 5
2 Which Artists Influenced Queen? 15
3 Doing All Right: From Smile to Queen 21
4 Murky Beginnings: Queen's First Record 27
5 Mercury Rising: Larry Lurex 35
6 "… And Nobody Played Synthesizer": Queen the Engineers 39
7 Becoming Iconic: Queen II 45
8 Sheer Heart Attack: How Did Queen Enter the Mainstream? 55
9 How Metal Was Queen? 63
10 Pop and Circumstance: Queen's Imperial Phase 67
11 Is This Just Fantasy? An Attempted Explanation of "Bohemian Rhapsody" 77
12 Day Follows Night: Queen Coasting 89
13 Spread Your Wings: When Did Queen Truly Conquer? 95
14 Greatest Hits: Queen as a Singles Band 101
15 "Is This Man a Prat?" Queen and the Press 107
16 Jazz, Not Punk 111
17 Mountain Studios: Queen's Sanctuary 117
18 Winning the Game: Queen on Top of the World 121
19 Another One Bites the Dust: John Deacon Saves Queen 133
20 Who Really Wrote the Music from Flash Gordon? 137
21 Hot Space: Is It Really That Bad? 147
22 "I'll Pay the Bill, You Taste the Wine": Queen at Leisure 155
23 Let's Give' Em the Works! 161
24 Video Ga Ga: Queen's Greatest and Strangest Music Videos 169
25 Live Aid: Was It the Greatest Rock Performance of All Time? 175
26 Queen Reenergized: A Kind of Magic 181
27 Queen Becomes Equals 189
28 Heading Out to Sea: Innuendo 195
29 Too Much Love Will Kill You: The Death of Freddie Mercury 203
30 The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert: Who Played? 207
31 Made in Heaven: How Did Queen Record an Album without Their Singer? 213
32 Queen In-Between: What Did the Band Do from 1995 to 2005? 219
33 We Will Rock You: The Queen Musical 225
34 How Do You Replace Freddie Mercury? The Birth of Queen + 231
35 A New Muse: Adam Lambert 239
36 Is This the Real Life? The Queen Movie 249
37 The Music of Freddie Mercury 257
38 "Give It to Me One More Time!" The Greatest Voice in Rock? 267
39 The Music of Brian May 273
40 The Music of Roger Taylor 285
41 The Music of John Deacon 293
Afterword: I Still Love You 299
Bibliography 303
Index 305