Three 65, Day 40
Queen, A Night At The Opera

Like many people my age, I first started listening to Queen after Wayne's World blew the lid off "Bohemian Rhapsody." (I remember my high school teachers at the time, who grew up with Queen, shaking their heads in disbelief at all the kids chanting "Scaramouche, scaramouche, can you do the fandango?" and saying "Not again.")

But Queen is a lot more than just that one song, as their finest album, A Night At The Opera, shows. They effectively straddle several different genres at once, from pop ("You're My Best Friend") to prog ("The Prophet's Song") to vaudeville ("Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon") to hard rock ("Death On Two Legs," dedicated to the band's former manager).

The best things about A Night At The Opera are the tracks that didn't necessarily become big hits, like "'39," which is a sci-fi folk song about growing old in outer space, and the aforementioned "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon," which is so old fashioned sounding, it was practically recorded in sepia. There's the multi-tracking on "The Prophet's Song," so many light years ahead of its time, and the instrumental closing track, "God Save The Queen" (not the Sex Pistols version).

There are two very significant members of Queen: Brian May and Freddie Mercury. (The other two members are, you know, like the number zero in higher mathematics: placeholders.) May played guitar and sang, and Mercury sang like his heart was on fire; he was perhaps one of the finest vocalists of all time. If he were still alive, and hadn't tragically passed away from AIDS, not only would this band still be touring, they'd be making aging hipsters like the Rolling Stones look like fools.