256 Hello Queen- Seven Seas of Rhye

Chart  entered : 9  March  1974

Chart  peak : 10

Number  of  hits : 49

And  so  having  been  through  my  first  full  year  of  pop  we  move  into  1974, a  strange  year. The  first  half  saw  glam  apparently  triumphant  with  consecutive  number  ones  for  Mud, Suzi  and  Alvin  but  by  the  time  Gary  G  relinquished  the  top  spot  after  just  a  week  with  "Always  Yours" in  June it  was  clear  that  glam's  moment  had  passed. Its  leading  lights , Slade, Sweet  and  Mud  were  all  washing  the  glitter  off  and  re-positioning  themselves; those  who  were  fatally  slow  in  doing  so  like  Bolan  paid  the  penalty. With  nothing  quite  ready  to  replace  it  the  charts  were  unusually  open  to  all comers  so  you  had  a  parade  of  one  hit  wonders, novelty  records, singing  actors, talent  show  winners  and  European  imports -  in  no  other  year  did  the  Eurovision  Song  Contest  spawn  four  Top  20  hits. There  are  only  two goodbyes  in this  year  but  three  mega-bands  made  their  chart  debuts, the  first  of  which  they're  discussing  here.

Although  I  don't  own  any  of  their  albums I  will  always  have  a  little  soft  spot  for  Queen  because  they  represent  a  musical  rite  of  passage  for  me. They  were  the  first  band  I  read  about  in  a  music  magazine  and  wanted  to  hear. It  was  the  tail  end  of  1973  and  the  magazine  was  probably  It's  Here  And  Now  ;  it  had   a  one  page colour feature  on  this  up  and  coming  band  that  looked  a  bit  like  Sweet. I  don't  recall  if  the  article  itself  made  the  comparison. It  was  around  six  months  before  I  got  my  wish  when  this  one  entered  the  charts.

It's  generally  known  that  Queen  were  a  bunch  of  swots. Their  story  begins  at  Imperial  College, London  in  1968  where  two  students, guitarist  Brian  May  and  bassist  Tim  Stafell  ( who  actually  attended  Ealing  Art  College ) advertised   for  a  drummer  to  complete  their  blues  rock  trio  and  attracted  dental  student  Roger  Taylor.  Smile   quickly  gained  a  college  following  including  Stafell's  friend,,  the  Afro-Indian  Farrokh  Bulsara. Smile  got  a  recording  contract  with  Mercury  and  put  down  half  a  dozen  tracks  but  they  were  never  officially  released  before  Stafell  left  for  another  band  in  1970.

Farrokh  suggested  Brian  and  Roger  join  him  in  a  new  venture  called  Queen  and  rechristened  himself  Freddie  Mercury.  If  this  was  intended  to   preserve  the  deal  with  the  Mercury  label  it  didn't  work.  They  went  through  three  temporary  bassists  before  settling  on  quiet  electronics  graduate  John  Deacon  in  1971. It  took  a  while  to  interest  record  companies  but  in  1972  they  signed  a  management  deal  with  Trident  Studios  who  in  turn  got  them  signed  by  EMI.  

Three  quarters  of  the  band  first  appeared  on  record  as  Larry  Lurex. Trident's  engineer  Robin  Cable  was  experimenting  with  trying  to  re-create  Phil  Spector's  sound  on  a  couple  of  sixties  classics  "I  Can  Hear  Music "  and  "Goin  Back". He  asked  Freddie  to  do  the  vocals  which  he then  sped  up  to  sound  like  a  girl. Freddie  then  suggested  that  Brian  and  Roger  should   contribute  to  the  track  and  the  latter's  wailing  guitar  dominates  the  tail  end  of  the  track. Released  in  June  1973  with  "I  Can  Hear  Music"  as  the  A-side  it's  a  likable  curiosity  rather  than  anything  you  have  to  hear.

The  first  real  Queen  record  was  "Keep  Yourself  Alive" a  Brian  May  composition  that  the  band  had  been  working  on  since  1970. Though  highly  regarded  by  fans  of  the  band  it  does  sound  over-cooked  to  the  casual  listener  with  the  heavily-phased  guitar   licks  often  obscuring  Freddie's  vocals   and  Brian's  Everyman  lyrics. It  all  gets  a  bit  much  when  Roger's  drum  solo  kicks  in.  Radio  One  apparently  refused  to  playlist  it  because  it  "took  too  long  to  happen".

The  "Queen"  album  was  released  a   week  later  and  unlike  the  single  it  did  make  the  charts  peaking  at  number  24. It's  pretty  much  a  prog  rock  album  with  just  hints  of  their  later  glories, written  mainly  by  Freddie  and  Brian  in  roughly  equal  proportions. Tim  Stafell  gets  a  credit  for  a  reworked  Smile  song  which  has  no  doubt  given  him  a  steady  trickle  of  royalties  down  the  years  and  Roger  wrote  the  Motorhead-like  "Modern  Times  Rock n Roll". The  only  real  concession  to  pop  is  that  most  of   the  songs  are  fairly  short. After  its  release  the  band  toured  as  support  act  to  Mott  The  Hoople.

"Seven  Seas  Of  Rhye"  began  as  just  a  little  instrumental  written  by  Freddie  to  close  the  album. Encouraged  to  develop  it  as  a  full  song  for  the  second  album,  Freddie  came  up  with  some  grandiose  lyrics  about  a  Gondal-esque  world  of  his  imagination. When  EMI  wrangled  the  band  a  sudden  wild  card  spot  on  Top  of  the  Pops  in  Februrary  1974  it  was  the  only  new  song  they  had  near  completion  so  that's  what  they  performed,  with  the  single  in  the  shops  a  couple  of  days  later.

"Seven  Seas  of  Rhye"  does  betray  this  turn  of  events  somewhat. Freddie  might  have  come  up  with  a  chorus  if  he'd  had  a  bit  longer  to  work  on  it  and  the  jokey  segue  into  I  Do  Like  To  Be  Beside  The  Seaside  effectively  disguises  that  they'd  no  real  idea  how  to  wrap  up  the  very  episodic  song. Freddie's  arpeggiated  piano  figure  owes  something  to  Pinball  Wizard, the  high  pitched   backing  vocals  owe  a  lot  to  The  Sweet  and  the  band  are  clearly  in  thrall  to  Led  Zeppelin  but  it  works  as  a  calling  card  for  an  important  new  band.