Sheer Heart Attack

Lore & Background

The album's first single "Killer Queen" reached number two on the UK singles chart and provided the band with their first top 20 hit in the US, peaking at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Sheer Heart Attack was the first Queen album to hit the US top 20, peaking at number 12 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape Chart in 1975. It has been acknowledged for containing "a wealth of outstanding hard rock guitar tracks". Retrospectively, it has been listed by multiple publications as one of the band's best works and has been deemed an essential glam rock album.

In Their Own Story

After completing their second album, Queen embarked on their Queen II Tour as a support act for Mott the Hoople. After touring extensively throughout the UK, the two groups decided to tour together in the US, marking Queen's first tour in the country. Queen played their first US show on 16 April 1974 in Denver, Colorado, as a support, which Freddie Mercury reportedly disliked, saying: "Being support is one of the most traumatic experiences of my life". At the climax of the tour in Boston, Brian May was discovered to have hepatitis, possibly from the use of a contaminated needle during vaccinations the group received before travelling to Australia. The remainder of the tour was subsequently cancelled and Queen flew back home, where May was hospitalised. In June, the band gathered together at Trident Studios to start rehearsing material for the album. At the start of August, work shifted to Wessex Sound Studios. Work there would not last long, however, as May, who was starting to feel uneasy, went to a specialist clinic on 2 August. He collapsed at the clinic, as a result of a duodenal ulcer, and would be operated on the following day, but discharged from the hospital soon after so he could recover at home. While the band were overdubbing at Wessex, May booked studio time at AIR Studios, where he recorded "Dear Friends" and "She Makes Me". By late August, May was working with the band again, and the rest of the band would add their parts to the songs he had recorded. There was still one song that needed to be recorded as the band worked into September, and that was "Now I'm Here". They recorded the backing track for this one at Wessex, and saved the rest to be completed during the mixing sessions. Mixing commenced in the middle of September. The heart of the mixing sessions took place at Trident Studios, and one or two days was spent mixing each of the majority of the songs. "Brighton Rock", on the other hand, took four days to mix, with six hours' worth of different mixes created during that time. In total, the band used four different studios in the making of Sheer Heart Attack: most of the backing tracks were recorded at Rockfield, two backing tracks and some guitar overdubs were recorded at AIR Studios, most of the overdubs and one backing track were recorded at Wessex, and the mixing was done at Trident.

Reader's Guide

For newcomers exploring the band's catalog, this album serves as an excellent entry point into their mid-era evolution. The album noticeably shifts away from the progressive rock themes of its predecessors, and has been categorised as hard rock and glam rock. The Daily Vault described it as "an important transition album" because it showcased "what the band would soon become while giving a nod to their hard-rock past." "Killer Queen" was written in a single night, which contrasts with the, as Mercury put it, "ages" it took to write "The March of the Black Queen". "Brighton Rock" was written during the making of Queen II; "Stone Cold Crazy" had its genesis in Mercury's pre-Queen band Wreckage; and Mercury wrote "Flick of the Wrist" during May's illness-induced absence. As it included the first song written by John Deacon that Queen recorded ("Misfire") alongside tracks written by the other members of the band, Sheer Heart Attack was the first of the group's albums to contain at least one song written by each member; "Stone Cold Crazy" was the band's first song for which all four members shared the writing credit. "Now I'm Here" was written by May while hospitalised, and recalls the group's early tour supporting Mott the Hoople. It was recorded during the last week of the sessions for the album, with May playing piano.

Did You Know?

• The album was Trident Studios' first 24-track project; the 24-track machine had been around since 1972 but was not functioning until 1974.
• "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" had 70 vocal tracks and had to be mixed down to work with the 24-track mixer.
• At the very start of "Brighton Rock" you can hear the sound of a Carousel, taken from a sound effects album called "Authentic Sound Effects Volume 1" originally released in 1960.
• "Stone Cold Crazy" has a fast tempo and heavy distortion, presaging speed metal; music magazine Q described it as "thrash metal before the term was invented".
• Brian May's guitar solo in "Brighton Rock" includes a three-minute unaccompanied interlude that makes extensive use of delay; Guitar World ranked it No. 41 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.