So why is Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
As great as A Night At The Opera is – which was spotlighted on this here best 1,000 albums ever at #355 – I always return to Sheer Heart Attack as the greatest Queen album of all.
I adore that from track to track it bounces between joyously raw hard rock-meets-heavy metal (“Stone Cold Crazy”) to mid-‘70s guitar rock with prog rock flourishes that are up there with the best of Electric Light Orchestra (“Now I’m Here”), to the delightful and astonishing vocals and pop/rock that only Freddy Mercury and Queen can deliver (“Misfire”).
https://open.spotify.com/track/4xx6gNZiyz0R2E64pzgZ3T?si=67252b2eedd94b1f
And that’s not even getting to “Killer Queen,” which contains elements of all of those things, but I really must pause here and herald the guitar wizardry of Brian May, which, to quote the song, simply drives you wild.
There were bands around during this era who were doing cool and innovative things mixing hard rock, proto punk, glam rock, and pop music together – the New York Dolls (their self-titled album, #453, came out one year prior to Sheer Heart Attack in 1973) come chiefly to mind here – but I’d make a strong argument that no one did that better than Queen. Check out “Brighton Rock” on that score.
The whole band is fantastic, of course, but again it comes back to Freddy Mercury’s and Brian May’s singular talents.
And check out “Tenement Funster”: I believe if you played this for music fans in 2023 who claim to know a thing or two about classic rock, a goodly percentage would wrongly guess it’s by The Who. I offer this thought as a huge compliment, and it shows off the range of this band.
Which is all to say: this song and this band absolutely rock.
Some stats & info about Queen – Sheer Heart Attack
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Hard Rock, Glam Rock, Arena Rock, Heavy Metal, British Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Sheer Heart Attack released? 1974
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #269 out of 1,000
Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
She’s a killer queen, gunpowder, gelatine, dynamite with a laser beam. Guaranteed to blow your mind anytime.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.