Queen – Sheer Heart Attack

The album's most ambitious track, opening with a fairground carousel sample and a hard-rock riff that tells a Mods-in-Brighton story before breaking for a three-minute unaccompanied guitar solo. Brian May's solo, recorded with modified delay and split across separate amplifiers, builds multi-tracked harmonies and contrapuntal lines that later became a live showcase—Guitar World ranked it number 41 on their list of greatest solos. The solo is technically impressive and musically coherent, each phrase answering the previous one, but it dominates the track to the point where the song itself feels like a frame for the performance. The lyric, about two young lovers named Jenny and Jimmy meeting on a bank holiday, nods to the Who's Quadrophenia without the narrative depth, and the vocal melody in the verses is stronger than the chorus. The track works because it commits to the conceit: this is a guitar solo with a song attached, and both parts earn their space.

The album's commercial breakthrough and its tightest piece of songwriting, written by Freddie Mercury in a single night. The jangle piano and the stacked vocal harmonies create a sound that was polished and arch in a year when most rock was aiming for raw or cosmic, and the lyric's portrait of a high-class escort is specific enough to avoid cliché. Mercury's vocal performance is controlled and character-driven, playing the role rather than emoting, and the production—Roy Thomas Baker's cleanest work on the album—serves the song instead of overwhelming it. The track reached number two in the UK and number twelve in the US, and it remains one of the band's most durable singles because it has a clear idea and no wasted motion. The guitar solo is brief and melodic, the bridge modulates without showboating, and the final chorus ends before the arrangement runs out of ideas. The definitive early Queen single.

Roger Taylor's youth-rebellion lyric, sung by Taylor with John Deacon playing prominent acoustic guitar parts while Brian May recovered from surgery. The track is energetic and slight, a two-minute burst of defiance that works as a transition into Flick of the Wrist but does not stand alone. The riff is serviceable, the vocal melody is adequate, and the production is dense in the house style, but the song has no hook strong enough to justify its place in the running order except as connective tissue. It segues smoothly into the next track, which is its primary function.

Written by Mercury during May's illness-induced absence, this is one of the album's most venomous tracks, a sarcastic put-down delivered with layered harmonies and a descending riff that sounds like a sneer. The vocal arrangement, with Mercury and Taylor trading lines in call-and-response, is as composed as anything on the album, and the production keeps the dense instrumentation from burying the lyric's bite. The track was released as a double A-side with Killer Queen in some markets, which suggests the band saw it as single-worthy, but it lacks the melodic immediacy of the stronger cuts. Still, the attitude and the arrangement make it one of the more memorable deep cuts, and the segue from Tenement Funster gives it momentum it would not have on its own.

A one-minute-and-forty-second piano ballad that feels like a sketch rather than a finished song. The melody is pretty, Mercury's vocal is restrained, and the production is sparse by the album's standards, but the track has no development and no resolution—it just ends. The lyric gestures toward the fantasy themes of the first two albums without committing, and the whole thing plays like an interlude that was given a title and placed on the tracklist because the album needed a breather. It works in context as a palate cleanser before Now I'm Here, but it is inessential on its own.

Written by May while hospitalised and recorded during the final week of sessions, this is the album's most direct rocker and one of its best songs. The riff is heavy and memorable, the chorus is built for arenas, and the lyric recalls the band's early tour supporting Mott the Hoople with enough specificity to feel lived-in rather than generic. May plays piano on the track, and the production layers rhythm and lead guitars into a thick harmonic wall that drives the song forward without burying the melody. The track reached number eleven on the UK singles chart and became a live staple, and it has aged better than most of the album's attempts at variety because it does one thing well instead of three things adequately. The best example of the album's hard-rock side and the closest thing here to a perfect Queen single besides Killer Queen.

The most ambitious track on side two, built on multiple vocal overdubs from Mercury and Roger Taylor and featuring one of Taylor's highest notes on the album. The song has a hymnal quality, with stacked harmonies that sound like a cathedral choir, and the arrangement builds from a quiet verse to a full-band chorus without rushing. The production is dense and deliberate, and the track works as a statement piece, but it lacks the melodic clarity of the album's best songs—the verses meander, and the chorus, while powerful, does not have a hook strong enough to justify the five-minute runtime. The track also suffers from being reprised at the end of the album, which makes it feel like half of a suite rather than a standalone piece. Still, it is one of the more successful experiments on side two, and the vocal performance alone makes it worth hearing.

A proto-thrash track that predates the genre by several years, originally performed by Freddie Mercury's pre-Queen band Wreckage and refined over years of live performances before being recorded here. The tempo is fast, the distortion is heavy, and the lyric, which deals with gangsters and includes a reference to Al Capone, is delivered at a breathless pace. The track is two minutes and twelve seconds of controlled chaos, and it remains one of the most influential songs in Queen's catalogue—Metallica covered it in 1990 and won a Grammy for the version. The song is more impressive as a historical artifact than as a piece of music; the riff is simple, the structure is repetitive, and the production, while powerful, does not have the dynamics of the album's best moments. But as a demonstration of the band's range and as a blueprint for speed metal, it is essential. Music magazine Q called it thrash metal before the term was invented, though Deep Purple's Hard Lovin' Man had tried something similar in 1970.

A one-minute-and-seven-second piano ballad written by Brian May and sung by Freddie Mercury. The track is too short to develop any ideas and feels like a fragment that should have been left off the album or expanded into a full song. The melody is slight, the production is minimal, and the lyric is vague. Filler.

John Deacon's first individual composition for the band, a lightweight funk-rock number that he plays almost entirely himself except for some guitar parts at the end where May's Red Special becomes more prominent. The track is competent and professional, with a decent groove and a serviceable vocal melody, but it has no memorable hook and no reason to exist beyond giving Deacon a writing credit. The album would not miss it.

A vaudeville pastiche written by Freddie Mercury, featuring grand piano, jangle piano, ukulele-banjo played by Brian May, double bass played by John Deacon, and seventy vocal tracks mixed down to fit the 24-track board. The title alludes to Jim Croce's Bad Bad Leroy Brown, and the arrangement is pure music hall, with Roger Taylor's drumming showing big-band swing and precision. DRUM! Magazine commended Taylor's versatility on the track, noting that he could have fit into any theatrical pit band if Queen had not worked out. The track is a palate cleanser and a showcase for the band's technical range, but it is also a novelty that wears thin after one or two listens. It works in the context of the album's variety-show format, but it is not a song anyone would return to on its own.

Written and sung by Brian May, with May and John Deacon playing acoustic guitars. The track is a mid-tempo rocker with a decent riff and a forgettable vocal melody, and it has no clear reason to be placed between Bring Back That Leroy Brown and the album-closing reprise. The lyric is generic, the production is flat, and the whole thing feels like a B-side that made the album because the band needed to fill out the runtime. May's vocal performance is adequate but lacks the charisma of Mercury's work, and the track has no hook strong enough to justify its four-minute length. Skippable.

A reprise of track seven, rewritten as a live set-closer with a bigger chorus and a more straightforward arrangement. The track was performed as a set-closer from 1974 to 1977 and again in 1986 during the Magic tour, where it segued into Seven Seas of Rhye. The studio version is effective in an arena context—big, dumb, built for crowd participation—but redundant on an album that already included the same melody thirteen tracks earlier. The vocal performance is powerful, the production is full, and the arrangement is tighter than the original, but the song does not justify existing twice on the same record. It would have worked better as a standalone single or a live-only track.