Noted for their diverse musical invention with complex and multi-layered arrangements, stand-out guitar riffs, pointed vocal harmonies and rousing audience participation in their live performances, Queen were massively influential and arguably Britain’s most successful band from the mid-70s to the late 1980s.
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Queen is an English rock band formed in 1970 in London by guitarist Brian May, lead vocalist Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor, with bassist John Deacon completing the lineup the following year. They were renowned for music that drew inspiration from many different genres, often with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. Among the genres they have been associated with are: disco, glam rock, hard rock, heavy metal, pop rock, progressive rock and psychedelic rock, basically any and all things rock! Queen also wrote songs that were inspired by genres that are not typically associated with rock, such as ragtime, opera, gospel and vaudeville.

Queen enjoyed success in the UK in the early 1970s with the albums Queen and Queen I, but it was with the release of Sheer Heart Attack in 1974 and A Night at the Opera the following year that the band gained international success. In all, they have released fifteen studio albums, five live albums, and numerous compilation albums. Eighteen of these have reached number one on charts around the world.

Experimenting with sound and technology was a key feature in Queen's songs. One distinctive characteristic was the use of vocal harmony and multi-tracked voices to imitate the sound of a large choir through overdubs and layering. According to Brian May, there are over 180 vocal overdubs in Bohemian Rhapsody. Many Queen songs were also written with audience participation in mind, such as We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions which encourage clapping, stamping and air-punching! The pomp and gusto of Queen’s recordings and live shows were epitomised by their 1985 Live Aid performance which was voted the best live rock performance of all time in an industry poll.

Following Mercury's death in 1991 (after along battle with the HIV virus) and Deacon's retirement in 1997, May and Taylor have performed infrequently under the Queen name. They remain one of rock's most successful, influential and popular acts, the band has released a total of eighteen number one albums, eighteen number one singles and even a smash West End show written by Ben Elton that features many of their most popular songs.
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