50 years of Queen’s first album / Photo: Archive
On July 13, 1973, after more than two years of accumulating experience in the club circuits of London and its surroundings, Queen released their self-titled debut album, a production that it failed to position any of its songs as a classic of the band and that it had a moderate success, but that nevertheless began to show many of the virtues that would make the group one of the essentials in the history of rock.*100002 *
Actually, the album “Queen” was a great work that moved between hard rock, progressive music and a certain glam spirit that crossed the movement in those years; capable of conversing on an equal footing with any of the great numbers of the time; however, the record still did not allow a clear definition of the profile of the quartet made up of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.
It is that although there was a baroque style, which would later be characteristic of the group, responded more to this particularity of being anchored in a stage in which some sounds of this nature marked the pulse, than to the markedly operatic profile that, fundamentally from the hand of Mercury, was going to be the great distinctive feature of Queen.* 100006*
Mercury’s imprint on stage, unforgettable / Photo: Archive
For this reason, references to Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and the glam of Moot the Hoople abound on the plaque and David Bowie, who just a few days before had “murdered” Ziggy Stardust on stage, his most remembered creature who had emerged as the star figure in this scene.
“Queen” contained ten cuts, with “Keep Yourself Alive”, the first of them, as a broadcast theme, which was going to be a forced hit at the concerts of the group’s early days but would gradually lose ground with the appearance of new albums and huge hits.
Keep Yourself Alive – Queen
