34. "A Day at the Races" by Queen (1976)

I am a child of the 70s and I had the 45 of "Somebody to Love" but I never owned this album on vinyl. Freddie Mercury's incredible vocal performance here rates him, in my mind, as the best rock vocalist of all time. I am hard pressed to think of another with as much range, versatility, expression and control as him. Even more impressive, given the technology of the early 70s, are the overdubbed "choirs" on songs like "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" and "Somebody to Love" which are all Freddie. Coupled with Brian May's guitar work, which range from the grinding in "Tie Your Mother Down" to the symphonic in "Millionaire Waltz", the result is a production masterpiece.

I was a little late coming to like Queen and I bought this disk in the early 90s, when I was about 30. I appreciated their radio singles, but, frankly, coming from small-town Texas, I had a problem with their homosexuality. I say "had" because it was this album that literally changed thinking on the matter. As a wannabe singer I had always adored "Somebody to Love" for Mercury's incredible expressiveness, but always had a hangup that, ... well, I might as well just say it ... that he might be singing about a dude.

Then I bought this disk and heard the art and creativity in "Take My Breath Away", "Millionaire Waltz" and "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" and really had to re-consider: can I love these songs for their universal aspects, even though I may not be able to relate to the personal experience of the writer/performer?

And that, my friends, is the essence of artistic interpretation. Except for something labeled as autobiographical, when is the artist's life relevant to the interpretation of a work? Isn't the artist putting on the role of "narrator" and creating a persona who is not himself or herself? At the same time you have to consider the time and manner in which the work is produced, and Queen's flamboyancy in the mid 70s is legendary, not to mention the fact that later in his life Mercury became an outspoken advocate for gay rights and "We Are the Champions" became an anthem.

To get philosophical for a minute, Queen was instrumental in the evolution of the dialogue regarding gay awareness and gay rights. Probably they weren't thinking about it when they were recording, but by creating a work of art that appeals to those of us with a straight-laced country-boy background, they moved the dialogue from the fringe to the mainstream. Because if I can ignore the "gayness" and apply "Take My Breath Away" to my personal heterosexual experience then I can accept that someone else may have a totally different application of it. The key is realizing that each of our own interpretations is not universally "right", it's just personally "right". And that's OK.

Listen to this album. It is amazing.

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