Is A Night At The Opera In the shadow of other great bands albums Of the 7

Standin' in the Rain?
Big Wheels?
Believe Me Now?
Ticket To The Moon?
Poker?
Night Rider?
Eldorado?
Poor Boy?
Dreaming of 4000?
Mission?
Shangri-La?
Above the Clouds?

Really? Nobody listened to this?
Incredible tunes. Worth every second.

ELO are an excellent band who did play a variety of songs, prog rock, rock, ballads, disco, rockabilly etc. They even dabbled with (for want of a better term) new wave in the 1980s. Jeff Lynn isn't a great guitarist and his voice was an acquired taste (I love it, but I can see why others wouldn't) but he was a great song writer and as a performer he had to play guitar and sing lead, which is something neither Brian (in Queen) or Jimmy Page ever had to do. For around a decade, ELO were one of the world's top bands. They were heavily influenced by The Beatles -- so what? So were Queen. But to compare them with Oasis is laughable.I can just imagine Noel Gallagher writing The Diary of Horace Wimp, Telephone Line, Mr Blue Sky, or Rockaria lol! Get serious please.

What really narks me about Queen fans they are so dismissive & think that Bohemian Rhapsody is the greatest song ever blah blah, it isn't even Queen's best song.

Four Symbols or Zep 4 is equally as good as A Night At The Opera, as is Who's Next, Rocks,Highway To Hell or any other top quality hard rock album that came out in the 70's

maxpower wrote: What really narks me about Queen fans they are so dismissive & think that Bohemian Rhapsody is the greatest song ever blah blah, it isn't even Queen's best song.

Four Symbols or Zep 4 is equally as good as A Night At The Opera, as is Who's Next, Rocks,Highway To Hell or any other top quality hard rock album that came out in the 70's

No such thing as greatest song ever,  but you could make the case it was the best single ever for a rock band?....of course we could......what narks me as a music fan is when people put bands like ACDC, who play the same riffs and never tried anything new in their entire career in the same league as Queen.    How is that?....a true artist explores new sounds.   ACDC=boring    Not in the same league as The Who, Zeppelin, Queen.  Even ELO were better, lol.  At least they tried new sounds.

I think Zep were a wonderful band with some great albums and marvellous songwriting (even if it was most of the time quite simple, which isn't a bad thing in itself).

I think Page was/is a fine guitarist, but definitely not even sort of close to being as good as blinded fans think he was/is. Granted, most fans overrate their idols (Brian included, Malmsteen included, Van Halen included... there may even be people who think Katy Perry's a guitar goddess), but IMO it's magnified with Page.

If A influenced B it doesn't mean A is better. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.

There were and are better guitar players than Brian, but Pagey's not one of them IMO. Even if Page's about as famous as May or Hendrix (in certain circles at least), both May and Hendrix are way way way better guitarists than him. IMO.

And regarding polls and ranks ... most of them are made by and for ignorants anyway.

I heartily disagree with the whole 'Queen I is a Zeppelin one clone album' idea that's floating around. And when it comes to Jimmy Page's playing, I can just stand it. Whole Lotta Love is a good riff but if he really was as good as people say, he could have easily got all those trippy noises on guitar in the middle and not got the band to sell out there by using a synth. We all know Brian could have hit every chord played on the synthesized part. But then to be fair to Page, his solo after that part is reasonably melodic and rocking. Dazed and Confused is probably the most experimental thing he did. And that song really shows experimentation from all four members. And on the psychedelic side of things, I think Hendrix rules the roost. I don't think he's the best ever, but Purple Haze, Foxy Lady, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), All Along the Watchtower and 1983 ... (A Mermaid I Should Turn To Be) are prime pieces of psychedelic rock in my eyes. And a side note. If you think I should have put One Rainy Wish there, I honestly prefer Brian's cover on Another World. To put it mathematically:

Brian = 400 x (Page + Hendrix + Clapton + Eddie Van Halen), easily! And if you want a list of best guitarists ever...

#5 - Frank Infante
#4 - Suzanne Vega
#3 - Tony Peluso
#2 - Prince
#1 - Brian May

masterstroke_84 wrote: "C´mon, anyone can realize how bad he is..."


Well, not anyone, as I think that Page was incredible.

Funky Horsie wrote: "Jimmy is worse... than anyone."

Ridiculous. I get that he's not popular with everyone, but to deny his talent? Even if you think that he was the most overrated guitarist of all time, to say that he was worse than anyone strikes me as incredibly unreasonable.

Personally, I love Page, regardless of what any else says. Hearing his guitar on Dazed and Confused is IMO one of music's great joys. The solo to Stairway to Heaven still ranks IMO among the greatest solos of all time. Page was far from perfect, but at his best, he was IMO on a level attained by few other guitarists.

mike hunt wrote: "Not one song from Queen1 sounds like a zep coversong, but you do hear the influence."

IMO Doing All Right sounds exactly like a Zeppelin song.

Really?
Which one?

Let's remember that Smile was formed in 1968, and in February 1969, Smile was already playing their songs in not so small venues.
Led Zeppelin I was released on January 12th.

Unless they wrote, arranged, learned and perfectly rehearsed their songs in less than one month, I don't see how Doing All Right was inspired by Led Zeppelin.

IMO the songs which sound most heavily influenced by Led Zep are "Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll"
and "Son and Daughter". The former is reminiscent of "Rock and Roll" and the latter the heavy bits of "Dazed and Confused" (and many other Page riffs). But of course a song-for-song comparison doesn't tell the whole story; it's more the overall sound and tempo (or in the case of "My Fairy King", the fantasy lyrics) that sounds Zeppelin-like. The only songs that don't sound anything like Zeppelin are KYA and Jesus. IMO of course. You're welcome to yours ...

I have listened to the first 4 led zeppelin albums, lots of times. I liked them when I was like 13 or so, but I swear I can't hear the slightlest influence on My Fairy King. 
To me, it's 100% Queen.

Lots of bands wrote fantasy lyrics and shit, not just Led Zeppelin. If we're gonna create bridges between the two bands, let's be coherent. On Son & Daughter, the influence is pretty obvious but that's as far as it goes.

Queen I is very far from being a Led Zeppelin clone. TOO far, I'd say.

jazzy mercurois wrote: I have listened to the first 4 led zeppelin albums, lots of times. I liked them when I was like 13 or so, but I swear I can't hear the slightlest influence on My Fairy King. 
To me, it's 100% Queen.

Lots of bands wrote fantasy lyrics and shit, not just Led Zeppelin. If we're gonna create bridges between the two bands, let's be coherent. On Son & Daughter, the influence is pretty obvious but that's as far as it goes.

Queen I is very far from being a Led Zeppelin clone. TOO far, I'd say.

Yes, lots of bands had fantasy lyrics -- I knew you'd bring up that one -- but lots of those bands were not cited by Queen as a direct influence. Queen did not copy Zeppelin in the same way as Zeppelin ripped off old blues songs , but they were influenced by them, as I stated previously and as Brian, Fred and Roger have stated themselves. Is that coherent enough? You're right: clone is the wrong word --  a bit of hyperbole on my part -- then again, you're not exactly immune from that yourself. Anyway, as I said, it's a matter of opinion and there's no right or wrong answer.

No, fuck that, I'm right and you're wrong. Excelsior!

OH BUT I suppose then... Queen didn't know fantasy existed before led zeppelin!
BECAUSE THEY SAID THEY WERE AN INFLUENCE!
SO IT'S OBVIOUS THAT EVERYTHING THEY DID, THEY TOOK FROM ZEPPELIN!

I think Funky Horseshit / Jizzy Cuminmypants (whatever his name is) is trying to get everyone to succumb to siding with his opinion... I don't think it matters what this 15 year old thinks... at least that's the age I've deduced he must be from reading his one-sided ramblings...

And to Holly2003... yes, you ARE right, lol, very much so.

70's

 Dark Side of the Moon, Animals, Wish You Were Here, Aqualung, Minstrel in the Gallery, Toys In The Attic, The Cars, Foreigner,  A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, News of the World,  Band On The Run, Hotel California, Fleetwood Mac, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Seconds Out, Dreamboat Annie, Destroyer, Billion Dollar Babies, Killer, Welcome To My Nightmare, LZ II, Zoso, Houses of the Holy, 2112, A Farewell To Kings, Permanent Waves, You Can Tune A Piano ....but You Can't Tunafish, Darkness at the Edge of Town, Born To Run, Equinox, Grand Illusion, Pieces of Eight, Van Halen I, Fragile, Close To The Edge, ........Frampton Comes Alive, Live Bullet, KISS Alive, Live Killers, ........etc etc etc etc

Most everyone had these, even the 'non fans'.  They are classics.  Hell, so is Saturday Night Fever (which I kinda like parts of thanks to the missus).

YES, LED ZEPPELIN INVENTED MUSIC.
IT DIDN'T EXIST BEFORE PAGE WROTE HIS FIRST SONG.
LED ZEPPELIN WITH THEIR INFINITE REPETITIONS OF 3-CHORD PROGRESSIONS, INVENTED MUSIC.

Nobody else did.
They did.

Queen?
Nah, who cares about brilliant songwriting and sophisticated playing, flawless harmonies, vocal performances?

In Led Zeppelin you can find all you need!
Rhythm mistakes, which are NOT mistakes... just very very very very complex metrics. They never go out of tune either, it's all about microtones.
And of course it's not that jimmy page can't play his own stuff, it's just that he is SO INCREDIBLE that he can always play something new! He never plays the same thing twice! Which is not because he can't... noooooo, it's because he's the world's greatest hero!

And harmony! AH YES, YOU CAN FIND SO MUCH OF THAT!

Best band ever.