News of the World (1977)
1. We Will Rock You
2. We Are the Champions
3. Sheer Heart Attack
4. All Dead, All Dead
5. Spread Your Wings
6. Fight From the Inside
7. Get Down Make Love
8. Sleeping on the Sidewalk
9. Who Needs You
10.It's Late
11.My Melancholy Blues
While News of the World is often mentioned a notch or two below A Night at the Opera in most fan rankings, it’s hard not to feel like it belongs in the same conversation. What this album may lack in operatic bombast, it makes up for in focus. It’s leaner, punchier, and noticeably stripped of some of the more theatrical flourishes that had defined the two albums prior. If anything, this feels like the band’s most intentional attempt at making a record that would sound just as strong live as it does in the studio.
It’s hard to imagine a stronger opening than the back-to-back stadium anthems We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions. Individually, they couldn’t be more different — one a minimalist stomp-clap chant, the other a sweeping piano-driven ballad — yet together, they form one of rock’s most iconic pairings. Maybe it’s the sports arena synergy, or maybe it's just Queen being Queen, but either way, the combination has become practically inseparable.
And just when you think you’ve got the tone figured out, the band throws a wicked curveball with Roger Taylor’s Sheer Heart Attack — a snarling punk outburst that sounds like it was designed specifically to shut up critics who complained about Queen being too grandiose. Raw, fast, and borderline chaotic, it’s the closest Queen ever got to sounding like The Ramones. Oddly enough, it works — even longtime fans didn’t blink. And Taylor wasn’t done: his second offering, Fight From the Inside, is another hard-hitting cut that proves he was stepping up as a songwriter in a major way.
Each member of the band gets writing credit here, and the diversity in tone and texture is one of the album’s greatest strengths. John Deacon contributes the elegant Spread Your Wings, a song so fluid and melodic you’d swear it was a Mercury piece. As always, Deacon lets his bass and songwriting do the talking — and it’s one of his best moments.
Mercury, for his part, takes things in multiple directions. Get Down, Make Love is perhaps his most overtly aggressive track to date — heavy, grinding, and a little sleazy, though it nearly veers off the rails in the middle with a barrage of overcooked studio effects. My Melancholy Blues, on the other hand, is pure cabaret — jazzy, low-key, and unapologetically non-rock. But this being Queen, there’s always room for one of those.
If the album loses a bit of steam in the final stretch, it’s hard to hold that against it. Brian May’s criminally underrated It’s Late comes in near the end and recharges the energy with its multi-part structure and gritty guitars — a track that reminds you just how effective Queen could be even when they weren’t chasing novelty.
News of the World may not have the baroque weirdness of earlier albums or the crossover hits of later ones, but it captures Queen at a moment when all the pieces were firing with just the right amount of restraint. Tight, inventive, and surprisingly direct, it’s the sound of a band at the top of their game — without the need to prove it.
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