Not every album an artist puts out is going to be a smash hit, which was a tough lesson Queen learned early on in their career with the release of their highly divisive (and, if you ask the band members, misunderstood) sophomore album, Queen II. The 1974 follow-up to their eponymous debut featured a more experimental sound than their debut, and as is often the case when artists start stepping outside of their neatly defined box, people didn’t know what to think.
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“When ‘Queen II’ came out, it didn’t connect with everyone,” Brian May later admitted. “A lot of people thought we’d forsaken rock music. They said, ‘Why don’t you play things like ‘Liar’ and ‘Keep Yourself Alive’?’ All we could say was, ‘Give it another listen. It’s there. But it’s all layered. It’s a new approach. I still like that album a lot. It’s not perfect. It has the imperfections of youth and the excesses of youth. But I think that was our biggest single step ever.”
The band had already begun writing material for Queen II before Queen I was even released, which likely made it even more difficult to reconcile the public’s mixed reaction to a sound that, from the band’s perspective, was as authentic as possible. “We were building confidence in the studio,” drummer Roger Taylor said in a 2025 interview. “It had a lot more light and shade.”
Queen Had a Soft Spot for ‘Queen II’, Even if Queen Fans Didn’t
British rock band Queen released their eponymous debut in the summer of 1973, followed closely by their sophomore follow-up, Queen II, in the spring of 1974. With such a quick turnaround, it’s no wonder that the band’s experiential concept album exploring concepts of “chiaroscuro” (the album sides were titled “Side White” and “Side Black,” as opposed to Side A and B) wasn’t immediately welcomed by the public with open arms. As Brian May would later describe it, the album “wasn’t that well received in the rock fraternity in some places.”
Regardless, the band felt proud of what they had accomplished, particularly so soon after releasing their studio debut. The late frontman Freddie Mercury once cited their second album as a pivotal moment in their career, from his perspective. “The most important thing to me was the Queen II album going into the charts—especially satisfying, that, since the first one didn’t do so well. It’s nice to see some recognition for your work, though I don’t usually worry too much. Roger [Taylor] tends to worry more about what’s happening on that side.”
From an objective, chart-based standpoint, Queen II was by no means a flop. The sophomore release peaked at No. 5 in the United Kingdom and achieved a relatively successful No. 49 placement on the United States Billboard 200. Certainly not as staggering as their later releases. But without the opportunity to stretch their legs in the studio, monumental albums like A Night at the Opera might have never reached their full potential. Indeed, for as divisive and misunderstood as Queen II was when it first came out in the spring of 1974, the album has become a beloved addition to the band’s catalogue these days.
Photo by Linda D. Robbins/Getty Images
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