Rock

The Development of the ‘Epic’ Queen Sound

One of the defining features of Queen’s output in the 1970s was the group’s signature ‘sound’. This paper documents four studio-related techniques that contributed to the ‘Queen sound’, with a particular focus on how these traits conveyed a sense of ‘epic’ size in the group’s songs. The second section of this paper examines the ‘Queen sound’ from a diachronic perspective, demonstrating how the group’s changing studio practices between 1974 and 1975 resulted in the complete realisation of the ‘Queen sound’.