Writer: Freddie Mercury
Producer: Roy Thomas Baker and Queen
Recorded: Summer 1974 at Trident Studios, London
Released: October 1974
| Players: | Freddie Mercury — vocals, piano Brian May — guitar, vocals Roger Deacon — bass Roger Taylor — drums, vocals |
| Album: | Sheer Heart Attack (Elektra) |
The first single from Queen's third album, “Killer Queen'' was the breakthrough song for the band — particularly in the United States.
“Killer Queen'' was the group's first hit in the U.S., peaking at Number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was Number Two on the U.K. charts.
Mercury wrote the song as an ode to a high class call girl. “Classy people can be whores, too,'' he explained at the time.
Brian May, meanwhile, felt that “Killer Queen'' was “the turning point'' in the band's career. “It was the song that best summed up our kind of music, and a big hit, and we desperately needed it as a mark of something successful happening for us. We were penniless, you know, just like any other struggling rock 'n' roll band, all sitting around London in bedsitters, just like the rest.''
The song, and the Sheer Heart Attack album, did have its critics, however. As producer Roy Thomas Baker noted, “People didn't like it at the time, because they thought it was a bit over the top, which it was. It had every conceivable production idea that was available to us.''
Nevertheless, Sheer Heart Attack reached Number 12 on the Billboard Top 200, and Number Two on the U.K. charts — one of the few times that chart positions for albums and singles have coincided so closely.
Sheer Heart Attack was also Queen's first gold-certified album in the U.S.
