News of the World

News of the World, Queen's sixth album, was recorded between July and September 1977 at Basing Street and Wessex in London and produced by the band with Mike Stone's assistance. It took about ten weeks, roughly half the time they had needed before. With punk rising around them, Queen pared their sound down to something more direct. The Sex Pistols were making Never Mind the Bollocks at Wessex that same summer, and the two albums were released in Britain on the same day. The album opens with Brian May's "We Will Rock You", carried by stamping feet and handclaps, and Freddie Mercury's piano-led "We Are the Champions". Released together on a single on 7 October 1977, ahead of the album, the pair reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 4 in the United States and became anthems at sporting events worldwide. May later said "Champions" was not claiming that Queen were the champions but that everyone in the room was. Roger Taylor brought "Sheer Heart Attack", begun for the 1974 album of that name but not finished in time, and "Fight From the Inside", on which he sang and played bass and rhythm guitar; John Deacon contributed "Spread Your Wings" and the flamenco-flavoured "Who Needs You". May's "All Dead, All Dead" grew out of the death of a much-loved cat, "Sleeping on the Sidewalk" kept its first take, and the record closes with Mercury's piano-led "My Melancholy Blues". The cover adapts a painting of a giant robot by the American science-fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas. Taylor had spotted it in a science-fiction magazine, and Freas repainted it with the band in the robot's hand. EMI released the album in Britain on 28 October 1977 and Elektra followed in America on 1 November. It peaked at No. 4 in the UK but climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard album chart and was later certified four times platinum by the RIAA. In Japan it came out on 25 November 1977 and reached No. 3. A 40th-anniversary deluxe box set followed in November 2017.