A Day at the Races and the Gestural Unity of Queen

Abstract

One of the key themes in popular music historiography is the notion that artists should develop through their career. This chapter considers A Day at the Races, the album to emerge after the commercial success of A Night at the Opera, but critically considered a weak follow-up. It is argued that one of the features of A Day at the Races is gestural unity—the imitation of musical gestures among the band members. Drawing on two extended case studies, it suggests the 1976 album treads familiar ground to its predecessor but does so with comparatively unified arrangements and extended motivic development within the songs, an observation that can be understood as representing Queen’s evolution.