Queen's fifth studio album was recorded at Sarm East, The Manor and Wessex Studios, between July and November 1976. It was the first to be self-produced - the preceding four LPs were co-produced with Roy Thomas Baker (and John Anthony on Queen) - and engineered by Mike Stone.
The album followed its predecessor A Night At The Opera in borrowing its title from a film by the Marx Brothers. Like A Night At The Opera - which many think of as its sister album - A Day At The Races is a greatly diverse work, exploring all kinds of musical styles and genres; from the heavy Tie Your Mother Down and White Man, to Freddie's delicate You Take My Breath Away and John's You And I. It has been stated many times over the years, by Brian and Roger mostly, that the band saw this album more or less as a continuation of the previous LP. Indeed, so much so, that the two might even have been released simultaneously. A Day At The Races finds Queen during a highly inventive and motivated period. All four members are writing and creating at a furious rate and within four months they produce several of their most acclaimed recordings, best loved singles, and, in the minds of many, one of their finest and most complete albums.
Freddie's Somebody To Love, among the best-known Queen songs of all, was to become the biggest single of the album. It was also among its author's favourite own compositions, as Freddie would occasionally recall. Like Bohemian Rhapsody, Somebody To Love features complex layered vocal tracks, though this time based on a gospel choir arrangement; a combination of Freddie, Brian and Roger's multi-tracked voices to achieve the impression of a 100-voice gospel choir. It is staggering to think that the colossal choirs on this recording could have been produced from just three voices, but that is the case. The various band members have stated many times over the years that it is pure good fortune and luck that the three voices merge so wonderfully together to provide such a distinctive part of the Queen sound.
