QUEEN - BATTLE ROYAL

For 51 years, Queen's self-titled debut album was the cult curio of their fabled catalogue. Now, as the new Queen I boxset drags these lost songs into the daylight, Brian May tells us about poverty, parental disapproval, the Red Special's first run-out and the perils of playing through Jimi's stack

- Henry Yates

Half a century later, when discussing the road to Queen's self-titled 1973 debut album with Brian May, it's necessary to suspend your disbelief. Imagine, if you can, a time when the classic line-up of May, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and Roger Taylor were not multi-platinum national treasures. A time, in fact, when they were penniless nobodies, typically found bottom of the bill at a sweatbox club, being ushered from record label offices or facing tough questions from parents convinced these four bright boys were burning their futures for an impossible dream.

Appearing on our Zoom call in a halo of grey curls, May can smile about it now, knowing what lay ahead. In spring '72, the band cut their first chink in the industry's formerly impenetrable armour as they were granted nocturnal recording sessions at the famed Trident Studios. And with precisely nothing to lose, the music flooded out, with the visceral gallop of Keep Yourself Alive leading them across the gamut of soul-metal (Doing Alright), proto-prog (My Fairy King), acoustic percussive tapping (The Night Comes Down), even flashes of flamenco (Great King Rat).

The first Queen record is a head-scratcher, though. Selling modestly on release, for 51 years, it has been the closest thing this all-conquering band had to a curio, its tracklisting unfamiliar to fans who know every note of, say, A Night At The Opera or The Works. In that same period, the band, too, had an uneasy relationship with their opening gambit, frustrated by the album's dry, distant sound. It's a thorn plucked in style, however, by the new Queen I boxset: a paving slab-sized vinyl/CD package whose remastered and expanded treatment finally reveals these songs as sunken treasures to rank among the band's very best.