A Day At The Races

Queen

1976

3.85

Rating

Votes

21%

39%

30%

Distribution

Genres: Rock Styles: Hard Rock, Pop Rock, Art Rock, Glam, Arena Rock, Prog Rock

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Album Summary

A Day at the Races is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 10 December 1976 by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States. Recorded at The Manor, Sarm East, and Wessex Sound Studios in England, it was the band's first completely self-produced album, and the first completed without the involvement of producer Roy Thomas Baker; engineering duties were handled by Mike Stone. It serves as a companion to Queen's previous album, A Night at the Opera, with both taking their names from Marx Brothers films and having similar packaging and eclectic musical themes. The album reached the top of the charts in the UK, Japan, and the Netherlands. It reached number five on the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart and was Queen's third album to ship gold in the US, subsequently reaching platinum status in the country. In 2006, a listener poll conducted by BBC Radio 2 saw A Day at the Races voted the 67th greatest album of all time.

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Jan 08 2026 Author

I could write a book on each and every Queen album. To spare my time and your eyes, I’ll simply say that this is them at the height of their power. Teo Torriatte is underrated.

Jan 15 2026 Author

Queen is my favourite band of all time. I've listened to this album many, many times. I know every song backwards and forwards. I love the songs on it with some amazing deep cuts (Long Away, Millionaires Waltz, You and I) but this era of Queen is already readily captured w/ A Night at the Opera. Queen got the appropriate number of albums on the OG list and didn't need more. I might have not done Sheer Heart Attack and maybe done something later in their career (maybe The Works or Innuendo and leaning towards the latter). My personal rating: 5/5 My rating relative to the list: 5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Jan 08 2026 Author

Queen is one of those bands where it's kind of baffling how that sort of talent coalesces. I was thinking as well somewhat gloomily how close Mercury was to the time when AIDS became survivable. And as always where the hell Brian May get off being an "all but thesis" grad student for 30 plus years as a rock icon and then casually dip back in to wrap up his doctorate and become a working astrophysicist? Leave some for the rest of us, God. Anyway it seems a little silly to leave my commentary particularly on one of many 50 year old iconic rock albums by this band. Not my personal favorite but great.

Jan 09 2026 Author

A Day At The Races is the fifth album of English rock band Queen. It contains the classic "Somebody to Love" and good songs "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" and "Tie Your Mother Down". The ballads are not that good ("You and I") and some other songs are also some of their weakest ( "White Man"). Still as a whole with excellent guitar work by Brian May, it's a decent album.

Jan 09 2026 Author

Rating: 9/10 Best songs: Tie your mother down, You and I, Somebody to love, White man, God old-fashioned lover boy

Jan 09 2026 Author

I wasn’t sure if we needed another Queen album but I can’t argue with this one… incredible album every bit as good as A Night At The Opera which I am very familiar with. Never listened to this before but of course know “Somebody To Love”. This is Queen at its best - and there’s no reason not to get as much of this on the list as possible! Fantastic album!

Jan 11 2026 Author

Love Queen

Jan 11 2026 Author

Classic by one of the best bands.

Jan 11 2026 Author

Not their best work, still a five star album!

Jan 14 2026 Author

5 stars. It's Queen.

Jan 14 2026 Author

This is timeless music. Maybe not the very greatest hits on this album, but it's amazingly good

Jan 16 2026 Author

9/10 I feel like Queen were legends at singles, they could make individual songs you could adore to this day, but their LPs were fairly boring, if that makes sense? like they make one or two REALLY amazing songs, and then surround it with mostly filler; like it’s fun, but it’s not nearly matching in quality that’s how I feel about most of the albums I e heard of theirs up until this point and have yet to be proved wrong I still fucking love Queen (I mean, yeah they’re overrated, but I think few bands actually deserve the praise they receive, in with how great they are) but yeah, really think it’s unfair to give something like this a 10/10

Jan 17 2026 Author

More of a continuation of A Night At The Opera than a follow-up or sequel. I think I've heard the band say the same thing in interviews. Like these two albums could've been a double album. Aside from the similarities with the previous album, each song is great in its own right.

Jan 19 2026 Author

Genuinely can't believe that this wasn't in the main list, but as has been pointed out by others here, it is somewhat interchangeable with A Night at the Opera. What this album does represent, though, past ANATO is the production - ADATR is just better produced, and the difference isn't negligible either.

Jan 08 2026 Author

Queen!

Jan 14 2026 Author

Hard rock, symphonic rock, glam rock. Un megahit. Un 4.

Jan 15 2026 Author

A Night at the Opera is my favourite Queen album, so it makes sense that A Day at the Races ranks above Queen II for me. If there’s room for one more Queen album on the list, this is it.

Jan 21 2026 Author

Great record. Had been a while since I listened to a Queen record.

Jan 21 2026 Author

The list should generally have had a bit more Queen but A Day At The Races is a little hit and miss for me, though like Status Quo it's often hard to find a single album to refer back to when their prolific body of work speaks loudest. Tie Your Mother Down is my favourite Queen song period and Somebody To Love is fantastic, GOFLB not far behind, but some of the Queen ballads don't really speak to me as much. I'll still take this over a lot of other music, low 4.

Jan 12 2026 Author

Queen is an all time great band. Freddie Mercury has got to be a top 5 singer in musical history. Queen has made so many great songs that the hits really dwarf some of the other songs on the album. This album is just that, somebody to love is a fantastic song. The rest of this album is still very good and may be their best front start to finish as it is succinct, powerful and full of Mercurys masterful singing. 8.2/10

Jan 12 2026 Author

I love Queen but this is sort of mid-tier Queen for me. Still good, but not among their best. 3 stars.

Jan 14 2026 Author

I wasn’t familiar with this Queen LP, and don’t think it meshed as well or reached the same heights as the more memorable albums in their discography save for ‘Somebody’. That being said, it is Queen and they still rock regardless, the bar is just set quite high.

Jan 29 2026 Author

For each user submission I will decide if I believe it was submitted to "correct the record" and deserves inclusion on the main list or if its more of a personal favorite or pet album of the user. Doesn't Queen already have 3-4 albums on the list? This one could replace Sheer Heart Attack maybe

Jan 11 2026 Author

I won £2 at the races once

Jan 09 2026 Author

I know it's Queen...and Queen is great....but this album is not great. I can't imagine what it would be like to be a Queen head in the mid 70s and be sorrily disappointed in this one after the Night at the Opera Masterpiece. 2.5/5

Jan 12 2026 Author

What, no way this wasn't on the list 1 Love me like there's no tomorrow is the only good song on this album. And lover boy