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Sheer Heart Attack is the third studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 8 November 1974 by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States. Digressing from the progressive themes featured on their first two albums, this album featured more conventional rock tracks and marked a step towards the classic Queen sound. It was produced by the band and Roy Thomas Baker and launched Queen to mainstream popularity in both the UK and throughout the world. Its first single "Killer Queen" reached number 2 in the British charts and provided them with their first top 20 hit in the US, peaking at number 12 on the Billboard singles chart. Sheer Heart Attack was also the first Queen album to hit the US top 20, peaking at number 12 in 1975. The album has been acknowledged for containing "a wealth of outstanding hard rock guitar tracks". Retrospectively, it has been listed by multiple publications as one of the band's best works and has been deemed an essential glam rock album.

"Brighton Rock" tells the story of two young lovers named Jenny and Jimmy meeting in Brighton on a public holiday,Mods travelling to Brighton on bank holidays was a popular narrative at the time, such as The Who's Quadrophenia. Jenny cannot linger because she is afraid her mother will find out "how I spent my holiday", but afterwards "writes a letter every day"; Jimmy, eager on the day, is not so happy with her "nothing can my love erase": now he is the one afraid of discovery by "my lady". The song includes an unaccompanied guitar solo interlude, which used delay to build up guitar harmony and contrapuntal melodic lines. The studio version only contains one "main" guitar and one "echoed" guitar for a short section, but live, May would usually split his guitar signal into "main" and two "echoed", with each going to a separate bank of amplifiers. The guitar solo on this song has been performed live at most concerts by Queen or May, either as part of this song, in a medley with another, or as a standalone piece. May also performed some of the solo at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

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