QUEEN – News of the World (France) 12" Vinyl LP Album

- Original 1977 French Gatefold Edition with iconic Frank Kelly Freas artwork

Album Front Cover Photo of QUEEN – News of the World Visit: https://vinyl-records.nl/

This French 1977 gatefold release of Queen’s “News of the World” captures the band at a peak moment, fusing raw arena power with melodic drama. The album’s unforgettable robot artwork by Frank Kelly Freas sets the tone before the needle even drops, while anthems like “We Will Rock You,” “We Are the Champions,” and “Spread Your Wings” anchor its legacy. Packaged with bold visuals and delivered on heavyweight 12" vinyl, this edition stands out as one of the most visually striking versions in Queen’s entire catalog.

Table of Contents

"News of the World" (1977) Album Description:

Lead / Summary

"News of the World" is the sound of Queen kicking down their own cathedral doors and walking out into the stadium. The grand prog-opera days aren’t gone, but here they trade capes for leather jackets and write songs built to be shouted by football crowds and drunk students in the same breath. On this French gatefold pressing, the whole thing feels like a beautiful collision between sci-fi nightmare and real-world late-70s anxiety.

Historical & Cultural Context

1977 was pure chaos on vinyl. Punk in the UK was busy spitting in the face of everything "old rock," disco was taking over dance floors, and a lot of the big bands suddenly looked like dinosaurs overnight. Queen could easily have doubled down on baroque epics, but instead they tuned into the mood of the streets: shorter, louder, more direct, still dramatic but with steel instead of velvet.

In that world, an album opening with a stomp-stomp-clap and a mass-singalong about being champions wasn’t just clever – it was strategic. This wasn’t music just for hi-fi nerds anymore; this was for terraces, arenas, and car radios running slightly too loud on a Friday night. "News of the World" doesn’t beg to be understood; it dares you not to join in.

How Queen Came to This Album

By the time they reached this record, Queen had already burned through the royal trilogy. Huge tours, huge expectations, and that constant pressure to top "Bohemian Rhapsody" – not exactly a relaxing creative backdrop. You can almost hear the band thinking: enough with the porcelain teacups, let’s plug straight in.

Instead of another ornate studio maze, they stripped things back, produced it themselves with Mike Stone riding shotgun, and aimed for something more raw and physical. Less polished theatre, more rehearsal-room energy. It’s the sound of a band that knows it’s massive but doesn’t want to calcify into its own myth just yet.

The Sound, Songs & Musical Direction

Drop the needle on Side One and "We Will Rock You" doesn’t even pretend to be subtle – it’s bare-bones rhythm and a guitar solo that arrives like a laser through a storm cloud. Straight into "We Are the Champions," and suddenly you’re in one of rock’s eternal victory laps, a slow-burn anthem built to survive every karaoke bar on earth.

But the album’s personality lives in the deep cuts. "Sheer Heart Attack" is basically proto-punk filtered through Roger Taylor’s adrenaline, a feral little grenade tossed into Queen’s own back catalogue. "Spread Your Wings" is John Deacon quietly writing one of the band’s most human songs, while "It’s Late" stretches into a late-night epic without ever feeling bloated.

Even the sleazier corners matter. "Get Down, Make Love" crawls in like a bad idea at 3 AM – echo, moans, and Brian May turning the guitar into some sort of alien lifeform. The whole album swings between fists-in-the-air simplicity and weird, twisted textures, like a band trying to be both street-level and utterly otherworldly at the same time.

Compared to Its 1977 Neighbours

Stack this album next to its 1977 neighbours and you see how strange it really is. Where "Never Mind the Bollocks" turns everything into a blunt weapon and "Animals" drifts into long paranoia, Queen go for something more hybrid – half hard-rock muscle, half theatrical DNA. It’s less about purity, more about impact.

In the same year, AC/DC’s "Let There Be Rock" was basically a bar fight on wax. "News of the World" walks a different path: it keeps some of that bombast but compresses it into songs that can exist everywhere – on radio, in stadiums, in tiny bedrooms where the gatefold artwork stares back at you like a robot executioner. It’s big-band rock adapting instead of surrendering.

Controversies, Backlash & Misunderstandings

Not everyone was thrilled. Some prog-leaning fans missed the layered operatic madness and thought this approach was a step down in "cleverness." The punk crowd saw any band with costumes and big hair as automatic enemies. For them, those anthems were music for the establishment, not for the outsiders.

Tracks like "Get Down, Make Love" weren’t exactly Sunday-school material either, with their erotic overtones and studio trickery pushing past what some listeners considered "tasteful." But that’s the thing: Queen were never built to be tasteful. While some critics clutched their pearls, most people just turned the volume knob the wrong way – further right.

Band Dynamics & Creative Tension

Under the surface gloss, this is also the sound of four strong personalities pulling in different directions and somehow landing on their feet. Freddie leans into the idea of the rock frontman as ringmaster, Brian keeps the guitar towering but focused, John sneaks in emotional backbone, and Roger vents his inner punk by throwing gasoline on the tempo.

You can almost feel the internal conversation: keep the harmonic richness, lose some of the lace curtains. They’d survived the studio excess of the mid-70s and were now trying not to drown in their own success. That push-and-pull – between art project and blunt rock machine – is exactly what gives "News of the World" its nervous, living pulse.

Reception, Reputation & Long-Term Legacy

At the time, critics were split: some hailed the anthems as genius, others treated them like manipulative crowd control. Fans, meanwhile, bought the record, played it to death, and turned "We Will Rock You" / "We Are the Champions" into a permanent part of global background noise.

Decades later, the so-called "obvious" tracks coexist with fan favourites like "It’s Late" and "Spread Your Wings," which now feel like the emotional core of the record. On this French gatefold, with Frank Kelly Freas’ robot cradling the band like broken toys, the whole thing plays like a warning and a celebration at once – fame is a monster, but the soundtrack absolutely rips.

Reflective Closing

Every time I pull this LP from the shelf, that giant robot on the cover already sets the mood before the needle even moves. It’s one of those albums where the first stomp-stomp-clap instantly rewires the room – suddenly you’re not just listening; you’re part of the event. For all the trends that came and went around it, "News of the World" still feels like a living thing, equal parts bruised, defiant, and gloriously over the top – exactly how rock on vinyl ought to feel.

Album Key Details: Genre, Label, Format & Release Info

Music Genre:

Progressive Rock, Pop

Progressive Rock and Pop merge here into a melodic yet experimental hybrid, balancing accessible songwriting with expanded arrangements typical of late-70s European productions.

Label & Catalognr:

EMI – Cat#: 2C 068-60033

Album Packaging

Standard sleeve.

Media Format:

Record Format: 12" LP Vinyl Stereo Gramophone Record
Total Weight: 280g

Year & Country:

1977 – France

Production & Recording Information:

Producers:
  • Queen – Producer Queen’s production role on this album feels like the band grabbing the steering wheel with both hands. They cut back the studio excess, pushed for a rawer punch, and shaped the songs into something that could survive both radio play and arena volume. Their fingerprints are everywhere: the tight arrangements, the controlled chaos, and the sense of a band refusing to repeat itself.
  • Mike Stone – Producer, Sound Engineer Mike Stone (1951-2002), was a renowned British record producer and engineer who shaped the sound of 1970s and 1980s rock. Known for his work with Queen, Asia, Journey, and Whitesnake, he balanced power with clarity in every mix. His production touch defined arena rock’s golden era
    Mike Stone Wiki
Album Cover Design & Artwork:
  • Frank Kelly Freas – Album Artwork Freas’ artwork sets the entire psychological temperature of this album. His reimagined robot—gentle, tragic, and terrifying at once—turns the sleeve into a full mood before the needle even drops. It gives the music a sci-fi dread that fits Queen’s shift into a more direct, muscular sound. This cover doesn’t just decorate the album; it frames how you enter it.
    Frank Kelly Freas Wiki

Band Members / Musicians:

Band Line-up:
  • Freddie Mercury – vocals, piano Freddie walks through this album like a lightning conductor, pulling every emotional shift into focus. His vocals swing from defiant anthems to intimate moments without losing that sharp theatrical edge. What makes his contribution here so powerful is how he adapts to the band’s rawer direction while still shaping the whole record’s emotional temperature.
    Freddie Mercury Wiki
  • Brian May – guitar Brian’s guitar work on this album feels like he swapped the velvet gloves for something closer to steel. His leads cut clean through the stripped-down production, sharpening the new harder edges without losing that unmistakable melodic intelligence. He gives the songs their spine—whether it’s stadium-sized riffs, tense atmospheres, or those brilliant little guitar “conversations” only he can create.
    Brian May Wiki
 
  • John Deacon – bass Deacon anchors this album with lines that look simple on the surface but quietly steer entire songs. His melodic sensibility softens the album’s harder edges at just the right moments, giving tracks like “Spread Your Wings” a grounded emotional pull. He’s the band’s secret stabilizer here—the one who makes the rawer production feel lived-in instead of stripped bare.
    John Deacon Wiki
  • Roger Taylor – drums Roger is the spark plug of this record. His drumming hits harder and wilder than on earlier albums, pushing the band into rougher, more physical territory. You can hear him leaning into the punk-era energy rushing through 1977, especially in the faster, chaotic moments. His rhythms give the album its heartbeat—restless, tense, and always ready to ignite.
    Roger Taylor Wiki

Complete Track-listing:

Tracklisting Side One:
  1. We Will Rock You
  2. We Are The Champions
  3. Sheer Heart Attack
  4. All Dead All Dead
  5. Spread Your Wings
  6. Fight From the Inside
Tracklisting Side Two:
  1. Get Down Make Love
  2. Sleeping on the Sidewalk
  3. Who Needs You
  4. It's Late
  5. My Melancholy Blues

Disclaimer: Track durations shown are approximate and may vary slightly between different country editions or reissues. Variations can result from alternate masterings, pressing plant differences, or regional production adjustments.

Album Front Cover Photo
Front cover of Queen’s 'News of the World' French gatefold edition showing the large silver robot holding the band members’ limp bodies against a flat green background, with bright red album title typography and the classic 1977 sci-fi artwork collectors immediately recognize as Frank Kelly Freas’ signature style.

The cover hits with that unmistakable late-70s sci-fi punch: a massive metallic humanoid dominating the frame, sculpted with smooth steel-like shading and large, sorrowful eyes set deep in a mask-like face. The robot fills almost the entire right half of the artwork, its rounded shoulder plates and segmented chest rendered with the airbrushed precision that defines Frank Kelly Freas’ classic illustration style.

Clutched in its oversized mechanical hand are three members of Queen, limp and bloodied, dressed in white outfits that contrast sharply against the robot’s dull metal surface. Brian May’s recognizable curls spill over the robot’s fingers, while Freddie Mercury’s body is shown with a red wound across the torso. Roger Taylor appears lower in the composition, arms loose, as if the robot has just lifted them from a collapsed stage. The imagery lands hard: not theatrical fantasy, but a dramatic sci-fi tableau that defined the album’s identity in every country where it was issued.

The background is a flat, painterly green wash, intentionally simple so nothing distracts from the robot’s bulk and the band’s helpless placement within its grip. Above the scene, the typography sits in a bold red: the word QUEEN in the familiar angular logo, and NEWS OF THE WORLD spaced cleanly beneath it. This French pressing keeps the international layout intact, and the printing quality shows the slightly textured color distribution typical of late-70s EMI France sleeves.

Every detail visible here matters for collectors: the exact hue of the green background, the saturation of the red title, and the clarity of the brush-style metal textures help confirm pressing authenticity. This image reflects a well-preserved copy from a personal archive, showing accurate color reproduction and no major sleeve wear, creasing, or discoloration.

Album Back Cover Photo
Back cover of the French 'News of the World' LP showing the robot’s massive metal arm crashing through a concrete wall, debris flying outward, with one surviving band member falling against a flat green background and the red tracklisting text printed upside down in the center for this edition’s characteristic layout.

The back cover extends the same heavy, unsettling energy as the front: the giant robot’s arm dominates the upper left corner, its metal joints rendered with thick gradients and deliberately industrial shading. The arm punches through a cracked concrete wall, scattering debris outward. The broken surface is sharp and jagged, with a dark void behind it, suggesting the robot has breached a barrier and is still advancing.

Below the breakage, one band member is shown mid-fall, wearing the same white stage outfit as on the front. Blond hair flares outward as the person drops across the green background, positioned diagonally for dramatic tension. The posture looks unbalanced, almost weightless, matching the chaotic energy of the artwork’s narrative. The character’s facial detail is small but visible enough to convey shock or helplessness.

Printed in bright red sans-serif text, the album credits and tracklisting sit near the center of the sleeve, inverted upside-down exactly as found on the French gatefold pressing. This orientation is a known quirk of this edition and a reliable visual indicator for collectors checking authenticity. The print is crisp and aligns tightly with EMI France’s production style from the late 1970s.

The entire cover uses the same flat green painted background seen on the front, keeping focus on the robot’s destructive reach and the band member caught in the aftermath. No significant color fading or surface wear is visible here, suggesting a clean, well-preserved copy with strong texture and consistent ink density—important condition cues for anyone evaluating vintage French sleeves.

Photo Inside Pages Gatefold Cover
Inside gatefold artwork of Queen’s 'News of the World' shown as a single combined image, featuring the massive silver robot breaking through a crater-like opening while reaching down toward a panicked crowd, with band members held in its grip and a dense mass of terrified faces filling the lower half.

This combined image shows the full inside-gatefold artwork of the French pressing, presented here as one continuous panel because the original pages were physically joined together. The album’s gatefold is wider than any flatbed scanner ever used in my home, so the two inner pages were aligned, merged, and mounted flat to create a seamless poster-style view. The result gives a clearer look at the artwork’s scale, layout, and color transitions than the original booklet-like format ever allows.

The illustration shows the giant metallic robot bursting through a cavern-like red opening, its upper torso and face dominating the top section. Its eyes glow with a dull red, and the smooth, rounded plating of its armor catches the light in clear gradients. One band member hangs precariously from the robot’s grasp near the upper right, while the robot’s enormous hand stretches downward toward the viewer, the articulated metal fingers fully extended.

The lower half of the artwork is a chaotic crowd scene. Dozens of terrified faces fill the space, rendered with exaggerated expressions and wide, shocked eyes. The first row of people is sharply detailed, including a man in the foreground reaching forward with his hand extended, and a woman with bright yellow hair and a red jacket whose expression reads as pure panic. Behind them, layer upon layer of people form a dense visual mass, all pushing and scrambling away from the descending robot.

The interior artwork uses deep reds and muted browns in the lower portion, while the sky behind the robot remains a pale green-blue gradient. The glued-together presentation makes the central seam invisible, allowing the composition to be appreciated as the single poster-like illustration it was always meant to resemble. For collectors, having this unified view helps verify print accuracy, color intensity, and panel alignment across different French gatefold variations.

Photo of Custom Inner Sleeve
Inner sleeve of the French 'News of the World' LP showing a bright red background with full printed lyrics for multiple tracks in tight white typesetting, plus a small black-and-white band photo at the bottom; a classic late-70s EMI layout used for lyric-heavy inner sleeves.

This inner sleeve presents the full lyrics for several tracks in compact white text printed against a solid red background, a design approach EMI used frequently in the late 70s when pushing for clean, utilitarian lyric layouts. The print density is high, with tight line spacing and minimal margin padding, which allowed the entire text set to fit onto a single side without redesigning the type grid.

The sleeve includes lyrics for “Get Down, Make Love,” “Sleeping on the Sidewalk,” “Who Needs You,” “It’s Late,” and “My Melancholy Blues.” Each section is labeled with songwriter credits, matching the album’s interior production details. The sharp contrast of red and white makes the sleeve easy to identify from a collector’s perspective, especially when checking for correct French-print fonts and spacing.

Below the lyric blocks sits a small black-and-white band photograph featuring the four members posed casually in a studio-like environment, surrounded by angled beams and soft lighting. The print quality shows the slightly grainy halftone typical of late-70s inner sleeves, consistent with EMI France’s manufacturing standards of the era. The photo grounds the otherwise text-heavy layout with a simple visual anchor.

The bottom of the sleeve contains the complete production credits, including engineering, mixing, artwork, and reproduction notes, all arranged in a justified column. The sleeve shows no notable discoloration, seam splits, or deep creases, suggesting careful archival storage. For collectors cross-checking authenticity, the color tone, text alignment, and halftone quality of the band image are key indicators of a genuine late-70s French pressing.

Close up of Side One record’s label
Side One label of the French EMI pressing of 'News of the World,' showing the grey EMI label with lion-and-phoenix crest design, red track titles printed in two columns, catalog number 2C 068-60033, SACEM rights box, and late-70s French perimeter text around the edge of the label.

Side One of the French EMI pressing uses the classic grey EMI label design with the faint lion-and-phoenix crest printed as a low-contrast background. The artwork sits behind the spindle hole, occupying most of the central area without overpowering the printed text. The label stock shows the slightly matte, lightly textured surface typical of late-70s Pathé Marconi production.

Track titles are printed in clean red type, arranged in a single vertical block. Each title includes its timing and songwriter credit in parentheses. The catalog number 2C 068-60033 appears in two places: once in bold red on the left side and again in black with the side designation “A” on the right. This duplicated placement is a useful verification point for collectors checking authenticity and label variants.

The SACEM/SDRM rights box is printed in red, positioned to the left of the spindle hole. Below it, the perimeter text circles the edge of the label in white, reading in French as typical for EMI-produced pressings of the period. The EMI logo sits at the bottom center, sharp and well-aligned, with the 1977 Queen Productions copyright notice directly above it.

Additional technical credits are printed near the lower portion of the label: “Produit par QUEEN,” with “Assistant: Mike Stone” immediately below. All text appears crisp with no ink bleeding, suggesting a clean label application and well-preserved pressing. The contrast between the grey background and red type is strong, and the photographic detail reveals no rotational misalignment or pressing defects.

All images on this site are photographed directly from the original vinyl LP covers and record labels in my collection. Earlier blank sleeves were not archived due to past storage limits, and Side Two labels are often omitted when they contain no collector-relevant details. Photo quality varies because images were taken over several decades with different cameras. Personal or non-commercial use is allowed with a link to this site; commercial use requires permission.

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