{"id":5018,"date":"2026-07-22T21:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T19:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/?p=5018"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:56:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:56:38","slug":"news-of-the-world-1977-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/?p=5018","title":{"rendered":"News of the World (1977)"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"margin:1.5em 0;text-align:center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SAM_3668-scaled-1380x920.jpg\" alt=\"News of the World cardboard promotional box alongside the Astounding Science Fiction pulp magazine that inspired the cover art\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>The album whose sales cracked the American market wide open, helped in no small part by &#8220;We Will Rock You&#8221; and &#8220;We Are the Champions&#8221; becoming stadium staples almost overnight.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"margin:1.5em 0;text-align:center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SAM_3762-scaled-1380x920.jpg\" alt=\"Wide view of the News of the World exhibition case\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>The case is dominated by the promotional cardboard issued for the release: a large die-cut standee shaped after the album&#8217;s giant robot &#8212; the artwork itself a nod to Frank Kelly Freas&#8217;s cover for the October 1953 issue of <em>Astounding Science Fiction<\/em>, a copy of which sits in the case alongside it &#8212; plus a separate green-and-gold &#8220;News of the World&#8221; cardboard promotional box. Between the US and UK campaigns, record shops received different versions of this point-of-sale material, and both are represented here, together with pressings of the LP gathered from around the world and a promotional photo of Freddie from the album sessions, signed in biro backstage at Madison Square Garden in 1980, during the band&#8217;s US tour.<\/p><div class=\"2416a19e08873d0076105f82e7f970da\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- quadrato -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block;text-align:center;margin:0 auto;max-width:100%\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"6452889443\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<figure style=\"margin:1.5em 0;text-align:center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/news01-scaled-1380x920.jpg\" alt=\"News of the World display case with the die-cut robot standee, promotional photos, tambourine and world pressings\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>Alongside it sits an acetate carrying a different mix of &#8220;Spread Your Wings,&#8221; recorded for a BBC session &#8212; a small but genuine variant of a song that, unusually for Queen, was written and sung by John Deacon rather than Freddie or Brian.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"margin:1.5em 0;text-align:center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/news02-scaled-1380x920.jpg\" alt=\"Wide view of the News of the World exhibition case, robot standee and surrounding memorabilia\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>A separate article on the site covers Roger Taylor presenting this same album in Italy in 1977 &#8212; well worth reading alongside this piece.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"margin:1.5em 0;text-align:center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/newsrobot-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Three-dimensional promotional robot figure holding a rare UK-only News of the World promotional box\"\/><\/figure>\n<p style=\"margin-top:2em;\"><em>This piece is part of &#8220;Keep On Rockin&#8217; &#8212; the 2019 Exhibition.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/?page_id=5013\">See the full exhibition here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A separate, fully three-dimensional robot figure &#8212; used for the same UK in-store promotion &#8212; holds another example of the rare promo-only box, distinct from the die-cut cardboard standee shown here.<\/p>\n<div class=\"2416a19e08873d0076105f82e7f970da\" data-index=\"3\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- stretto -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block;text-align:center;margin:0 auto;max-width:100%\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"5886106757\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The album whose sales cracked the American market wide open, helped in no small part by &#8220;We Will Rock You&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,4],"tags":[28,141,23,14,121,140,75,77,142],"class_list":["post-5018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-queen-in-the-press","category-queen-rare-records","tag-acetate","tag-bbc-session-acetate","tag-emi-records-uk","tag-freddie-mercury","tag-keep-on-rockin-exhibition-2020","tag-madison-square-garden-1980","tag-news-of-the-world","tag-queen-1977","tag-spread-your-wings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5018"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5118,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5018\/revisions\/5118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}