Queen: Classic Or Dud

There are two Queen songs that I loathe heartily. "Spread Your Wings" and "We Are The Champions".
Then there are several dozens of their other songs that I love a lot.
Go figure.
Yesterday listened to Jazz from start to finish, for the first time again in probably ...twenty-something years. Blimey. A very good record.

It's not a favorite song of theirs, just fit the ridiculously cheesy moment in Vegas so well. The wait for the limo lasted longer than the marriage. But I do love quite a bit of their music.

There are two Queen songs that I loathe heartily. "Spread Your Wings" and "We Are The Champions".

Really!? In a way I can understand your point of view in regards to "We Are The Champions", it's been overplayed quite a great deal and it is one of those Queen songs it's easy to get sick of. "Spread Your Wings" is a gem, though, and should have been a bigger hit than it was IMHO. Still, I'd easily take those two tracks over stuff like "Party" or some of the lesser moments on 'Hot Space'.

Yesterday listened to Jazz from start to finish, for the first time again in probably ...twenty-something years. Blimey. A very good record.

'Jazz' has aged really well, IMHO, and it's probably their most 'wacky' record overall. Where 'Queen II', 'Sheer Heart Attack' and 'A Night At The Opera' have this more controlled feeling to them, 'Jazz' seems both creative and unhinged at the same time I reckon - like they weren't trying to create a complete statement with it, rather they just took one last creative dump and moved onto more straightforward things, a la 'The Game'. Some classic tracks on it... I particularly like 'Mustapha', and 'Bicycle Race' is a musicologists wet dream.

how can anyone hate we are the champions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qt-Tt04NKg&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/user/rafinha5485#p/u/2/EZy4yPup9kE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZy4yPup9kE

Sheer Heart Attack and Queen II pretty totally "uncontrolled". Jazz an amazing record. Really, 70s record critics hating on Queen instilled lifelong distrust of music critics. and goodnight!

No-one seems to like the debut but I love it, especially the musical-about-fairies-in-three-minutes that is "My Fairy King".

in the whole they hated Sabbath, Zeppelin and Queen. what the fuck were these sick no-fun bastards listening to? jesus christ.

http://myplay.com/files/imagecache/photo_345_square/files/artist_images/billyJoel.jpg

They hated Genesis too! Springsteen was a-ok though.

Wait, which critics touted Billy Joel? It might depend on where you live. Our local papers were rock biased, Genesis and other progressive rockers might merit a lengthy discussion whether it sucked or not.

Sheer Heart Attack and Queen II pretty totally "uncontrolled". Jazz an amazing record. Really, 70s record critics hating on Queen instilled lifelong distrust of music critics. and goodnight!

― Dominique, Friday, September 16, 2011 1:43 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I agree with this. Brighton Rock is pretty fucking unhinged, what starts out as a pop ditty turns into some noise guitar skronk. And Stone Cold Crazy is about as heavy as it gets. Even Tenement Funster is a pretty fucked up song. Those guys were smoking good shit when they made that record.

in the whole they hated Sabbath, Zeppelin and Queen. what the fuck were these sick no-fun bastards listening to? jesus christ.

^they were listening to utter crap, which suited the writing.

Sheer Heart Attack and Queen II pretty totally "uncontrolled". Jazz an amazing record. Really, 70s record critics hating on Queen instilled lifelong distrust of music critics. and goodnight!

― Dominique, Friday, September 16, 2011 1:43 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I agree with this. Brighton Rock is pretty fucking unhinged, what starts out as a pop ditty turns into some noise guitar skronk. And Stone Cold Crazy is about as heavy as it gets. Even Tenement Funster is a pretty fucked up song. Those guys were smoking good shit when they made that record.

― You're a notch, I'm a legend (Bill Magill), Friday, September 16, 2011 1:39 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

I didn't mean it that way. I meant that 'Queen II' and 'Sheer Heart Attack' as albums, in spite of how 'unhinged' or 'heavy' some of the material may be, flow perfectly well from start to finish, with link tracks etc. You can really tell they paid close attention into getting those albums to feel like whole, complete things. Start-to-finish album length experiences. 'Jazz', on the other hand, feels to me to be more all over the map as an album.

No-one seems to like the debut but I love it, especially the musical-about-fairies-in-three-minutes that is "My Fairy King".

― |III|||II|||I|I||| (Matt #2), Friday, September 16, 2011 8:22 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark

I love the first album a hell of a lot! 'Keep Yourself Alive', 'Great King Rat', 'Liar'. I love the way that 'My Fairy King' builds up into that outro section, and the way harmonies at the end of 'Doing All Right' slowly rise and rise.

A curious thing, but I miss that kind of journalism where people made ridiculous, inflated, ideological claims about rock music. Nowadays its all just commerce: then it was a matter of life and death. It never did bands like Queen any harm in the long run because people's ears won the battle in the end. But really, who cares that much about music today?

kinda sadly otm. however, the same might be said of most *music* that's being written about these days.

and further curiously, Queen were against the grain in the 70s in that they didn't really "stand for" anything obvious, in the face of what some critics might have expected/wanted. quick, someone do a critical analysis of contemporary rock bands that make big sweeping cultural-statement (or even smaller, political) kind of works, and compare their pfork average scores to bands who, say, don't!

like, what would happen if Neon Indian released a record detailing the economic crisis?

...Neon who?

Classic! I will never forget hearing We are the Champions playing loud in the casino of the Stardust Hotel as I stood waiting for a limo with my two best friends. I was wearing a strapless wedding gown and veil and everyone that went by handed me cash. Nothing under $10.That was an awesome moment!

Classic story!

Jesus christ is this actually happening?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/sep/20/queen-official-tribute-band

"Let's face it," Taylor told Rolling Stone magazine, "we're getting a little long in the tooth, but there are an awful lot of tribute bands, some of them good, some of them not good."

Pretty honest if you ask me! (Also: 1) this doesn't sound at all surprising for Queen, 2) KISS would be even worse at this, 3) fuck, after that Beatlemania touring thing back in the 70s all bets were off anyway.)

Still superior to touring with Paul Rodgers, I suppose.

What's with the little replicants from the Miracle video? They should be fully grown into their new identities by now.

No-one seems to like the debut but I love it, especially the musical-about-fairies-in-three-minutes that is "My Fairy King".

― |III|||II|||I|I||| (Matt #2), Friday, September 16, 2011 4:22 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark

debut is pretty good, "Liar" is amazing

Yeah when I said no-one I actually meant "Geir Hongro"

The group's drummer is recruiting "great-looking guys"

Man, I love Freddie as much as the next guy, but I don't think he was ever "great-looking".

A curious thing, but I miss that kind of journalism where people made ridiculous, inflated, ideological claims about rock music.

As long as these claims didn't rely on cultural and musical assumptions.

i can kinda see how someone who's going to see tribute bands impersonating them running around no matter what would want to at least try to put together the best possible one for the sake of quality control or kind of managing that market themselves a little

Me on A Night At The Opera.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9dde0bc355a9ce107a4558267e219de7/tumblr_mfth4pNOyY1raxomso3_250.gif

TOLD MY GIRL I HAD TO FORGET HER!
RATHER BUY ME A NEW CARBURETTOR!

TIE YOUR MOTHER DOWN! TIE YOUR MOTHER DOWN! TAKE YOUR LITTLE BROTHER SWIMMIN' WITH A BRICK, YEAH, THAT'S ALRIGHT!

day at the races! such a great album...

I'm so glad that Google have been archiving all the old posts to Usenet newsgroups (the earliest message archived on there, apparently, is from 1981) ... I've spent about an hour or so on it trying to research actual conversations/responses to various historic events that have happened from 1981 onwards.

Anyhow, I came across this conversation archived from 12th November 1991 (less than two weeks before Mercury's passing) in which people are speculating what's going on with regards to Mercury's health. Here's another conversation from 13th November 1991-21st November 1991 in which people eerily discuss rumours that he might have AIDS.

Also, there's this earlier conversation from 9th September 1991, where there seems to have been a rumour that Freddie had passed away - one user claims to have called Hollywood Records and spoken to a PR man about Freddie's health, another is convinced that the rumours of Freddie's death happened because the Innuendo album was full of hints that Freddie was dying (which in hindsight, he was OTM about), and that the record company were trying to intentionally capitalise on this by intentionally starting a rumour that Freddie was dying in order to boost sales of then-recent Queen reissues (which, it's fair to say, he was nowhere near OTM about) ...

Finally, there's this conversation from 1st September 1991 regarding (again) rumours that Freddie had passed away, but it's peppered with comments such as "In any recent interviews (which would almost all be with Brian May the guitar player) they claim that Freddie is fine. And that these stories are simply rumours and for us not to worry." (it's now known that Brian May was deliberately lying to the press to protect Freddie from media intrusion) and "I strongly suspect Mr Mercury is actually alive and kicking due to a photo of him in a British newspaper last week (Thursday) He looked very thin but alive."

It's weird reading all of this stuff, it has to be said.

lol @ the debate about if ted nugent is gay or not

So what's the deal has Queen always been as big as they are now, or did they experience a dip? They seem to be the most loved rock band (alongside Radiohead & the BeatLEs) amongst Rodditors today, but as a teen in the Early 2000s there couldn't have been an uncooler band to be into... sure, everyone knew their hits but they were on par with Kiss: just another shlocky classic rock band. Have they undergone a revival is this just a case of culture shock?

dud

smh at the thought of anyone ever putting Queen in the same bracket as Kiss.

I love Kiss but yeah, that's insane to me.

> tfw outsnobbed ILM

Some of Brian May's recent posts on his official website have been a bit worrying, with talk of feeling "depleted" and "battling a persistent illness" ... his most recent post mentions switching off from all media and resting in a "safe place" ... here's wishing Dr. May a speedy recovery, whatever it is.

Yeah, get well Dr. May!

Also, Queen=dud. Or at least dud beyond most of the hits (and even half of them are riff-kitsch). I was talking to a friend last night, and he was ripping on Beyonce, saying it took six songwriters or whatever to come up with [name of some song], and then he brings up fucking "Bohemian Rhapsody" and goes, "and that's just one songwriter!" And I was like, first of all, the song may be awesome but it also kind of sucks, and its lyrics suck, and even if you like it it's nothing to hold up as the epitome of anything beyond lots of different well-recorded and arranged parts in one song, and even then, most Queen albums suck (I assume), so yeah, make fun of Beyonce's musical sweatshop, fair enough, but do better than Queen as your counterpoint.

He also defended Journey. But then a few minutes later got all quiet and asked "am I the only one who doesn't like the Eagles?" And I said, "fuck no, tons of people HATE the Eagles!" And he was really relieved, saying "Phew, I thought I was the only one!"

Journey also well worth defending FYI

I'd rather listen to Journey instead of Queen, no question

Brian's spoken recently about suffering from depression, I'm guessing that's what he's referring to

Also, Queen rule. Especially Sheer Heart Attack and Day At The Races.

I mean, Beyonce rules too.

Queen is great. However, the fast version of "We Will Rock You" feels wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekm6WtKwQos

Assuming they are defensible at all, I refuse to believe that Queen or Journey, let alone the Eagles, are "good" beyond their hits. I guess I like Stone Cold crazy, that wasn't a hit right?

Queen are better than just their hits, at least in the 70s. One of the great album-track bands of all time. Not even sure what you mean by Bohemian "may be awesome but it sucks" Rhapsody either. Unless you're actually Dave Marsh from 1979 quantum leap'd onto 2016 ILM, in which case, that's a hell of a story.