why did rock critics hate Queen so much in the 1970s/80s?

Queen was invisible in the US between "I Want To Break Free" and Wayne's World. You wouldn't even hear their older stuff on "classic rock" radio (though "Rock You" and "Champions" were still heard at sporting events).

Wait, is this true? Even as a kid, I think I was fairly familiar with "Bohemian Rhapsody" from (Cdn) classic rock radio pre-92?

'Ogre Battle' fucking rules.

Personally, I couldn't live without their run of albums between Queen and Jazz, and I find plenty to enjoy on the albums that came after also.

'we will rock you'/'we are the champions' never left and 'radio gaga', 'a kind of magic', and 'i want it all' were minor hits plus there was highlander (all the queen fans i knew pre-waynes world were highlander dorks). they had a big commercial peak and crashed w/ the next release and then kinda lingered neither gone nor really here, it happens. axl talking them up constantly helped and metallica covering 'stone cold crazy' helped (and personally 'terminator x to the edge of panic' helped) and then waynes world and the concert w/ freddies death sorta cemented the rehabilitation in america. rush seems like a real good comparison point - 70s success turning into very early 80s commercial peak prompted by adapting to some sound of the day, followed by quick predictable fall from fashion, an exile period w/ a core of nerdy fans keeping the faith, followed by early 90s quasi comeback prompted by new material as well as reissue or renewed focus on old classic material, w/ this last act cementing the band's brand and making rrhof selection inevitable even though at one point just a few years earlier their candidacy would have seemed doomed.

Yep, that sounds more accurate to me.

I've been fostering a love of Queen albums lately after growing up on the hits, there are really some amazing deep cuts (although I prefer the late 70s stuff to the first 4 albums): http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2014/03/deep-album-cuts-vol-14-queen.html

I think one of the big US/UK divides is that even after post-Wayne's World resurgence, I never even heard of the posthumous album Made In Heaven, which apparently sold a ton in other countries

Interesting list, some choices I definitely wasn't expecting to say the least. My deep cuts list would look very different.

yeah that album was huge in europe. 'you don't fool me' was all over the radio in italy, i swear you could play that, articolo 31's 'domani', and jamiroquai's 'cosmic girl' back to back and if i closed my eyes i'd be on a beach in sardinia. still one of my fave posthumous vault scraper hits, nice balearic groove:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZTQhhGTSE8

sheer heart attack is one of the best albums of the 70's. and definitely one of the greatest hard rock albums. it's near perfect. and VERY unique too. not a lot sounds like it. their thing was very definitely their thing. but critics like sparks more. i like sparks! there were so few hard rock bands that could be a legitimate hard rock band and write a song like "you're my best friend". which is kind of a perfect pop song. cheap trick could do it. badfinger. the raspberries. and there were even fewer bands where all four members could write memorable songs. news of the world has GREAT songs by all four members of queen.

Sheer Heart Attack is indeed excellent, and full of great moments: an absolutely killer opener with 'Brighton Rock'... the 'Tenement Funster'/'Flick Of The Wrist'/'Lily Of The Valley' suite... the over-the-top intro to 'In The Lap Of The Gods', the thrashy 'Stone Cold Crazy', the restrained 'She Makes Me'... the way the album ends with the sound of an explosion (caused by tape saturation). Oh, and it has 'Killer Queen' and 'Now I'm Here' on it, too.

Never would have guessed that rock critics vs. Queen would make for such a busy thread in 2014. I've always been puzzled that rock critics don't like Cream as much as I do (at least not anymore), and if I thought it'd get a quarter of the interest found here, I'd probably start a thread.

Queen are an institution in the UK though

Cream only seem to be held in esteem by doom/stoner rockers and Mojo readers. (which i dont understand)

dug out my blue RS Guide and there is a different Queen review, uncredited (I assume John Swenson), that calls Greatest Hits "redundant to the single 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love,' the only listenable rock song in a dismal career."

while trying to find an online transcript I went down this related rabbit hole:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/schmidtt/rolling_stones_500_worst_reviews_of_all_time__work_in_progress_/4/

I'd imagine some the disinterest in Cream by some critics is being unable to separate their dislike of Clapton.

Queen had a pretty wide range when you go from proto-thrash like Stone Cold Crazy to You're My Best Friend to Another One Bites the Dust to Radio Gaga To Crazy Little Thing Called Love To Bohemian Rhapsody and that really doesn't cover all the odd one shots in their catalog. They definitely were not afraid to try something different.

It's a damn shame it took Freddie getting gravely ill to get them all back on the same page, but I think Innuendo is one of the better late career albums by a 70s rock band.

I learned to love "A Kind of Magic" from a touching bit in the otherwise ghoulish US edition of "Queer as Folk," and AMC had as part of its pre-show in the early '00s a commercial with "I Want to Break Free" featured prominently, the playing of which would cause die-hards in the audience to squeal. balls' neither-here-nor-there account of the post-Hot Space US career sounds otm to me.

the first version I heard of Bohemian Rhapsody was this one by the guys from the Young Ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wM58YXp2x0&feature=kp

Bad News ruled

love The Comic Strip. They actually did Bad News just before Spinal Tap was made too. Brian May actually played guitar on that single.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5980195685_509916c25f_o.png

LOL.

ok responding to a bunch of stuff:

Marsh otm in original post imo. Queen is def fascist and it creeps me out, even when its of the campy gay variety.
― Οὖτις, Friday, May 16, 2014 9:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I cannot think of a reasonable definition of "fascist" that would include Queen. I could imagine someone arguing that they flirted with fascist aesthetics, or something. I happen to think they didn't—indeed, that was stock-in-trade of 3rd-rate punk bands at the time.

a larger context here is the way that critics are almost always, implicitly or explicitly, making moral judgements alongside aesthetic ones. that is, a negative review—especially one as vituperative as Marsh's above—is seldom just a diagnosis of music that doesn't quite work. whether the tone is one of outrage or disappointment, there's a sense that the musicians have failed in some primary responsibility to an audience (or to the critic's ego construed as a figure for the audience). i mean part of this speaks to how important music is for a lot of people in our culture, though it also derives from a milieu (rock criticism and extreme fan-dom) where a narcissism of small differences reigns supreme. and thus distinctions (like, I dunno, Queen vs. New York Dolls) that would seem without a difference from a different cultural position suddenly become hugely portentous.

we're probably all guilty of this—personally, I wish I could wash this aspect of my personality out of my brain—but there are still occasions, especially when I have the benefit of cultural or temporal distance, when I'm like, "seriously guys?" this is one of those occasions.

queen rox and u r all gay
― The Reverend, Friday, May 16, 2014 10:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this thread was predicated on the assumption that Queen are awesome and that most people probably like them! SMH

the early 80s US rock audience probably was discomfited by Freddie. Like "Another one…" did not work on rock radio, and heaven knows "Hot space" would be regarded by a 38 special fan as disco those fags and blacks listen to. mainstream "rock" fans were more or less openly racist and loudly homophobic in the early 80s.

but we're not talking about fans (Queen had tons of those), but critics. critics who were quite comfortable with soul and disco—at least that applies to Dave Marsh, a guy with catholic and unexpected and rich tastes even if he often seems to betray them in favor of explicitly political roots-rock garbage. or what g simmel said (I really hope you're named after georg simmel btw).

if this all broke down into simple binaries, then the thread question wouldn't be very interesting, after all….

can someone speak more to the putatively "fascist" aspects of queen and why they were perceived that way, especially, in the 1970s? there's been some really good stuff on this thread so far (THANKS!) about it but I'd still like to hear more.

maybe it's simply that my experience listening to Queen has been mostly a private one of sitting around and listening to records, rather than doing so in their commercial prime and having to encounter their antics (?) on TV and in the newspapers etc. maybe their ubiquity and bombast would have scared me off, too, once upon a time.

xps Ha, this is the first version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" I heard. My dad told me it used to be a rock song when he was a kid and I couldn't envision it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmEzBuU5N_Y

Marcello takes them seriously.

xp It was one of the impetuses for this thread: Less famous covers that you knew before the more famous originals

Also note that it features what appears to be the silhouette of a black woman on the cover when it was sung by a white lady. A total Bobby Caldwell/early Madonna case.

Third note about The Braids' cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody": It was totally piggybacking on the success of the Fugees' stylistically similar cover of "Killing Me Softly" which had been all over the radio that year.

Marcello takes them seriously.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, May 17, 2014 4:01 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

unfortunately, i can't take marcello's writing seriously. or rather, when reading him i get the distinctly unpleasant feeling that i'm witnessing a mind unravel.

To me, ascribing the differences between the New York Dolls and Queen to the narcissism of small differences--whether you're talking about the music, Dave Marsh's reaction to the music, or just about anything except their historical proximity--would be like saying the same of the differences between Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Lelouch, who were both successful French film directors in the mid-'60s.

To someone else, maybe they are more or less interchangeable.

I prefer "unfurl"

xpost

the difference between Queen and the New York Dolls is that Queen invaded Poland

while the Dolls couldn't even invade Christgau's living room.

!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-SMOsXCc0c

Xp But later David Johanson invaded both multiplexes and our hearts with his memorable role in Freejack.

Just heard "'39" for the first time. Lovely!

yeah that's a great song

not the dolls, but queen was def. taking notes while watching mott the hoople (supposedly the only act they ever opened for?).

no greater authority than joe elliott:

Rumor has it Freddy Mercury actually wrote "Bohemian Rhapsody" having watched Mott. Mott the Hoople were the only band Queen ever supported, and on that tour Mott were doing "Marionette" every night. Fred would stand and watch it. And although the two songs don't sound remotely like each other, you can see a parallel between them.

I always heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" as a nod to the Who's "A Quick One, While He's Away."

And although the two songs don't sound remotely like each other, you can see a parallel between them.

eh?

very dramatic, constructed out of lots of different tricky parts, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU7rqB9E_0M

LOVE that song.

Marionette / Bo rhap?

Naaaah.

can someone speak more to the putatively "fascist" aspects of queen and why they were perceived that way, especially, in the 1970s?

I think Marsh makes himself clear as to what he means, that he feels their drama is heavy-handed, audience is being spoon-fed, etc. You say in one of your first posts that other critics made the same charge, but who were they?

"We Are the Champions" - Queen's Nordic Supremacy-suspect current hit single

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1299&dat=19771212&id=_wBOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=94sDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2650,5489244

he feels their drama is heavy-handed, audience is being spoon-fed

I mean, this doesn't quite seem to justify 'truly fascist' and 'creeps and their polluting ideas', does it?

See also: Bangs on ELP, Christgau on Journey, every Golden Age critic on Rush, etc

Certainly, The Game is less obnoxious than Queen's last few outings, simply because it's harder to get annoyed with a group that's plugging away at bad rockabilly than with one blasting out crypto-Nazi marching tunes.

Most of the songs on News of the World either challenge Queen's artistic enemies or endeavor to establish a vision of the new order. "We Are the Champions" ends with the line, "No time for losers, 'cause we are the champions—of the world." It's an appropriate comment for a side that also includes "We Will Rock You," which has the atmosphere of a political rally in a Leni Riefenstahl movie and is at once a rock anthem and a commandment.

Speaking of the NY Dolls, does anyone remember when David Johansen went on the Tonight Show as Buster Poindexter and explained to Johnny Carson that he quit singing rock music because his shows were becoming like Nazi rallies? I swear this really happened.

I found it. About 40 seconds in:

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