Stone POLLd Crazy: The ILM Queen Poll Voting Thread (#68? in a series)

i suspect my ballot will end up with several Queen II tracks as well.

x-post

I always liked the way Taylor mixed his snare hits with the opening of the hi-hat.. it sounds great on 'Brighton Rock' in particular.

I love Queen II, but it's likely that I'll only end up voting for maybe one or two tracks from it... I'm trying to represent my favourite Queen tracks throughout all the albums, and even though I think Side Two of Queen II is wonderful, I think it works better as one continuous piece of music rather than broken down into individual tracks for the most part.

Roger Taylor : the most underrated hard rock singer of the 1970s?

he definitely provides an interesting, spartan counterpoint to Freddie. he also sings lead on some excellent songs.

The sound of Taylor's drums is very 70s and cool, but Brighton Rock is also a good example of what I'm talking about -- May sets up one tempo and feel, and by the end of the verse, Taylor has slowed the whole thing down and it doesn't recover until he lays out after his fills. In the first guitar break, it sounds almost as if he decides to pick up his sticks at the moment they should be striking the snare.

woah, Dead On Time from Jazz is proving to be a gainful new discovery for me. Brian's main riff on that one is fierce!

also worth noting that i must have been sleeping on Spread Your Wings this whole time. what a song!

'Dead On Time' rules]! I've always felt that Jazz was one of the most underrated Queen albums of the '70s, and there's so many songs on there that I could vote for, 'Dead On Time' definitely being one of them. Love the thunderclap at the end and Freddie shouting "YOU'RE DEAD!"

'Spread Your Wings' easily one of my highlights of News Of The World, an album which I know that a lot of people like but is on the lower-half of the table for me.

In fact, I was just thinking... it'll be great to see which writer gets has the most songs place on the poll, I suspect either May or Mercury since they wrote the bulk of the Queen material, but I reckon there'll be a huge number of Deacon songs too.

i'm really coming round to News Of The World, i think. Fight From The Inside is another minor classic - an infectious Taylor rocker with an unremitting pulse. i also have a bit of a soft spot for All Dead, All Dead, which frankly a very weird song.

we're a few ballots deep already. keep them coming!

"Mustapha" is a song I've always loved from a so-so album.

Whoever votes for "We Will Rock You" will get reported to the FCC.

"we will rock you" is awesome as fuck and perfect as hell. i was thinking that it's a little odd to have it split from "we are the champions" but whatever.

yeah but I hate sports

Also "We Are the Champions" sounds like a nerd's lament, not a triumphalist anthem

shit's so triumphalist it's practically wagner

man when may's solo cuts in in 'we will rock you', fucking lightning bolt from the gods, maybe the most efficient solo ever in terms of effort vs force

WHOMP-WHOMP-BAP
WHOMP-WHOMP-BAP

seriously add a mosquito hum, a calliope, and some trenchant social commentary and you've got 'let's go all the way'

you mean "an Elvis Costello Spike tune"

ONE LUMP OR TWOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/447768206_640.jpg

i do understand the argument that Rock You and Champions could be seen as the one entity, but i think it's radio sequencing as much as anything that feeds the idea that they're codependent. they are very different songs when taken apart, each with a rounded beginning, middle and end.

i do personally like Rock You, particularly its spareness and restraint. you know they could've laid it on thicker had they chosen. even though it's been tirelessly overplayed, i always enjoy hearing it because it's so taut and brief.

It's telling that 'We Will Rock You' and 'We Are The Champions' were sequenced back-to-back not just on the News Of The World album, but on the Greatest Hits album too. I can understand why folks have a hard time separating the two from each other.

I won't be voting for 'We Will Rock You', though.

i have never heard a rock station play just "Rock You" or just "Champions," it's always one and then the other. it's a great one-two punch, really.

xpost I didn't vote for it either, not because it isn't a great song, but because I based the ballot on what 20 Queen songs at this given juncture that I'd actually want to hear the most at this given time, and those have run their course with me. Had it been a 30 song ballot, though, they might have made it.

"Keep Yourself Alive" was one of my tops, as while I"m not a fan of the debut that much, it's such an energetic burst onto the scene to begin that album.

also threw in a vote for "Fairyfeller's Master Stroke" because the song is such silly, goofy fun. "Prophet's Song" is my current fav - that a capella "now I know" section always drives me gaga, I love it.

Night at the Opera is one of those albums which, despite it being my 2nd fav Queen album, it is moreso for the work as a whole than individual tracks, though there's no denying it has those too ("Death on Two Legs" is so great).

also love me some "Teo Torriatte" - such a beautiful ballad. still have strong memories of that as it's associated with the summer before I went to college for the first time, which is when I first heard DAy at the Races (kind of an undercooked album).

i actually enforced them being counted as one song on the classic rock poll (along with some other songs paired by airplay with "Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid" and "Brain Damage/Eclipse"), but none of that stuff got enough votes to place. xp

waht

i'm not sure i'll vote for either but "you've brought me fame and fortune and everythingthat goes withit --- i thank you all" would be pretty high on my fave queen moments. doing "another one bites the dust" at karaoke and realizing he's barking out "mighty dusty!" would be on there also.

I hate to admit the fucking Mighty Ducks was the first time I heard "WATC". "We Will Rock You" I first heard at minor league soccer games (they piped in music over the loudspeakers -ew). never together until hearing the TMD soundtrack.

Eh, I can't say that I'm a huge fan of 'Teo Torriatte', really... I think there's a lot of great stuff on A Day At The Races, though, and I can't fault the production on it. I always thought placing 'You Take My Breath Away' as the second track on the album was a bit of a momentum-killer, though, and seemed quite an odd sequencing choice to me, especially after Sheer Heart Attack and A Night At The Opera were so impeccably put together in terms of track order.

outside of "Tie Your Mother Down", "You Take My Breath Away", and "Teo", I don't care for much of the rest, other than the okay-ish "White Man". Just seemed like such a step down from what preceded it.

YTMBA is a bit of a momentum kill but I love that piano part so much.

lobbying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYPNr_FOi4

also worth noting that i must have been sleeping on Spread Your Wings this whole time. what a song!

― charlie h, Thursday, September 10, 2015 12:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol yeah love that one, but I first came to it through the Blind Guardian cover version!

Have been waiting with bated breath for this poll.

So damn hard to narrow their barmy eclecticism down to 20 tracks! But I'm having fun trying.

I'm guessing 'Bo Rhap' will win the day, but 'Under Pressure' might come close? (And yes, I'll be voting for both of these tracks.) I'm open to being pleasantly surprised, though.

glad you're having fun working through the tracks, Wordy.

in my mind i always associated A Day At The Races as a fairly immediate companion piece to A Night At The Opera. it was quite a surprise to discover that it was not only stylistically different to its predecessor, but also of significantly lesser quality. there are still some excellent tracks, all things considered.

Father to Son is great. loose & adventurous with a really hazy mythical undercurrent, just how i like my early Queen.

Father to Son is crazy -- it starts off like the coda to some other, even grander prog tune. And the out-of-tune multitracked lead vocals are great.

I'm guessing 'Bo Rhap' will win the day...

I once heard MTV's Mark Goodman come out of a set by saying, "And that was Queen with what I call 'The Bo-Ho Rap,'" and I still haven't recovered to this day.

'Procession' to 'Father To Son' is a great intro to the album, although I'm still in two minds as to whether to vote for 'Father To Son' or not... 'Son & Daughter' on the other hand...

some genius/nutcase Queen fan has put the HD Live Aid footage to the original BBC-broadcast Stereo version of the audio and hoo boy is it amazing. much rawer than the polished version on the DVD/Blu Ray; full of feedback and crowd noise and squeaks and crunches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22oy8dFjqc

does anyone here love "Who needs you," as I do? My fave Deac-y tune.

ahh the hell with it! I don't fuck with these polls you guys get so torqued up about but these are my fave deep kuts…

"machines,"
"Some day Some Way"
"The prophet's Song"
"it's late"
"made in heaven" (not a deep cut, but Brian's one line at a time harmony stacking starting at 1:19 is DEVASTATING);
"princes of the Universe" (also not a deep cut but BERSERK), "Dancer,"
"Battle theme" and "hero" from Flash (FUCK YEAH rendered in song 20 years before Andrew WK)
"Long away"

Yeah, there's some great selections there, one or two which may make it onto my ballot :D

Prophet's Song has one of the best pre-choruses of all time

i almost voted for It's Late. plenty of great work from May there. it just drags on a little, that's all.

Any "39" fans?

I'm guessing 'Bo Rhap' will win the day...

on ILM? i guess it'll slide into the top 5 but i can think of at least 2 or 3 songs that seem like far more likely poll winners around here.

Gonna spend some time revisiting the catalog before working on a ballot, but I have to put in a good word for "Drowse", which is the one Roger song I swear no one ever talks about.

I still giggle whenever I hear that slide whistle on "Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke" from Queen II.

word.

this poll is going to be a Top 39 by the way (in tribute, of course, to the song of the same name).

they were such a great hard rock band. i don't necessarily think isolating the different strains of their catalog would do it more justice than reveling in the variety, but a playlist of their hardest rockers would definitely be a load of fun.

― some dude, Tuesday, September 22, 2015 2:06 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's already a compilation out there which leans towards their more hard rock tracks, the imaginatively-titled Queen Rocks!

Sheer Heart Attack is a brilliant album, IMO... A Night At The Opera is considered the "classic", but I personally would rank Sheer Heart Attack above it. In a way, I wish you could vote for 'Tenement Funster'/'Flick Of The Wrist'/'Lily Of The Valley' as one song, because on the album those three songs flow together a form a kind of suite, although if we were to go down that route, then it would make voting for parts of Queen II, particularly the second side, such a ballache.

I wanna talk more about this when the results thread comes up and I can point to specific examples, but for me so many of their best early rockers are let down by sloppy, probably unplanned tempo changes. There are a couple of songs where Roger just comes in at a completely different tempo than Brian and/or John, and it takes a couple of bars for everyone to follow in line behind Roger's new (slower and thumping) tempo. This isn't a problem in the piano-led songs, rocking or not. But I'll make my case as the songs come up, and it doesn't stop me from replaying the stuff in my head with all problems edited out and loving it.

Didn't vote but looking forward to the results rollout immensely.

It's worth noting that there are a few songs on Sheer Heart Attack that Queen initially worked on without Brian May, because he was in hospital - I'm not sure which songs, but I'm assuming that 'Misfire' was one of them.

I wonder if his own Dear Friends was one

should be able to get this thing underway in a few hours...

]I wonder if his own Dear Friends was one

― Dominique, Wednesday, September 23, 2015 12:20 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah, Brian was definitely involved in the recording of that one from the beginning - he plays piano on it, and aside from the vocals there's very little else!

Let's defend Freddie against the movie's bullshit.

While I'm at it, let me destroy this crap.

I can't find fault with any of your Freddie picks, aside from that 'My Melancholy Blues' does very little for me. 'We Are the Champions' and 'We Will Rock You' are both fucking classic, though!