Queen: Classic Or Dud

There's a hell of a lot of Status Quo in there too. Especially the earlier years.

Actually, supposedly it's the fabled "Troggs tape" (capturing an especially dimwitted argument between band members in the studio) that was the real inspiration for Spinal Tap. Visually, though, it's all Saxon and Quo (with a dash of Motorhead in the form of Derek "Luke Warm Water" Smalls).

Ev'rytime I get hot
You wanna cool down
Ev'rytime I get high
You say you wanna come down
You say it's enough
In fact it's too much
Ev'rytime I get a
Get down get down get down
Make love

(Get down) I can squeeze - (make love) you can shake me
(Get down) I can feel - (make love) you can break me
(Get down) Come on so heavy (make love)
(Get down) When you take me (make love)
You make love you make love you make love you make
love
You can make ev'rybody get down make love
Get down make love

Ev'rytime I get high
You wanna come down
Ev'rytime I get hot
You say you wanna cool down
You say it's enough
In fact it's too much
Ev'rytime I wanna get down get down get down

Get down make love
Get down make love
Get down make love
Get down make love

Ev'rytime I get hot
You wanna cool down
Ev'rytime I get high
You say you wanna come down
You say it's enough
In fact it's too much
Ev'rytime I wanna
Get down get down
Get down make love

I have things to say about Queen in tandem with the Sweet, coming up in the rolling 1974 blogpost circa November 2010...

Had a dark period from "New Of The World" through to "Hot Space" though, where none of their output was quite up with their best. However, "The Works" was a great return to form, and they also went on to create other great albums such as "A Kind Of Magic" and "Innuendo" before Freddie died.

"GIMME THE PRIZE!"

i love queen so much. was listening to the newish greatest hits, the longer one cuz it was at the wal-mart in my hometown for $5...tracklist is kind of weird, cuz it loses "keep yourself alive" off the old one and now includes "body language" (yuk).

funny i was thinking that geir must love the fuck out of queen...they are so harmonically complex and melodic they make the beatles sound like david banner taking a dump on pissed jeans. also, they probably more than any other band make use of pre-rock and tin pan alley style stuff, broadway show tunes and all...seems like geir rock 2 da extreme.

David Bowie, among others, beat 'em to the Tin Pan Alley/British vaudeville love.

A special on Freddy Mercury on the gay channel makes it seem like it was all his doing, although I suspect this was not really so.

Good lord, did some of the posters upthread/6 years ago seem like miserable people…

At times, I think I love Queen more than I love any musical entity ever…

the gay channel? y'mean Logo?

That's it.

>>they later symbolised all the most contemptibly macho elements of 80s >>corporate / stadium rock

This is so stupidly mean-spirited it's almost amusing. Yeah, as a campy gay guy Freddy sure was one hell of a macho dude in the Eighties. Ronnie van Zant and Ted Nugent, stand aside for Fred!

I'd think a lot can't get over the ubiquitous football cheerization of "We Will Rock You" -- which is not exactly Queen's fault.

I'm so glad to see all the Highlander love here. As ridiculously melodramatic as it is, "Who Wants to Live Forever" totally jerks a tear from me every time.

Queen ruled in the 70s. But they're still nowhere as consistent as Judas Priest.

I think it's important to note that the two greatest male rock voices ever are from dudes that took it up the ass.

anybody who says "dud" admits to being attracted to Dabney Coleman.

Definite classic. and not for their singles. not saying they're bad, but they don't represent their best work.

"Night at the Opera" and "Queen II" are their best works. Pompous yes. Fun? Hell yes.

They started going downhill around Jazz--News of the World is the best of their more "2 minute pop song" era.

Hear, Hear! Altho' I wouldn't assume that either were/are bottoms…Hot Space obviously is where Fred made the kind of music played in the joints he frequented…it's as sleazy as any Patrick Hernandez song evah…

just about every record—barring the Miracle, the only album I don't much like— has astoundingly great hidden gems. You wanna talk "tear to the eye?" Try "Made in Heaven," Fred's "I'm going down swinging" tune: May's clarion harmonized guitar parts are agonizing, and it's much much better than "The Show Must Go On."

well I was trying to say News of the World was better than Jazz but I effed it up with the "--". :) Jazz had some great songs too, but a bit of filler.

Queen rox, u r all Freddie Mercury.

"Prophet's Song".....\m/

Oh, and Matt, I'm pretty sure Geir has said that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is his favorite song ever.

Thanks Veronica. I haven't heard Made In Heaven since it came out... but I recall that parts of it gave me chills in a very grandiose way.

Wasn't trying to say that Freddie and Rob are bottoms. I'm sure they've been on top, sideways, diagonal, backwards, and inverted too.

Oh, and Matt, I'm pretty sure Geir has said that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is his favorite song ever.

-- The Reverend, Tuesday, November 27, 2007 12:13 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

good! otherwise i thought i found a glitch in the matrix...

bicycle race is great! somebody to love is great! get down make love is great!

there's something about some queen songs that so amazing, because yr all like "goddang this is SO over the top" and then they go ever MORE over the top and it's like yr not even in the same room anymore.

like "March of the Black Queen" or "The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke" with the hilarious use of a slide whistle at the beginning.

also Somebody to Love is one of the greatest pop tunes e ver....

"Bicycle Race" is as great as they come. All bands without bicycle bell solos can STFU.

Didn't like Queen for the longest time. I've since come to realize the error of my ways. Oddly enough, I got into them after hearing Blind Guardian's cover of "Spread Your Wings". Go figure.

Can't say I'm too taken with most of their 80's material, though.

>>"goddang this is SO over the top" and

You should definitely find a Sensational Alex Harvey Band record, too.

i had to check that i hadn't already commented, because my perspective on this band has changed radically in the last year

really REALLY liking the first three records these days, and am amazed i overlooked them for so many years

The worst, most plodding and groove-free rhythm section EVER. And I don't know whether Roger or John was worse, I just know that the two of them together kept Queen from being a real contender.

"groove-free"??? you're crazy! listen to the drums during the outro of "loser at the end", shit is ridiculously uh, groovy.

as for hidden gems on later albums, i've killed a couple of parties with "cool cat" from hot space recently. a beautiful, beautiful song.

"The worst, most plodding and groove-free rhythm section EVER"

you, sir, are nuts. Deacon and Taylor are singular for a proggy heavy riddim section that played the fuck outta funk and disco grooves from '77 on…

If by "played the fuck outta" you mean "played really, really badly", we agree. Compare "Another One Bites the Dust" to "Good Times", the song John Deacon was trying to play but couldn't remember properly. (Really, I'm not making that up.) If you still think Deacon and Taylor were funky, clean your ears and get thee to a proctologist.

"Loser at the End" is possibly the only time Taylor played with anything resembling a backbeat, rather then simply being late on the 2, 3, AND 4. And occasionally the one.

Well it's settled then. Queen wasn't Parliament, so they sucked.

>>"goddang this is SO over the top" and

You should definitely find a Sensational Alex Harvey Band record, too.

-- Gorge, Tuesday, 27 November 2007 07:08 (9 hours ago) Link

yeah i have one -- tomorrow belongs to me -- i should get more, alex harvey is something else too...but maybe doesn't have the tunes that queen does in the end?

Oh it has the tunes all right.

The worst, most plodding and groove-free rhythm section EVER. And I don't know whether Roger or John was worse, I just know that the two of them together kept Queen from being a real contender.

-- Nubbelverbrennung, Tuesday, November 27, 2007 3:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

woah that's retarded! another one bites the dust! under pressure! probably a bunch of other songs i haven't heard!

anyway the liner notes for the greatest hits i bought says that "another one bites the dust" won some kind of award from billboard for charting on the black, dance, and rock charts.

they also say that freddie wrote "crazy little thing called loved" while "languishing in a bubble bath" at some fancy hotel in germany. i thought that was a pretty great way of saying it.

Never said Queen sucked, just that the rhythm section did. They were the first band I ever loved, actually; I bought everything they had up to and including News of The World, which was when they lost me most dramatically (I was a very unforgiving kid). Anyway, with the rhythm section sucking as they did, they were at their best when being deliberately the opposite of funky (the Freddy pseudo-cabaret prog stuff) or when Brian May, a very funky player, went chunka-chunka funkily. It's probably no coincidence that I fell out of love with them when I did.

Mr. Norse/nonsense-sounding word…

Taylor & Deacon are the worst, most plodding, groove free ever? EVER?

Worse than the entire San Francisco milieu '67-72? Worse than Carl Palmer/Greg Lake? Worse than any bog-standard American hardcore band '81-82?

How 'bout "worst, most plodding, groove free rhythm section that ever aspired to grooving and sold millions of records anyway"? I'll stand behind that.