The Queen Thread

[Cyclopssss]

Live at the Rainbow is FANTASTIC!!!

Best ever version of ´White Queen´ I have EVER heard in my life!

Also, Ogre Battle, Father to Son, Son and Daughter, Seven Seas of Rhye, Flick of the wrist, BOTH versions of ´In the lap of the Gods´......What else do you need? 

[Nefarius]

I ordered Dream Theater - Breaking the Fourth Wall and Queen - Live at the Rainbow '74 together.

After watching both BluRays it's so embarrassingly sad that some 40 years old remastered Queen tape sounds so incredibly fresh and crisp and live and immediate and dynamic and just magnitudes better in every way than the overcompressed mess with buried vocals and buried orchestra and buried choir and no detailled dynamics at all that Dream Theater gave us.

But I don't really care... I've got tickets for the Queen + Adam Lambert show in Vienna February 1st 2015 and I can't wait to see "Fluffy White" Brian and "What Did You Say?" Roger rocking again!

Greetings...
Nef

[Azyiu]

I've got tickets for the Queen + Adam Lambert show in Vienna February 1st 2015 and I can't wait to see "Fluffy White" Brian and "What Did You Say?" Roger rocking again!

Greetings...
Nef

You sir are a lucky bastard! 

[rumborak]

Holy shit, how was I not aware of this?! Those two videos were incredible. To think that I was about 6 months old when that concert happened ... crazy.

[rumborak]

EDIT: I'm quite excited to hear songs from their first two albums. The production really brings it down

Wot. Those two videos sound incredible. I agree with Nef, sound wise I enjoy those videos more than BTFW.

[Lynxo]

EDIT: I'm quite excited to hear songs from their first two albums. The production really brings it down

Wot. Those two videos sound incredible. I agree with Nef, sound wise I enjoy those videos more than BTFW.

Oh, I'm sorry, I meant the original albums off course, and how it is such a relief to hear them now proper on the Blue-Ray.  My bad.

[rumborak]

It arrived today. Soooo good. Freddie is on top of his game, and then some. Also unusual to see John Deacon so animated. He's rocking it out.

[King Postwhore]

My cousin brought the Blu Ray over a few weeks ago.  What a great show.

[rumborak]

Blows my mind that I was fine months old when that concert happened.

[puppyonacid]

I also got this along with DTs new DVD. I havent watched all of BTFW yet but I have watched Live at the Rainbow half a dozen times.

Queen II is my all time favey album by any band so this concert is pretty much porn for me!

Side note - watching this with tunes like Son & Daughter and Modern Times Rock n Roll and I'm wondering - how do Queen not get more credit for helping to pioneer heavy metal? Those tracks are heavy!!

[rumborak]

What's so amazing is how forcefully, and yet with ridiculous ease, they deliver the material. Freddie jumps around everywhere, and still delivers note for note an incredible performance.

[King Postwhore]

Freddie was unique and such a force live.   His stage presence was second to non.

[rumborak]

Totally random comment: What's Sylvester Stallone doing on the Sheer Heart Attack cover?

[Orbert]

Whoa.  Seen, and cannot be unseen.

[Azyiu]

Did anyone of you get the new Queen Forever cd? I got the 2-cd special edition. Sure, aside from those 3 previously never released songs (Love Kills was actually featured on Freddie's solo album before), true Queen fans should already have the rest of all those songs; listening to those songs is still such a joyful experience to me. 

[erwinrafael]

Because of the Brian May vs. JP thread in the DT forum, I decided to listen to the entire Queen discography again. Still amazing.

In that other thread, somebody said that Queen did not delve into metal. I disagree. They did. What do you think are the Queen songs that could qualify as metal (or approach close to what we know as metal)? I will give a few.

Flick of the Wrist
Son and Daughter
Stone Cold Crazy
Ogre Battle (one of my top
Gimme the Prize
Death on Two Legs (portions, it's like a cross between hard rock and metal)
Innuendo (I love how prog this song sounds)
The Hitman
 

[rumborak]

Definitely Gimme The Prize and Stone Cold Crazy.
Overall, the hard songs on A Kind Of Magic I would say qualify as metal. Princess of the Universe is definitely metal in my book.

[Azyiu]

Because of the Brian May vs. JP thread in the DT forum, I decided to listen to the entire Queen discography again. Still amazing.

In that other thread, somebody said that Queen did not delve into metal. I disagree. They did. What do you think are the Queen songs that could qualify as metal (or approach close to what we know as metal)? I will give a few.

Flick of the Wrist
Son and Daughter
Stone Cold Crazy
Ogre Battle (one of my top
Gimme the Prize
Death on Two Legs (portions, it's like a cross between hard rock and metal)
Innuendo (I love how prog this song sounds)
The Hitman

How could you miss Brighton Rock?! 

[puppyonacid]

I've always said that Queen should be given more credit when it comes to the development of the hard rock/metal genre. I remember a friend at college who reacted along the lines of "wow! I thought I'd heard everything Queen had done!" when I played him Bring back That Leroy Brown. The chap in question really appreciated the musicianship.

I found it odd that he'd assumed he'd heard everything, but that is sort of prevalent. People assume that because they hear Radio Gaga and Somebody to Love on X Factor that they have an overall feel for what Queen were. It's sad that that couldn't be further from the truth. They did evolve in to a pop/rock band - but live they still had a very heavy edge I thought. But to me, early Queen is where they truly did shine. They were an out and out prog rock band in the early days. There's even people on this forum who would pass on Queen as just a pop band. But their early albums and performances shows that they were just so much more than that - especially in those early days.

[MoraWintersoul]

Princess of the Universe is definitely metal in my book.

Not in mine, but the amount of extreme metal I listen to probably swayed my judgment over the years.

puppyonacid, I know you didn't mean it like that and didn't use these exact words, but I'm gonna tack onto your post to say I'm always a teensy bit sad when people say Queen over the years had grown into just a pop/rock band when previously they were extremely versatile or prog or metal. Not that there's anything wrong with pop/rock and their early works are very underrated and passed over but the fact remains that they've held onto the quality of songwriting and some of the versatility from the 70's, but in a different package. Some of their radio hits are still the best composed and most impeccably performed songs in the history of modern music. I know people who think 80's albums have a lot of filler, but most of them are really beautiful.

[rumborak]

I think what's truly amazing about the band is that even their last album (I'm calling Innuendo that) was beyond excellent, especially because they once again pulled out all the stops and wrote whatever pleased them. Flamenco, guitar instrumental, and whimsical lyrics ("I'm going slightly mad"). Also one of the best booklet art I've ever seen. (e.g. this)

[MoraWintersoul]

Innuendo is my favorite

[me7]

Innuendo is awesome (best album they did after A Night at the Opera) but I see a steep decline in the music's quality as the band became popular.
I very much grew up with Queen (my parents had a Best Of tape in the car stereo) and never cared much for them. They seemed like a typical adult contemporary band to me. Years later, I saw a music documentary that happened to have a section about Queen and played "Seven Seas of Rhye" and I went very much
This isn't the Queen I thought to know. I checked out their older albums and became a fan.

After A Night at the Opera, A Kind of Magic is the first album where I feel like the band's intentions resonate with me. Even though it is ultimately flawed, I get the impression that they decided to leave the adult contemporary genre behind.
The Miracle and Innuendo I consider a return to form. Better late than never.

[rumborak]

I will never understand people's dismissal of established artists wanting to move on and try new sounds. This was the 80s where, what now may sound like a too-soft style, was new and exciting. The synthesizers, the polished sound, this was all new territory in the 80s.
Also, Queen, Pink Floyd, Genesis, they all explored, and *defined* their initial genres, but they were getting older, and they probably didn't feel the angst anymore.
Queen still had weird and exciting tunes on their albums (unless "Chinese Torture" isn't weird enough for you), Genesis still bombastic epics (Domino, Fading Lights) and Pink Floyd their drawn out jams.
It's just that they probably felt trying to pretend  to be angsty twenty-somethings (like some bands that I won't name here) simply wasn't who they were at that point.

[Kotowboy]

I think what's truly amazing about the band is that even their last album (I'm calling Innuendo that) ...

To me it was. Made IN Heaven was like Bubble And Squeak. Cooked up from leftovers. The Cosmos Rocks is just Brian and Roger with session guys.

[TAC]

I'm not really into Queen, but I love Innuendo. It's a masterpiece. I can't even imagine the emotion making that album.

[rumborak]

He also worked right to the bitter end. The reason they masked Freddie as a clown with a lot of makeup in "I'm going slightly mad" was because he looked really bad at that point.

[erwinrafael]

I will never understand people's dismissal of established artists wanting to move on and try new sounds. This was the 80s where, what now may sound like a too-soft style, was new and exciting. The synthesizers, the polished sound, this was all new territory in the 80s.
Also, Queen, Pink Floyd, Genesis, they all explored, and *defined* their initial genres, but they were getting older, and they probably didn't feel the angst anymore.

I agree with this. A lot of bands dabbled with synths in the 1980s because it opened new challenges, new territory to explore. Even Rush went the synth route during this time.

I also disgaree with the assessment that Queen became more commercial or pop. Listening to full albums, I don't hear Queen dumbing down  their music to gain mainstream acceptance. They just happened to have good singles in every album. The pop thing for Queen to do is to rest on their laurels and churn out the same music that earned them all those hits, but almost every album sounded different from albums that precede it (except the ANATO and ADATR combo, which I find understandable because Queen just found their signature sound by that time).

[erwinrafael]

I also want to share the following playlist of Queen that plays in my phone now. I love making playlists. 

Ogre Battle
Tie Your Mother Down
Dragon Attack
Somebody to Love
Seven Seas of Rhye
Stone Cold Crazy
It's Late
Don't Stop Me Now
I Can't Live With You (Queen Rocks version)
The March of the Black Queen
Funny How Love Is
Save Me
Innuendo
Hammer to Fall
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Show Must Go On

Just above 73 minutes. Like a DT album. 

[Azyiu]

Innuendo the song is one of my all-time fav Queen's songs! 

[Zydar]

It's perhaps my favourite song of theirs.

[rumborak]

I will never understand people's dismissal of established artists wanting to move on and try new sounds. This was the 80s where, what now may sound like a too-soft style, was new and exciting. The synthesizers, the polished sound, this was all new territory in the 80s.
Also, Queen, Pink Floyd, Genesis, they all explored, and *defined* their initial genres, but they were getting older, and they probably didn't feel the angst anymore.

I agree with this. A lot of bands dabbled with synths in the 1980s because it opened new challenges, new territory to explore. Even Rush went the synth route during this time.

I also disgaree with the assessment that Queen became more commercial or pop. Listening to full albums, I don't hear Queen dumbing down  their music to gain mainstream acceptance. They just happened to have good singles in every album. The pop thing for Queen to do is to rest on their laurels and churn out the same music that earned them all those hits, but almost every album sounded different from albums that precede it (except the ANATO and ADATR combo, which I find understandable because Queen just found their signature sound by that time).

Yeah, it's almost natural to dismiss songs like "We will rock you" or "We are the champions" as radio friendly because one has heard the tracks a million times on the radio. But they were not radio friendly at all. It's just that they are so strong that they *became* radio friendly.

[MoraWintersoul]

rumbo, we don't agree on music a lot, but here we agree 100%.

[puppyonacid]

I'm not sure I agree with that.

Freddie and Brian both stated that both of those songs were written to engage audiences. But (!) what I will say is the ability of the band back then to come up with those ideas was astonishing.

I think Bicycle Race is a great example. On the face of it it sounds like a really sort of "gay" or "camp" song.  It is in a way. But when you actually break apart how that must have come about - the lyrics to the groovy bass under the verse, to the chorus, to the instrumental section (bikes racing represented by guitars) to the fact the he's singing about people racing bikes (!) it just all seems so sublime. If there's one thing Queen really did well (aside from pretty much everything), it was contrast dynamics.

You are right to say that songs like that are too easily dismissed because they became so popular.

[rumborak]

Another dynamic that people often don't realize is that those "radio songs" were often penned by John Deacon, who simply loved writing tacky love songs. So, to a good degree, it's not that Queen wrote differently, it's that the public elevated the tackier songs to hit level.