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Queen - can someone please explain?

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by Charlatan, Nov 6, 2013.

  1. Fangirl

    Fangirl Very Tilted

    Location:
    Arizona
    If only Freddie had been still here to appreciate it/rake in the bucks. :(
     
  2. Leto

    Leto Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    Toronto
    so, by the way, great thread you started here Charlatan...
     
  3. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    Thanks!
    --- merged: Nov 8, 2013 5:37 AM ---
    Interesting that Guns and Roses should come up...

    I do see where @Chris Nyob is going with the idea that they, like Queen, were in the right place at the right time. That can be said of many bands. The difference, as I see it, with Queen is that they had something else that maintained their status. Queen, as a phenomena, is not diminishing. They, like it or lump it, stand in the pantheon of "Rock Gods".

    Like many popular bands that can tap into the zeitgeist (and I am not entirely sure GnR qualifies here but will agree for the sake of this discussion) GnR burned bright and diminished. And I don't mean that just because the band broke up, heck, Freddie M has been dead for decades and there is still a passionate outpouring of love for the band.

    I was wondering if it had to do with the fact that Mercury died at a relatively young age? Is there something to be said for not hanging around and ending up like the laughing stock that is Axl Rose? To quote Harvey Dent, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." I think there might be something in that statement that applies to someone Freddie Mercury (as much as it also does to Cobain, Hendrix, Joplin, Lennon, etc.).

    What do you guys think? Does early death lead to an easier road to Timelessness?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 15, 2013
  4. spindles

    spindles Very Tilted

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I think so. I put Nirvana into a similar category. A band that created their own niche and are still revered partly because the lead is dead.
     
  5. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    Nirvana was definitely in my mind as I wrote that...
     
  6. Leto

    Leto Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    Toronto
    interesting that you should mention tapping into the zeitgeist... the phenomena that currently is Queen can be seen to be exhibited by the Beatles (there, finally it got brought up!) and Abba. All three of these groups seem to maintain their popularity beyond their original run, all three have a certain singability or catchiness in their music and all three have come at us through alternate modes: Beatlemania, Mama Mia & We Will rock You.

    i think that more than the death of a member, the exposure to multiple generations of listeners via alternate media such as Broadway, commercials, sports venues and aging DJs spinning tunes of influential bands from their youth has a lasting effect on sustaining these bands.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  7. Freddy was a true entertainer - I remember in one of his last interviews, he was scared that the AIDS would affect his brain, - a big fear, to be lost in that way.

    View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3RJLOyGVf0

    Which home-grown band would you have put forward for Flash Gordon had there been no Queen, no Freddy?
     
  8. Tully Mars

    Tully Mars Very Tilted

    Location:
    Yucatan, Mexico
    Who ever did the music for Rocky Horror.
     
  9. Dont know about the music - but O'Brien is a Brit isnt he.
     
  10. arkana

    arkana Very Tilted

    Location:
    canada
    Maybe it's just me, but for me, if we're talking about the best Queen songs, Bohemian Rhapsody just has to be considered!!
     
  11. Of course Bohemian Rhapsody - but These are the Days was at the end wasnt it, of Freddys life.
    Isnt there always a difference about those who die young? Princess Di got a far bigger turn out than the Queen Mother. MM - were she still alive (you reading this Uncle Phil?) - she died with glamour, and old age has none. Is that part of it? The difference between 'tragically taken' and 'at peace at last'.
     
  12. Chris Noyb

    Chris Noyb Get in, buckle up, hang on, & be quiet.

    Location:
    Large City, TX
    Clarification--This might not be necessary, but I feel compelled to say I am in no way suggesting that Guns & Roses is anywhere close to being as talented as Queen.

    As for Queens' consistant & continued popularity over the decades, that's a tough one. The easy response is Queen is really good and each generation recognizes how good Queen is. There could be a scientific explantion (please excuse me for not going into great detail, math & science aren't my strong points). There have been studies* to see how music, a wide variety of music, stimulates various parts of the brain. Possibly Queens' music contains enough of the 'right' elements to stimulate the 'right' parts of the brains, consciously & subconsciously, regardless of old their music is.

    * This Is Your Brain On Music (a nice play on words for those who remember the old anti-drug PSAs) by Daniel Levitin is an interesting read.
     
  13. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    when i was a mere sprat marooned in the town of life-sucking void new hampshire, what drew me to queen was their production. and brian may's guitar playing. but i was never a real fan. i liked the first 3 albums but only bought the one with bohemian rhapsody on it.

    i remember finding the "no synths" claim to be interesting. that's what drew my attention to their use(s) of multi-tracking. which was, for the time, really sophisticated. i interpreted that interest as a quirk...what appealed to me about the beatles was the tape manipulation(s)...whence my fixation on tomorrow never knows. but i digress.

    i didn't see them as a cultural phenomenon. that seems to have happened later and, to an extent, retroactively (wayne's world for example).

    the ambient homophobia of the period seemed to focus on disco.

    thinking on this. i shall return.
     
  14. cynthetiq

    cynthetiq Administrator Staff Member Donor

    Location:
    New York City
    But prog rock was just that. Each band was different theatrics but theatrics nonetheless. Isn't that why Spinal Tap was so funny?

    I saw the tubes last year. Wish I could have seen them again this year. It was so camp and over the top theatrics that it was fun.
     
  15. MSD

    MSD Very Tilted

    Location:
    CT
    Speaking of scientific reasons for popularity of music, I'm reminded of this paper on the correlation between complexity of popular music and the volatility of the S&P 500. I don't agree with the predictive value mentioned in the conclusion, but the correlation is an interesting observation of the sort that warms my heart toward economists as a whole.
    Of everyone here, you would probably appreciate the DVD audio I mentioned the most.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  16. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted



    @msd---is that where this comes from?
    it's a cool thing.
     
  17. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    Wasn't there a VH1 series that did this for a number of classic albums? I think I've seen a few episodes of this and they were cool.
     
  18. MSD

    MSD Very Tilted

    Location:
    CT
    Strictly speaking, those tracks are where the DVD remaster came from, but yes, they went to the original tapes and tracked everything in 5.1 channels. Like I said the other day, there's so much sound that's lost when it's mixed down to only 2 channels.
     
  19. mixedmedia

    mixedmedia ...

    Location:
    Florida
    This is how I sum up the career and discography of Queen (most of which I own, I will add) and that is that they had a really great four album run before it started to drift a little. And then, Another One Bites the Dust came along and all of a sudden everyone loved Queen. And then Wayne's World came along and everyone loved Queen even more. Then they got ridiculously overexposed, became QUEEN, and lots of people like me turned off. And that's the truth.