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Post by hugofuguzev on Sept 13, 2018 13:11:38 GMT
Just to show how popular Queen was with the kids when I was in high school, quarter of a century ago: when Wayne's World came out and prominently featured "Bohemian Rhapsody", causing a resurgence for that insipid fucking song, I actually heard kids at school saying, "Hey, have you heard that song 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by that NEW BAND Queen?" I think Freddie Mercury had already been dead for a couple of years by that point...
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Post by thisonehurts on Sept 13, 2018 15:12:12 GMT
You're all too young. You had to be there in '74. Rhye. Sheer Heart. That's what time it was.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2018 15:50:59 GMT
I liked some Queen singles when I was a teen, but then many years later I watched some live show on Netflix (Montreal, I think?) and LOVED it. They really seemed to be a great live band that loses something in the studio. It doesn't help that most of the CDs sound really lousy, to me anyway.. [/shite]
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Post by essayceedee on Sept 13, 2018 15:56:31 GMT
I don't know, I still like most of the stuff they did up through "The Game" but have little interest in anything after that. Freddie Mercury's ascension to god status after his death always perplexed me a bit, though.
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daved
Better than Steve
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Post by daved on Sept 13, 2018 16:14:19 GMT
I don't know, I still like most of the stuff they did up through "The Game" but have little interest in anything after that. Freddie Mercury's ascension to god status after his death always perplexed me a bit, though. This is my issue. Not saying they don’t have a shitload of great stuff. Pre The Game they have some awesome shit. But the Freddie is God club can’t deal with the fact they also put out a ton of shit. I actually saw a tweet that said if he hadn’t died they’d be bigger than the Beatles. They were dead in the water after Hot Space. I saw that tour. It was pretty bad.
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Post by screendump on Sept 13, 2018 16:17:55 GMT
You're all too young. You had to be there in '74. Rhye. Sheer Heart. That's what time it was. The first 2 albums, little or no radio play in western Canada but among everybody's top party albums. Just word of mouth, same as Black Sabbath, Slade & Nazareth. Interest dropped after SHA. All I have now is a 45 of Weird Al's Another One Rides The Bus.
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Post by thisonehurts on Sept 13, 2018 16:24:34 GMT
In my alternative reality, Freddie survives but then comes out as a proud gay man in a series of worldwide TV interviews, at which point people like Sondek shut the fuck up for the rest of their lives.
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Post by Sanjay Gupton on Sept 13, 2018 16:56:53 GMT
I don't care one way or another for Mercury. He's okay. A bit bombastic, but he mostly just sings his songs. I can't stand the sound of the guitars. They sound plastic and fake, and have zero feeling. In general the band makes too many dumb songs like Prophet Song, that Bicycle Song, Seaside Rendevous - yuck. I remember back when the first two albums were out and they were kind of underground (at least to pre-teen me). I remember liking Keep Yourself Alive, but looking back, I think we made fun of the over the top blast of Liar, which when I look back really was a look at the goofiness that was to come.
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Post by Soul Pinata on Sept 13, 2018 17:18:24 GMT
Back at it today in the Queen's Greatest Hits III thread. Posted the Brian May letter twice already.
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daved
Better than Steve
Posts: 10,578
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Post by daved on Sept 13, 2018 17:30:14 GMT
Back at it today in the Queen's Greatest Hits III thread. Posted the Brian May letter twice already. Yeah. While I love his guitar playing, Brian is a grade A twat. Blaming “payola scandals” for Queen losing airplay. How about plain old shit music? the letter: “1) The Hot Space album was perceived by Radio as Queen forsaking Rock and Roll for Disco—our timing was perhaps a little premature, which is evident when you compare this material with what Michael Jackson was to be doing with Ed Van Halen and Slash in years to come. 2) Relations with Radio were not taken care of—we had a new man in charge of Promotion on the road, who, unknown to us at the time, was very high handed and rude with the media people, and gave them the impression that we no longer cared. We only discovered the huge extent of the damage much later, when trying to get Freddie's solo record played. There was great resentment (radio people, like the rest of us, need to feel loved, and important!), and word of mouth on our tour was distorted by people who now wanted to see us fail. 3) We got caught in the cross-fire of an attempt by Capital Records to withdraw from the Independent Promotion circus (a.k.a. Payola) which dominated radio plays at that time. Capital dropped the man who was the lynchpin of their connection with the network of radio station bribery, and the next week, 95 per cent of radio stations dropped our record, Radio Ga Ga… 4) We made a video, in drag, as a spoof on a soap series, which was viewed as very funny, and something of an innovation, in Europe, but to the media in the U. S., it was seen as a threat to Morality. Yes, seriously—I was around to see the reaction of some of the TV people first-hand—they were horrified! Again, some of the media were looking for fuel for the fires of hatred (or at least distrust!), and a Homophobic undertone further undermined Queen's image in the U. S. The rest of the world did not seem to find any of this a problem!!! Which brings us to: 5) When the question of touring came up, we always looked at the response to our latest album around the world. There was a massive explosion of interest in most of the countries of South America, in Africa, in the East, in Eastern Europe, and parts of Western Europe which had been slow in the early days while we were enjoying great recognition in North America. It made sense (and fun!) to go touring in the countries where there was growth and even hysteria, rather than flogging an apparently Dead Horse in the US, where we felt there was a tide of something which for our intents and purposes was not dissimilar from the McCarthyism which had driven the previous generation's artists out. And there was a stubborn streak in Freddie, it has to be said, which was determined not to go back anywhere where we would be SMALLER than we had been before. Having toured football stadiums in most of the civilised world, it would have been depressing to go back to the U.S. and do theatres—or at least Freddie was adamant that this should was so [sic]. To be honest, without his insistence we probably would have eaten humble pie and gone back in, as Elton did, and win respect all over again. But in the event, the decision was to wait. For a renaissance that never came. I guess I was eager to show my own feelings later; my blind faith in touring my own Brian May Band in the States, was a nice reaffirmation that we have loyal and great friends there, but a disastrous demonstration of how little the word spread, and how-to-lose-a-lot-of-money-very-quickly! It was also very hard for me to keep up the morale of my band, playing a show designed for fair-sized arenas to audiences in tiny clubs. So you see, we did not really give up the U.S.A. without a fight—we just postponed it, in hopes that the Right Time would come. We certainly dreamed, the quality of the Made in Heaven album being acclaimed so highly, and sales around the world being so phenomenal, that America would respond after Freddie's death if not before. But it was not to be. I guess we just didn't play the necessary games. Or maybe it's in the Future……! But I doubt it. Music becomes a huge part of people’s emotional life, but always at the moment when it is ringing in their ears everywhere. There is a huge chunk of Queen Music which rang in everyone's ears from Budapest to Buenos Aires to Beijing, but was silent in America. That can never be changed now.”
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Post by respiratoryproblems on Sept 13, 2018 20:06:28 GMT
Sidenote on Queen is that they supposedly had the greatest front man in the world, but still let the drummer and the weedy-voiced guitarist sing at least one song each for nearly every album, which demonstrates a supreme lack of judgment.
I guess only one of them had the wherewithal to acknowledge that he'd be on a hiding to nothing by trying to sing; not surprisingly, he's the one that hasn't been whoring the band's name out for the past 20-odd years.
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Post by essayceedee on Sept 13, 2018 20:18:15 GMT
America hated them, but at least they could still play to whites-only crowds in South Africa!
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Post by overrated on Sept 13, 2018 20:23:58 GMT
Yeah, they missed the disco boat just a bit by trying to board in 1982.
Jesus, Brian. Don't make me hate your basically OK little band.
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Post by hoffa_nagila on Sept 14, 2018 5:54:52 GMT
Lots of fun drama between Sondek and Stanlove. Is stanlove on our radar? Sondek accused him of homophobic (and deleted) poats. I'm not sure who to root for less. On a good note, Sondek is apparently quitting. Sadly, it's no fun when someone announces that they are leaving unless they do so in SparkyDog style. THATS how you make an exit.
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Post by hugofuguzev on Sept 14, 2018 6:57:00 GMT
Lots of fun drama between Sondek and Stanlove. Is stanlove on our radar? Sondek accused him of homophobic (and deleted) poats. I'm not sure who to root for less. On a good note, Sondek is apparently quitting. Sadly, it's no fun when someone announces that they are leaving unless they do so in SparkyDog style. THATS how you make an exit. Stanlove is one of the biggest trolls on the internet. He's spewed his drivel on at least three other music-related sites that I know of (the official Led Zeppelin forum on LZ.com; the Stones' IORR forum and The Trader's Den live music trading site) and has been righteously banned from each and every one. How the hell he's lasted so long over in SHiTEland is a goddamn mystery to me.
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