Queen (Official Thread)

ecisgod

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

Great thread Cosmic,

I got thinking of some tunes I really like and I came up with 30 (in no particular order)

Killer Queen
Stone Cold Crazy
Now I'm Here
Lazy on a Sunday Afternoon
I'm in love with my car
39
Seaside Rendezvous
Love of my life
Bohemian Rhapsody
Tie mother down
Somebody to love
We will rock you
We are the Champions
Spread your wings
Get down and make love
It's late
Fat Bottomed Girls
Let me entertain you
Play the game
Another one bites the dust
Crazy little thing
Save me
Put out the fire
A kind of magic
Friends will be friends
Who wants to live forever
I want it all
Show must go on
headlong
Sweet Lady
 

Wanted Dead Or Alive

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

Queen. Freddie, Brian, Roger and John! My favourite band of all time! Greatest band! Perfect band!

Nice job on doing John and Roger bios, mate!

Fave album: Innuendo
Fave song: Bohemian Rhapsody
 

Cosmic Harmony

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

Great thread Cosmic,

I got thinking of some tunes I really like and I came up with 30 (in no particular order)

Killer Queen
Stone Cold Crazy
Now I'm Here
Lazy on a Sunday Afternoon
I'm in love with my car
39
Seaside Rendezvous
Love of my life
Bohemian Rhapsody
Tie mother down
Somebody to love
We will rock you
We are the Champions
Spread your wings
Get down and make love
It's late
Fat Bottomed Girls
Let me entertain you
Play the game
Another one bites the dust
Crazy little thing
Save me
Put out the fire
A kind of magic
Friends will be friends
Who wants to live forever
I want it all
Show must go on
headlong
Sweet Lady

That's a really good list Escigod. I'm impressed that you pulled songs from album every album since most people around here tend of write off Queen after "The Game".

Also "The Show Must Go On" is my favorite song ever.

Queen. Freddie, Brian, Roger and John! My favourite band of all time! Greatest band! Perfect band!

Nice job on doing John and Roger bios, mate!

Fave album: Innuendo
Fave song: Bohemian Rhapsody

You and I are going to get a long very well. :D :heheh:
 

Cosmic Harmony

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

Brian May

brian_may_5.jpg



Brian May is the muscle of Queen. He is the member that brought the hardest rocking edge to the band. However despite Brian composing nearly all of Queen's heaviest and most rocking songs his earliest influence was Dixieland jazz, which his father was very fond of in his youth. The first instrument he learned to play was the banjolele (banjo ukulele) that his father carried with him in World War II. He uses that very same banjolele on the Queen songs "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" and "Good Company". He was also trained in classical piano, though most of Queen's piano parts were played by Freddie Mercury. When he got a little bit older he was very inspired by the guitar work of the band The Shadows and has cited Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck as his heroes on guitar.

In terms of playing style Brian has been described as a virtuoso and as one of the most versatile guitarists in rock music. Unlike nearly all other guitarists in the early and mid 70's who stuck very strictly to blues rock Brian was one of the first rock guitarists to use other styles successfully. Also notable is that, in the true style of Queen, he is a meticulous musical arranger who very regularly uses multipart harmonies and counterpoints both in his vocal parts and guitar parts, with these being contrapuntal (counterpoints) instead of parallel and is a very rare thing for a rock guitarist. He also employs a wide variety of guitar techniques, a few being trembolo, sweeping, and tapping (a full two years before Edward Van Halen popularized the technique).

Some notable songs Brian wrote:

Fat Bottomed Girls (Sing the chorus and one of the only Queen songs in Drop D tuning)
I Want It All
We Will Rock You
Save Me
Too Much Love Will Kill You
Now I'm Here
The Prophet's Song
'39 (Sang lead vocals)
Keep Yourself Alive (Queen's very first single)
Who Wants to Live Forever
Good Company
God Save The Queen (Ok...well he didn't really write this one but he arranged it and Queen used it for their entire career afterward. Also this has 30 overdubbed guitars, fun fact huh?)


Brian's most distinctive guitar characteristic is his very recognizable tone. This voodoo is achieved through his homemade Red Special which he uses on almost all of his recordings. He constructed the Red Special when he was only 16 out of wood from an 18th century fireplace and various unusual parts like motorcycle springs and a knitting needle. Because of it's unorthodox construction the Red Special has an un-inimitable sound that Brian uses to his full advantage. With work he is able to imitate many sounds with only his guitar such as an orchestra ("Procession" from "Queen II") and a Dixieland jazz band ("Good Company" from "A Night At The Opera"). Because of the unusual sound of the Red Special many people believed that Queen was using a synthesizer but that was proved false. Following that they then suspected Brian was using a talk box or some sort of effect peddle that created the sound he was emitting and once again they were wrong.

In addition to his guitar playing Brian is also and accomplished singer. He, like the Freddie and Roger Taylor, also has considerable range, though he was the low part in their three part harmonies. Aside from just adding to the harmonies he also sang lead vocals on at least one song from most of Queen's albums. Also on a personal opinion I think Brian's singing voice has withstood aging better than almost anyone else in his age range.

Song songs that Brian sang lead vocals on:

'39
Sail Away Sweet Sister
She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettos)
Good Company
Long Away
All Dead, All Dead
Leaving Home Ain't Easy
Who Wants To Live Forever (Co-Lead Vocals with Freddie)
Too Much Love Will Kill You (Co-Lead Vocals with Freddie)
No-One But You (Only the Good Die Young) (Co-Lead Vocals with Roger)
 

Cosmic Harmony

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

And last but most certainly not least my beautiful people, we come to Freddie Mercury.



Freddie Mercury



While Brian May may have been the hard rock muscle of Queen, Freddie was the finesse and eloquence that elevated them to the royal status that a band named "Queen" should have.
Growing up as a young, large toothed lad in India, Freddie received classical piano lessons, the fruits of such labors being a key component in Queen's music, particularly in during the 70's where it was the lead instruments in many of Queen's biggest hits. Freddie also learned how to play guitar after moving to London as many of his favorite artists where primarily guitar driven such as The Who, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Elvis, and Jimi Hendrix. Now while his playing on guitar was very limited (Freddie himself claiming that he only actually knew three chords) he still used what he knew to write guitar parts for several of Queen's recordings, most notably being the #1 single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". Despite Freddie's success with both his piano playing and even his rudimentary knowledge of guitar he still shot down his own playing ability calling it "rubbish" and over time playing the piano less and less so that he'd have to freedom to interact with the fans and prance around the stage, like he did ever so well, much more during concerts.

Notable songs of Freddie's playing:

Seven Seas Of Rhye (Queen's breakthrough single)
Don't Stop Me Now
Killer Queen
Love Of My Life
We Are The Champions
The March Of The Black Queen
Save Me
Death on Two Legs (Dedicated To...) (He also wrote the guitar riff on piano for Brian to play)
Doing All Right
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy
In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited
A Winter's Tale
Bohemian Rhapsody
Play The Game
It's a Hard Life
Bicycle Race


Of course Freddie's prowess as an instrumentalist will always take a backseat to his ability as a singer and frontman. While he was actually a quiet, reserved, and very private person offstage once the time came to perform Freddie shined above all others as a true showman. As a live performer he is still incredibly respected for his charisma and ability to effortlessly draw the audience into participation with sheer charm alone as he paraded across the stage with the utmost grace and held the entire stadium in the palm of his hand.
As a singer Freddie had over a four octave vocal range, something very rare for male singers particularly since Freddie had a nature baritone speaking voice. With added range from falsetto and belting his range would even extend beyond that. Freddie once confess that he had four extra teeth and he felt that they extended his vocal range. He also suffered from vocal chord nodules which is a a clump of tissue that grows on one's vocal chords and can cause hoarseness, pain while speaking, and a drastic reduction of vocal range. These nodules are frequent among people who commonly use their voice in loud settings...such as arenas full of screaming fans. Among all of this and his wide acclaim as a singer Freddie admitted to never having any formal vocal training.

Notable vocal performances from Freddie:

The Show Must Go On
The Prophet's Song
Play The Game
Bohemian Rhapsody
Who Wants To Live Forever
Let Me Live
We Are The Champions
Somebody To Love
Is This the World We Created...?
You're My Best Friend
Spread Your Wings
Breakthru
Under Pressure
Innuendo


And addition to all of his performing and playing abilities Freddie was also a versatile and natural songwriter. Freddie composed the most of Queen's hits of the band's four writers and of those hit singles alone (as opposed to the band's back catalog) his writing style spanned many genres including gospel, opera, hard rock, rockabilly, disco, progressive rock and others. The reason so many different styles apparently stemmed from his own boredom with doing the same thing over and over again. On top of his compositions being the most ranged of the four writers in Queen, Freddie's were often times very complex commonly using multiple time signatures and different keys. This was especially impressive since Freddie stated on more than one occasion that despite being trained in piano in his youth he could barely read music, much less write it. Often times when he wrote a guitar part for Brian to play he'd have to play it on piano for him as that's the one way he could convey it. Some examples of this are on the main guitar part to "Death On Two Legs" and for the guitar solo to "Bohemian Rhapsody".


So a man who hardly knew how to read music wrote some of the most well known classics in popular music? A man who never had vocal training has gone down in history as one of the greatest and most polished voices not only in rock but in music in general? And that same man who was very quiet and actually rather shy offstage was able to command hundreds of thousands of people at a time while on stage and capture the hearts of hundreds of millions around the world with the unflappable tenderness and charm of a true gentleman? Simply put, yes.


Freddie.png




And thus concludes my summary of why each member of Queen was vital to the band's success.
 

ErichoEricho

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

YES! I HAVE FINALLY FOUND A QUEEN THREAD HERE!!!

QUEEN WAS THE BAND THAT CHANGED MY LIFE.

If not for BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, I'll just be another typical teenager listening to weak pop tunes (I won't name anymore, but you get my point haha).

It all started in our English class 5 years ago in high school, when we were given a class project: make a drama/play interpreting Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. So there I was, a novice guitarist playing pop tunes in our country, listening to Dr. Brian May's epic guitar solo, mad riff (which Freddie wrote) and those harmonized guitar parts. I fell in love with the song really, and I ended up listening to Queen songs and concerts in Youtube.

It became an addiction. And with this infection, I became more aware of rock music in the 60's, 70's and 80's. I learned not only to appreciate Queen, but also Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Joe Satriani, Guns 'n Roses, Eric Clapton and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Queen opened my eyes into real rock music, and changed my life.

And I am eternally grateful to that. Thank you Mr. Deacon, Mr. Taylor, Dr. May, and Mr. Mercury. :bow:
 

ErichoEricho

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Re: The Official Queen Thread

Ok so I've decided to go into depth in each member of Queen's musical style and significance in the band as some members (namely the first one that I'm going to start with) often don't get credited as being important to Queen.

GOOD JOB on discussingveach of the members Cosmic. Enjoyed reading it!!! :grinthumb. Queen was indeed a unit, and every member was equally important. :D

Now for my favorite Queen songs: since everyone seems to have written Bohemian Rhapsody, let's listen to something different.

These two songs came from the album Queen II. The first song is an introduction to the second song, so it's important to listen to the first one (from start to finish) before proceeding to the next one. :D

Enjoy!!!

First Song: (Listen until the end :D)



Second Song

 

R. Evans

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

Hadn't seen this before but great thread!:grinthumb

Was a huge Queen fan in high school but kind of lost track of them after the thudding disappoinment of Hot Space. That was their undoing in the US imho.

I'd have to rate my favorite two Queen albums as News of the World and The Game. Those 2 got some serious rotation on the old turntable.

A few favorite Queen tracks:



It's Late



Need Your Loving Tonight



You & I



Son & Daughter


That's it for now but there are many, many more.:grinthumb
 

Hydrazoic Acid

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Re: The "Official" Queen Thread

Oh Yeah, Queen is a Grrrrreatest rock band in the world!!!!! I love almost all their songs. Even on many unloved "Hot Space" I'm not too like only 3: "Action This Day", "Body Language" and "Staying Power". They have no equal! 2_sm16.gif2_sm16.gif2_sm16.gif
 

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