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!
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.
Great choices. "Queen II" is possibly my favorite album from Queen and those are a standout pair from it. In Queen's catalog "March of the Black Queen" actually is the most complex song throughout and was a huge stepping stone to "Bohemian Rhapsody".
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.
Now I will not be one to say that "Hot Space" was a terrific album and would rank it as their lowest studio output. However, I will defend it in saying that it has some solid/great songs on it aside from just "Under Pressure". "Las Palabras De Amor (The Words of Love)", "Life Is Real (Song for Lennon)", "Action This Day", and "Back Chat" are all good songs albeit far from the previous Queen sound by large leaps. I think "Body Language" is probably the worst song in Queen's catalog though .
Yeah! On a "Hot Space" album recorded a very catchy songs - "Dancer", "Put Out The Fire" and "Calling Al Girls"! And gorgeous, giddy rhythm and blues "Cool Cat"...
Well, I just went through this thread and saw that the debut:
doesn't seem to have any buzz in here at all (aside from a "Seven Seas..."mention by MP). Why do you think that is Cosmic? Usually a band is at least remembered for their debut especially since their breakthrough material doesn't sound drastically different from it. I did notice in the track listing before listening that I didn't see any titles that I was familiar with aside from "Keep Yourself Alive".
Keep Yourself Alive-Coincidentally, this is the track that felt the most like the Queen I'm familiar with. It helps the album start off on a fun bouncy note and the drum section of it is cool.
Doing All Right-This is an interesting song. It's definitely a blender of different elements uniquely strung together. It starts out with an early Bee Gees sounding ballad (that chorus for sure), mambas into Freddies falsetto and finally into a progressive instrumental featuring a cool guitar solo and back to it's beginnings. I like this one the more I hear it.
Great King Rat-This is the first real rock sounding song of the album. The guitars at the beginning sound like Van Halen to me. The marching drum beat into Freddies sneering vocals give this a cool edge. It's the attitude of Freddies vocals that make this song work. I was surprised by the religious cynicism in this song. I never saw Queen as a statement band.
My Fairy King-This sounds like the womb that gave birth to Justin Hawkins! Those screams at the beginning!!!! The falsetto marathon!!!! Great song!!!! It has my favorite moment in the c.d.!!!!:
My Fairy King
(at 2:56 when that vocal bleeds into the beautiful music and it just builds it's a moment of musical heaven)
Liar-This has my favorite straight vocal by Freddie. He commands the verses here masterfully. The song is kind of uneven though musically IMO and the chorus is pretty typical. I felt like he was going to go into Bohemian Rhapsody a couple times when he did the "Oooooh" vocal. At 4:20 the song really gets weird with some sort of moment like some tribal sermon. Then the mandatory guitar solo comes in and then the weird orgasm/guitar/Tenacious D vocal parts to end it. What a screwy song!
The Night Comes Down-This is a nice mellow track but nothing special IMO. It passes me by everytime with the feeling that nothing happened like "Oh, I'm three minutes in"!
Modern Times Rock N' Roll-Wait, that's not Freddie! It's a bad impression of Robert Plant! Dud! Oh, okay, the guitar riff is decent!
Son and Daughter-This sounds like Queen doing Black Sabbath! Can you imagine Ozzy doing an actual falsetto like the one in here though?
Jesus-Freddie and Jesus again! LOL It was flat until the music with the horns starts really tripping out!
Seven Seas of Rhye-A nice piano/guitar instrumental to close!
This album took me many listens to start hearing the layers and little things that made it great. The first listen I got nothing out of it but the more I heard it the more I appreciated it. I doubt by far that it'll end up being my favorite Queen album but I can see where it was pointing them. The album kind of wound down for me in quality after it passed the middle section but there were some stellar moments here. I'm glad they tightened up their sound since this though and became the Queen most know them as.
I'm in heaven reading all the latest favorite songs here...March Of The Black Queen, Funny How Love Is (I would like to include Nevermore from Queen II) and nice breakdown of the debut Soot!!
Well, I just went through this thread and saw that the debut:
doesn't seem to have any buzz in here at all (aside from a "Seven Seas..."mention by MP). Why do you think that is Cosmic? Usually a band is at least remembered for their debut especially since their breakthrough material doesn't sound drastically different from it. I did notice in the track listing before listening that I didn't see any titles that I was familiar with aside from "Keep Yourself Alive".
Queen's self titled debut actually does get a fair share of attention around the forum, but apparently just hasn't been mentioned in here at all....to be fair though "The Works" hasn't really been brought up either and I personally think it's Queen's best album from the 80's but anywhoozle...
My guess why it receives less attention would either be because it gets eclipsed by later albums or that it just wasn't that big of an album in terms of sales to begin with. Also the bad really wasn't overly impressed with it either since they felt it could have been cleaned up a lot. They had to record it in lots of little bits and pieces during studio time slots that other bands didn't want (early/late hours, holidays, etc) so its rougher than their other albums because they weren't as experienced in the studio as much as they just didn't have the flexibility to really use it properly.
Also, that's not a bad Robert Plant impressed, it's just one of those other guys in the band who can sing really well too. I happen to really like Roger Taylor's scruffy singing voice though and think it's really impressive that he is the one who sings the very clear, high harmonies in their songs with a voice like that. Some songs where Roger has lead vocals:
^^ I love More Of That Jazz....in fact Jazz is a feel good record...not only does it take me back...it just...wow can't explain...I'm not very biased at all when it comes to Queen.
MP, Jazz almost stopped me from buying any more of their albums, to this day I really don't like that album very much, but when "The Game" came out I picked it up and thought they had returned to better form. That does mark the end of the Queen trail for me though.
I like Queen. Sadly, It's one of those bands I think you can live with a Greatest Hits CD. I've been listening to the albums and there's only 3 songs per album that are awesome .. and the rest are like "meh" ... Maybe I should give them another listen, but that was my impression. I wen to see Queen + Paul Rodgers a couple of years ago and it was great. I mean, beside the fact that Queen isnt Queen withpouth Freddie, to see those awesome songs live on stage was beautiful.
By the way, guys. At the beginning of the third minute of "More of that Jazz" sounds guitar passage, that seems to be useful "Metallica" for their song "Master of Puppets". Although, perhaps it's just a coincidence.
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