I like Queen, but in my mind they were just another really good mid-late 70’s band - no better or worse than Kansas, Boston, etc.. Their elevation to Rock Royalty is sort of puzzling to me.
Also, I always considered The Prophet’s Song to be superior to Bohemian Rhapsody.
“Also, I always considered The Prophet’s Song to be superior to Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Jeez- its like i was reading my own post- I’ve always thought Prophet’s Song was 1000% better than the overrated BR.
I was a HUGE Queen fan in the 70’s- saw them four times in concert at Madison Square Garden- their initial 5 albums were great....then came News of the World...then it was straight downhill after that and i barely listened to them again.
Agreed
All that aside, the music of Queen does nothing for me. Their biggest hits like "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "We Will Rock You", and "Another One Bites The Dust" are just repetitive and annoying to listen to. Even their magnus opus "Bohemian Rhapsody" is ponderous to my ears.
I thought the music of David Bowie was much more exciting, in the studio and in concert. I used Bowie as a comparison because he was a superstar in the same time frame as Queen.
I concur with your assessment. Spot on. I can’t stand Kansas or Boston either, but they were big on the radio back in the day.
There’s a lot that goes into it. First the fact that they never were part of any genre, Queen just did Queen, and what Queen was changed multiple times. Were they progressive? Sometimes. Psychedelic? One in a while. Hard rock bordering on heavy metal? Certain songs sure (let’s not forget that Metallica’s cover of Stone Cold Crazy was actually slightly slower than the original). And of course by not having that set style their music is timeless. It doesn’t sound like 70s music, or even 80s music. It just sounds like Queen.
Add to that they’re probably the ultimate deep cuts band. Sure they’ve got all these radio hits, and yeah they are mostly great. But when you get away from the hits you find stuff that’s even better (I’m studiously pretending Hot Space doesn’t exist, hate that album). Like Prophet Song, or March of the Black Queen (probably my favorite Queen song). It’s a great catalog to explore, sure start with the greatest hits, but get the albums cause there’s gems throughout (except Hot Space).
Then of course you have the whole rock god thing. In a time before video screens Freddie absolutely owned a stage and had a presence that could be felt from the cheapest seats in the biggest stadiums. And as the first god to die it transformed him into something else, something even bigger.
Throw in a few things like having the absolute best performance at Live Aid, being the funniest episode of Behind the Music, and a long history of being nice guys. There’s your Rock Royalty, which they’ve really been since been since about ‘78 maybe even before.