# What do you think about Queen?



## PresenTense (May 7, 2016)

We know Freddie Mercury was an amazing frontman. Talking about their music, what do you think about it?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I'm a fan. The song _Killer Queen_ is a classic piece of tight songwriting, combining arresting and clever lyrics to great Pop music. Enjoy lots of other wonders from this amazing group.

_To avoid complications, she never kept the same address.
In conversation, she spoke just like a baroness._

Doesn't get much better than this!


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Queen: when they were good, they were soooooo good.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

> What do you think about Queen?


Not my cup of tea.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

PresenTense said:


> We know Freddie Mercury was an amazing frontman. Talking about their music, what do you think about it?


Mercury was one of the best ever.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

At their best in the seventies, with killer songs (Killer queen!) and albums (A night at the opera!). One of the best bands in what for me remains the best decade of pop/rock.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Some great songs and they wrote great stadium anthems, amazing live
Their albums always has a few excellent tracks but they were guilty in my eyes of producing some awful bilge to fill them out


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Haydn man said:


> Their albums always has a few excellent tracks but they were guilty in my eyes of producing some awful bilge to fill them out


This I find is almost universally true. The best (usually) that can be hoped for is one or two or three usable songs on an album. I find albums with a high proportion of listen-again songs to be very thin on the ground. This holds for the vast majority of artists in Rock and Pop.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> This I find is almost universally true. The best (usually) that can be hoped for is one or two or three usable songs on an album. I find albums with a high proportion of listen-again songs to be very thin on the ground. This holds for the vast majority of artists in Rock and Pop.


This hasn't been my experience, but for the most part I don't buy albums with only a couple of good songs. So no Queen or Blue Oyster Cult.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> Not my cup of tea.


+ 1
Not in the least.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Queen never seemed like a 'great' band to me, though songs like 'tie your mother down' and 'Mustapha' pleasantly surprised me. 99% of what I've heard from them, I never wish to hear again. 
I do think their popular appeal though is a fascinating study (as with the Beatles), as most of their greatest hits seem to be the pseudo-progressive rock ones (Bohemian Rhapsody, We are the champions, Killer Queen)
Freddie did have a distinct stage persona though!
:tiphat:


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I dislike Queen although Bohemian Rhapsody was nice when it first arrived. We are the champions (my friend, urggh) is maybe the most annoying pop song of the last 40 years.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Casebearer said:


> We are the champions (my friend, urggh) is maybe the most annoying pop song of the last 40 years.


yes, absolutely. Well, the other "We are" (the world) is equally annoying.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

PresenTense said:


> We know Freddie Mercury was an amazing frontman. Talking about their music, what do you think about it?


I wonder what O.P opinions are on his own question?


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

The figurehead of a vile self-interested elite whose only use is as a potential brake on the unfettered march of the lizards.

Oh wait....


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

norman bates said:


> yes, absolutely. Well, the other "We are" (the world) is equally annoying.


They played that on the radio in Detroit incessantly when one of our sports teams was having a great year. Sometime about 1980 or so. So, I am sick of that one for sure. (Was forced to listen because the print shop I worked at played the local rock station constantly.)

UGGH: that gave me a nasty earworm. 

Also, they played "We Are The Champions" incessantly for a Detroit sports team. Was that Queen or was that ELO? I sometimes get those two mixed up. I liked a couple ELO songs BTY--Turn to Stone was fun. Is there an ELO thread?


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## Iean (Nov 17, 2015)

I love Queen! Although "A Night At The Opera" is great, my fave Queen album is "Jazz". Although a lot of singles released by Queen are great, their album tracks are also superb. :angel:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> They played that on the radio in Detroit incessantly when one of our sports teams was having a great year. Sometime about 1980 or so. So, I am sick of that one for sure. (Was forced to listen because the print shop I worked at played the local rock station constantly.)
> 
> UGGH: that gave me a nasty earworm.
> 
> Also, they played "We Are The Champions" incessantly for a Detroit sports team. Was that Queen or was that ELO? I sometimes get those two mixed up. I liked a couple ELO songs BTY--Turn to Stone was fun. Is there an ELO thread?


Not only with you, almost every sports club (from soccer till swimming ) uses it nowadays .


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I like the heavier direction Queen took at the beginning (even if it did seem to owe a fair bit to Led Zeppelin) so that means most of what was on the first three albums and some songs dotted amongst the next three or four. Even by the third album, _Sheer Heart Attack_, it was obvious that they were broadening their horizons in a big way - I respected their cleverness but I still wasn't too fond of much which followed and by the time _The Game_ came out in 1979 I was pretty much done with them. Even during their more commercial era Queen could still let rip when they wanted to - I remember seeing a documentary where the band did a stonking take of _One Vision_ live in the studio - just bass, guitar, drums and voice with no synths or glossy 1980s production in evidence. And then there was the turbocharged live version of _We Will Rock You_ which was, as I recall, the b-side to _Crazy Little Thing Called Love_.


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2016)

I liked a few of their songs, (Its a Kind of Magic, Youre my Best Friend, Somebody to Love) but that was despite, not because of their "personality". Didn't nor wouldn't buy an album.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I like 24 of their songs, which is not a bad ratio compared to their total number of tracks. As Heliogabo said, when they were on, they were really on.


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2016)

I prefer their early, more rock-oriented recordings. After _A Night at the Opera_, I pretty much lost interest. I saw them in 1973/74--they mostly played songs from the first two LPs and just a few newer ones. Darn good show, too!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I have their Platinum Collection, Greatest Hits I, II, and III. I was disappointed; I only listened to the entire thing once. Outside of the famous ones, the rest didn't seem to rise very much above the average, normal pop song.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Queen were great right up to (and including) "News of the World". However the following album "Jazz" (1978) saw them take a different direction which was, in my opinion, a dramatic turn for the worse.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I was a fan of their first album, but that was just months before I fully discovered prog. 

After that, pretty much everything I liked before, sounded kind of simple and boring.


As a couple of other people mentioned, I liked their hard rock side, as heard on their first album. They completely lost any remaining interest for me when they got more theatrical.


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## Hampshire Hog (Jul 10, 2016)

Not a fan, but they could turn their hand to most things.
They were the glossy A side to Alex Harveys grittier , and better, B side.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I like Somebody To Love for the mountains of vocal overdubs.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Too overwrought for my taste, but they have some catchy songs I don't mind hearing occasionally.


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## Jay (Jul 21, 2014)

bz3 said:


> Too overwrought for my taste


Agreed. Well-executed, but kitsch nonetheless.


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